Okay, a bit dramatic.
I’ve been busy – work-busy and home-busy. But it’s all good busy. I love my job, so I’m perfectly happy when I’m there, and at home I’ve been canning up a storm, which isn’t always fun, but it’s satisfying and rewarding to look at the jars and jars of food on my pantry shelves.
Most recently it’s been the three S’s: Sauce, Salsa, and Stock. (I’m not sure if that S should have an apostrophe or not with the small s after it, but without one it just looked like I was hissing, so I put it in. Not that you care, probably, but I do. So I had to explain my decision.)
I’ve done up quarts of three kinds of marinara – very herby with basil and oregano, “pizza sauce” with lots of garlic, and just plain tomato sauce that I can doctor up depending on what we’re cooking with it. I also made some taco sauce with the tomato sauce base – lots of cumin and coriander in that. And with some of the leftover, uncanned sauce, I made two batches of lasagne and froze them. I love packing food away. Maybe I’m part squirrel.
For salsas – well, I can’t claim full credit for those – Bill did the bulk of the chopping for me. I have carpal tunnel syndrome that flares up, especially in my right hand, so Bill decided to do that part of the job for me. He’s a pretty nice guy, you know. We made tomatillo salsa, jalapeno salsa, “spicy salsa” – from a recipe in my Home Canning book (put out by Ball), and – the most interesting concoction – something from the same book that is called Tomato-Chipotle Salsa but came out more the consistency of a paste. It’s smoky and spicy and we both love it, but after initially canning it in pint jars, we re-canned it into 4 oz jars because a little goes a long way. It’s more like chipotle peppers packed in adobo, which you can find in many grocery stores. We love it.
And the stocks – so far I’ve got turkey stock and fish stock. Working on pork stock and chicken, with beef waiting in the wings. I don’t think I’ll get it all done today, but that’s okay.
I’m also planning to add a fourth “S” to the group – soup. I’m very excited to start canning soups now. Because, you know, I don’t have enough projects on my list. Anyway, I’m going to start with pea soup with chunks of ham in it. We have a ham bone with lots of meat on it and I’ve got everything else on hand as well, so at some point over the next few days, I’ll put that together.
I took some time on Monday to reorganize the shelves in my pantry so I could make room for all the new jars of stuff.
It’s filling up fast.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing instead of writing much of anything on here. And yes, I still need to tell you about the Camembert. I haven’t forgotten.
So, what have you been up to lately?
