Primary Cooking

What a weekend of cooking! Yesterday I went to a friend's house that lives in the country for a canning lesson. I've made things that go in jars but the whole processing thing I don't do as often. (Processing is the thing that kills all the bacteria so what you make is shelf stable) We had a great time and made apple-pear sauce, strawberry jam, strawberry-vanilla jam, sangria jelly and rose wine and pink peppercorn jelly. Phew!

The fruits of our labor

Maybe the best part of the day (other than spending quality time with my friends) is the bounty from the garden I took home. I'm pretty sure I came home with more than I left.

This is only part of what I took home - I also got a hook squash and 2 butternut squash. My friend was not sure what kind of peppers these were. She said they had a packet of mixed pepper seeds and planted them. These looked like Anaheims to me, so my first order of business was to roast them.

Foil lined sheet pans. Oven at 400 degrees. Roast 20 min, turn, roast 20 more min.

 These are not as black as if you roasted them over an open flame, but that's fine with me. Into a bowl and covered with plastic wrap for 15 min.

 After steaming, peel off skins and take out the seeds. At this point, there are a lot of things you can do with these chiles. I thought I might make a green chile enchilada casserole, but decided to make chili instead. So I put them in the blender to puree.

I added some chicken stock so that it would blend easily. Also I added in a few tomatoes.

This was a total concoction. It has ground turkey, chili powder, cumin and onion. Then I added the chile/tomato puree and let that cook down. Then I added in some pureed squash that I also roasted. Tasted good, didn't look so pretty.

Here's the hook squash (that's what I'm calling it at least). My friend said this squash makes the best pies and breads, so that's what I'm planning to use it for. I portioned it all out in 1 cup measures and a 2 cup measure (closer to "1 can") for the freezer.

The tomatoes got blended and cooked down for sauce. It simmered down for half the day - lots of water in those tomatoes! Then I used the sauce for pasta. I browned some onion and a meatloaf mix (pork, beef, veal) then added the tomato sauce. Added some mozzarella and parmesan cheese, and it's dinner!

The best part is that I filled the freezer for practically no money. I didn't go to the store and just used what I had on hand or in the freezer. This is totally a windfall!! My mom calls this type of cooking primary cooking - taking raw ingredients and making sauces to put into other dishes. Sure, going to the store and getting it in a can is faster/easier, but everything I made is MUCH tastier!