LAST OF THE GARDEN ~~ PARTING SHOT

LAST OF THE GARDEN

This past week was a flurry of activity as Linda & I did our best to get the last of the garden produce put away for the winter. In the midst of doing that, I decided to dehydrate some peaches. Linda had gotten a few really big ones, so I figured they would be good ones to dehydrate. I blanched them to get the peelings off, sliced them and then put them in some lemon water. I laid the slices out on the dehydrator tray and 11 hours later we had peach chips! They were pretty good, although a bit chewy.

I still had 3 nice-sized zucchini left from the garden, so I decided to dehydrate a couple of them. I sliced them up, sprinkled with some salt & paprika, and set the dehydrator going. About 8 hours later they were done. I think these were the best zucchini chips I have made yet.

I still had a whole zucchini left, and I found another half of one in the fridge (they hide everywhere), so I decided to cook them with some butter and onions and put them in our almost-full freezer. We will certainly enjoy that in the middle of winter.

 

Since we had picked all of the peppers the previous week, I still had a lot of bell, Shishito, and banana peppers left. Linda really liked the Red Bell Pepper jelly I made her, so I made another batch, only this one was green. It came out really good, so I think she is set for jelly all winter.

We went to our local fruit stand and they had a few peaches left there, so we got a few of them. Idecided to make a peach cobbler. The only problem was that I didn’t have any milk, and the recipe called for a cup. I happened to have some Caramel Peacan flavored liquid creamer in the fridge, so I used that. The cobbler came out pretty good, although nowhere near as good as my Aunt Grace’s, the golden standard by which all cobblers are judged. However, because I used the creamer, it was a bit on the sweet side. I figure if we put vanilla ice cream on it, that it will make a nice winter treat for us some cold afternoon. Into the freezer it went.

 About the last thing we took up in the garden was the beets. Linda got out there and dug them up and we had a half bucket full. We cleaned them and boiled them, then I slid the peels off, sliced them up, and pickled them. I can attest that they were pretty doggone good!

PARTING SHOT

Summer Girl is on vacation this week, but she has agreed to let the little Hab stand in for her under the Parting Shot. The little rascal has finally TURNED RED!