A little of this and a lot of that.

It's taken me some time to recoup from my weekend.  I think I am definitely in need of an intervention - especially during long weekends.  It is the fate, however, of those of us who cultivate gardens and grow and process most of our own foods, that every free minute is spent either harvesting, cleaning, cooking, preserving, planning, canning, etc.  I'm not sure why I feel the drive every summer-into-fall to make sure I have enough food to carry me (and a family of twelve) through the winter.  Make that winters.

In any event, via my neighbor, he who has a garden half the size of a football field but only eats enough for a half a person, I ended up with a pile 'o tomatoes, a giant red cabbage (yes, more), a dozen ears of corn, and a half bushel of squash.  This, on top of my multitude of cukes, my own tomatoes, kale, chard, and beets.  Woof.

Thanks to Tooele Twins' comment on my cabbage post, I whipped up a batch of curtido - it's a sort of Salvadoran Kimchi.  I used a half of a giant cabbage (so far, I've managed to fob off the other half and a whole giant one), two carrots, a chopped hot pepper of some type, the name of which escapes me, Mexican oregano (I only had my own), red pepper flakes, and a thinly sliced onion.  Mix in approximately 3 tablespoons of salt for every five pounds of vege, mix thoroughly and squeeze with your hands, then pound it all until it releases lots of juice.  Once it's mixed well, smoosh it into your crock or jar - mine made about 3/4 of a gallon - weight it and let it ferment.  The recipe said anywhere from three days (crispier) to three weeks (more probiotics).  I am aiming for somewhere in the middle.

I also made a broccoli salad with the rest of my broccoli; a kale salad; a french lentil, cucumber, olive and feta cheese salad; canned 12 pints of roasted tomato sauce; made a new batch of kombucha; baked a loaf of multigrain GF bread for my morning tomato sandwiches; and made a roasted cherry tomato tart on a polenta crust.  Yes, indeed.  It was overkill.

One of the red cabbages that was 'over the hill'.  The chickens
found it quite tasty.