This could be a 14 part post with all the awesomeness that happened in the garden and kitchen this summer, but I will settle for a quick hi and tell you about two of my most favorite discoveries. These are so awesome that I have nothing to add to make it easier or better, just a wholehearted recommendation to try these two things:
1-homemade bread. The whole yeast, proofing, rising, kneading thing always seemed a bit daunting and pretty labor intensive. This was until I learned that one can make home made bread in 5 minutes a day. I checked out the book from the library because I had a hard time believing it was really that easy. I'm here to tell you, it really is minutes to make the dough ahead of time and minutes to prep on baking day. Sure, it takes longer than 5 minutes to bake, but hands on time really is maybe 5 minutes!
2-lacto-fermented salsa. Until this summer I had no idea that one could use whey (the liquid stuff that forms when yogurt separates) to ferment and preserve salsa. I found the recipe from one of my favorite garden bloggers. You can read it here and give it a try too. I only made 1/4 of the recipe and it took about 2 hours total, from harvesting the tomatoes to putting the lids on the jars to get almost 3 quarts of salsa. It is a task, but a great way to keep some of our valuable garden harvest around a bit longer.
Happy end of summer!
