Reaping Where We Did Not Sow . . .

We did plant something of a garden before we left, but not much. Thanks to our generous friends and neighbors and the farmers' market, though, we've put up quite a lot since returning.
I made the Barbara Kingsolver tomato sauce, raspberry jam, strawberry rhubarb (we still had rhubarb in August!), peach raspberry, and our first forays into low-sugar jam with peach and blackberry. We rather liked them, though they weren't so popular in Delaware. We've also been freezing berries and peaches and drying herbs and tomatoes. My family laughed when I got Rob a dehydrator for Christmas a few years ago (mostly because it was as seen on TV!). Ahhhh, but we will be laughing when we're making the black bean soup with Rob's dried tomatoes this winter.
You can see on the bookshelf that I just finished Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. I find I need to read about one book like this a year to recommit to all the work and money and time it takes to eat healthier. In the past, the books that have helped have been Small Wonder, Fast Food Nation, Omnivore's Dilemma, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and now this one. I was impressed at how much different material this book has from Omnivore's Dilemma. This one also made me decide it's time to be better about composting. Anyone have any titles for next year's book?
It has been fun to get back into the kitchen, especially with cool August canning weather, but other things are falling apart and I need to get on top of those now. Like finding my keys . . .
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Comments

Zina said…
It all looks delicious. I need to learn to can (nope, haven't ever done any, can you believe it?) We've gotten more actual food out or our garden this year than in previous years, in spite of planting very late, but we don't have much of a surfeit to preserve. (Other than plums, which is a whole sad story unto itself, as documented on my blog.)

Don't read The China Study and become vegan like all my cousins are doing. (I've done the online research and found sources that satisfactorily debunk the book for me, but I'm diplomatic enough to keep my opinions to myself around my cousins, but I guess I'd rather not see anyone new fall victim. Not that I'm opposed to someone choosing a vegan diet, just that I don't believe there's as solid a scientific foundation for its superiority as The China Study's believers claim.)
Brenda said…
Let us know when the black bean soup is served, we never make fun of anyone's dehydrator!
ashley said…
You could try reading "Real Food: What to eat and why" by Nina Plank. I thought it was interesting although not terribly well written--but it did convince me to make some changes to our diet.

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