'Tis the season to pack food away like a squirrel. There is a big pot of applesauce bubbling away on the stove making the house smell heavenly. I'm using the Macintosh apples my friend, LeAna, brought when she visited last weekend cooking them down with the skins still on. I'll put them through the strainer before processing the pints in the hot water bath. Samuel's a big fan of the sauce, and now that John is starting solid foods, I'm sure it won't last long in the pantry.
A couple of weeks ago I turned 50+lbs of tomatoes into 13 quarts of sauce, and froze about 32 cups of fresh corn. This season I used the 'Martino's Romas' from Seeds of Change. They're a good choice. They produced nice sized fruit that cooked down well. I'm assuming it tastes good (once again - not a good person to judge a tomato). I added 1/2 tsp of citric acid per quart to ensure adequate acidity, and processed the quarts in a hot water bath for 20 minutes. They all look great. We'll use these primarily for a marinara either for spaghetti, cabbage rolls or the Greek chicken. I still have some of the 'Stupice' tomatoes frozen from last year, but need to do an inventory in the next couple of days to see if I should freeze additional ones before I can another batch. If so, I'll freeze them whole without blanching or peeling.
I planted 'Ambrosia' sweet corn on the recommendation of Marcia Bundi at Bundi Gardens here in Great Falls, and I'll plant it again. Even for an Ohio born corn snob, it was tasty. I was concerned it would be a litle tough since we were gone when it first began to ripen, but it held up well. Six "hills" had roughly 4 dozen ears, and I didn't notice any difference in production between the ones I de-suckered and the ones I didn't. I'm very happy to have our corn on hand. It beats store bought frozen corn hands-down!
This is such a nice time of year when the freezer and pantry are filled to the doors. It definitely gives me a little sense of security - like the hard-working ants in the children's fable - as well as a delicious reminder of summer.
