At the moment it's all about veg preparation. Today I'm roasting a couple of trays of home grown root veggies, one lot will be eaten for dinner today and cold for lunch tomorrow, the other trayload will be frozen. Tomorrow I'll be blanching and freezing a mountain of French beans, and making a panful of pasta sauce to freeze, using the tomatoes which are now ripening by the dozen, plus some of the glut of shallots, and of course the ever-present courgettes. We eat courgettes in some form or another several times a week - either grated in a frittata, fried or roasted or made into fritters, I also roast and freeze a trayful at a time for soups later in the year. I have to keep on top of it all and deal with some every day, otherwise it just gets overwhelming. I know it's very much a first world problem and I am grateful to have the 'problem' of too much veg, but it is a lot of work. Years ago I used to make jams and chutneys (we've always grown veg and fruit) but don't nowadays as we rarely eat them anymore, with us both being diabetic. We've also now got a glut of mini cucumbers, some of which aren't mini as husband always misses a few when he's gone out to pick them. Luckily, I do like fresh home grown cucumber grated or finely chopped and mixed with Greek yogurt and mint as a dip for veg sticks, or sliced on sourdough spread with Philly cheese and lots of black pepper.
The trouble is, husband ALWAYS grows too much of everything - each year at the start of the sowing season we discuss what we're going to grow and I tell him how many of each veg plant I'd like to have. Somehow he never takes much notice (which is typical of him) and grows at least double quantities of everything - his rationale is that some of them might not germinate so he always sows spares. The problem is that nearly everything germinates, so he ends up with loads of seedlings.....instead of giving some away or even dumping the excess in the compost, he plants them all. And then we have far too many. E.g. the mini cues....I said I wanted just 2 plants, knowing how well they grow here - we have 6, and they're all producing loads of fruits. The French beans are another prime example, he said there are about 10 plants (which would have been just right for us).....erm no, there are more than 2 dozen, it's no wonder we're inundated with them. I've said that next year he either cuts down drastically - by at least half - on the amount of stuff he grows, or else he can't grow anything at all. It's lovely to have home grown veg, but it's just so much extra work for me dealing with it all. It's like everything husband does, and I know it's a feature of his cognitive impairment, he does everything to excess.
Husband's going through one of his very OTT obsessive phases again - he's back to checking our electricity meter (we haven't got a smart meter) nearly every day, working out exactly how much we've used and telling me constantly. As we've got solar panels and have had so much sun every day for weeks now, we're hardly using any leccy....but husband thinks we must be as we have the fans on so much. Oh and he's constantly switching the fans off if we leave the rooms for 5 minutes, which is blimmin annoying. Oddly enough, he rarely switches the TV off! He's switching all the kitchen appliances off at the sockets, which again is annoying as I have to keep switching them back on again.
It's so much cooler today, thank goodness - we haven't even had to switch the fans on yet, which will delight husband! Our local forecast on my app yesterday said there was a chance of showers in the early hours of this morning......erm nope, the ground and flower beds are as dry as a bone still, and no water in the couple of garden trugs left outside. This morning is the first time in weeks I haven't felt like I'm in a permanent state of hot flushes and night sweats - even though I'm well past the menopause. Although, having said that, my mum always used to say she was still getting the odd hot flush and particularly night sweats well into her 70s. Something to look forward to!
We finally had some rain yesterday! A very light shower in the afternoon, which did absolutely nothing, especially as our "soil" is mainly sand, but it drizzled most of the night, so everywhere looks a bit fresher, even if it's still brown.
ReplyDeleteAll your veg sounds delicious, but I can appreciate how much work it all gives you. Maybe next year you'll have to sneak out and pull up any excess plants before he notices. You can blame those pesky birds if he says anything! 😉 xx
By sheer laziness I found last year that just washing the much bigger than cherry tomatoes my daughter grew, then just freezing in freezer bags works wonderfully. I've used them just cooked down to make goulash. As they thawed and were stirred over the stove was like using canned stewed tomatoes but with better flavor. Maybe that might work for you and at least one vegetable.
ReplyDeleteThis year my husband cut back and I am kind of afraid there will not be enough to do my biyearly canning. Heck might not even be enough to freeze, can or dehydrate for even one year. He did go a bit overboard on corn.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.