Garden Lessons

Robert and I made another valiant attempt at a garden this year.  Our cucumbers were sad, the onions a big fail, the lettuce good enough to keep in in salad for a couple of months, but the tomatoes – oh, the tomatoes.  I’d forgotten how much I loved good, home grown tomatoes.  There is nothing at all like them, and the ones in the stores don’t come close to their flavor.  Unfortunately, we had such an abundance that we gave many away, not finding the time to learn how to preserve them until it was almost too late.

I’ve never canned food before, and I do want to learn, but when I stumbled across this post from Little House in the Suburbs, I almost wish we’d been a little more selfish with our tomatoes.  No worries, though, because we have an amazing Farmer’s Market and we went ahead and bought tomatoes, zucchini, and squash to freeze for winter soups.

I actually started our freezer filling expedition with Weight Watcher’s Zero Point Vegetable Soup.  Whether you’re on a diet or not, this soup is yummy, and a quadruple batch soon enough was in the freezer.

While the soup was cooking, I chopped and sliced the other vegetables to put in the freezer.

First I blanched the zucchini.

Then on to the ice bath.

I waited for it to drain and dry a bit.

Then into the freezer bags.

Process repeated for the squash.

Oh, and did I mention the tomatoes?

And this was only the first day of putting stuff back for winter.  Stay tuned for more.