I love summer, but especially mid summer because I get to start eating the produce from the plants I planted in the spring/early summer. For me, there is nothing like the taste of fresh produce from one’s own garden.
I like to plant all sorts of things and try to plant something new each year. This year I planted romaine lettuce, a little late, but I’m hopeful it will be ready by early fall.
Sometimes I get some giant veggies.
As summer goes on and my produce becomes ready to harvest, I do some processing to preserve my garden to be able to use throughout the winter.
With tomatoes and peppers, I like to roast them on my grill and freeze them for using in sauces and soups during the fall and winter. The fire roasting adds a great flavor to salsa, soups, marinara, and pizza sauce.
After I roast them I put them in a large, covered bowl and let sit for 15 to 30 minutes. Then the skin slides right off. and time to freeze.
As my summer goes on, I start filling up the freezer. Sometimes I have enough harvest to make a sauce right away and freeze, other times I just freeze the produce to thaw in the winter to use when I need it.
One thing to remember, when freezing a bag that contains a liquid, don’t place it directly on a slatted shelf. It will ooze through the shelf and when frozen, it is difficult to pry out of the holes between the slats. I lay a towel down on the shelf then put my bags on the towel.
Every year at the end of the harvest, I hope to have 2 to 3 shelves full of things I got out of my garden.
