Mendolonium

Last summer and fall our tomato plants yielded enough fruit for us to make and preserve, four gallons of marinara sauce, 7 pints of salsa, and 12 pints of canned whole tomatoes.  Last week we consumed our last pint of sauce and our last pint of tomatoes and today I cracked open our last pint of salsa.   So I headed off to the grocery store to buy tomatoes for the first time since last May and it felt so odd.  I actually felt that I was cheating on my garden.  The conversation in my head went something like this:

Garden:  You bought tomatoes from a store!

Gina:  Well, just this one time, since you haven’t been able to give me any lately.

Garden:  You couldn’t wait another few months!  You just had to have the sauce!

Gina:  I’m Italian!  I can’t live without it.  A girl has needs, you know.

So today I took the ill begotten fruits and made sauce.  We’re all finally healthy as well so we’ve been getting into spring work mode.  Over the past couple of weeks we’ve:

1. Plant Something or Take Care of Something You’ve Planted:

• Bareroot strawberry crowns (about 36).  You know, it is not easy to lean over and plant things at 34 weeks pregnant, but I did it…only to discover the next day that crows had dug up about half the crowns and scattered them about.  (What the hell – they haven’t touched the mature plants with fruit 20 feet away, but they go after the dormant roots?).  I did not cry, but I considered it.  Sensing an imminent meltdown, Jeff quickly replanted the uprooted crowns and hopefully they will be none the worse for the wear.
• Leek seedlings (90).

2. Harvest something:

• A few strawberries.
• Parsley
• Peas.  So good.  I am never buying frozen peas again.

3. Preserve something:

• 1/4 cup basil (dried)
• 30 cups vegetable stock (frozen)
• 34 cups marinara sauce (frozen)
• 3 servings (24 total) butternut squash triangles (frozen)
• Clearly, I am stocking up (pun intended).  It seems like I am going to be having a baby in about six weeks (or five, or four, that would be awesome!).  I seem to remember that it was a challenge to take care of the baby and have time to cook and eat last time so I am attempting to make us up a whole bunch of easy meals or meal components prior to arrival of this little one.   Ironically, one of the items I made up last time prior to Thomas’ birth was quiche…delicious egg-y quiche.  And as it turns out, Thomas is violently allergic to eggs.  Sigh,  perhaps that explains some of the more difficult moments of Thomas’ babyhood.

4. Prep something:

• Set up a changing table in our room for the little one so as not to disturb Thomas for the inevitable middle of the night diaper changes.  Story of the week:  Thomas surveyed the changing table set up with neat little stacks of infant sized cloth diapers along with a small stack of disposables for the first few days.   Thomas, holding up a disposable diaper asks,  “What are these?”  “Paper diapers” (what we call disposables), I replied.  Scowling Thomas stated, “No paper diapers for my brother”.  (Thomas hates disposables and we never use them unless we go on a trip longer than 2 – 3 days).  I tried to explain that we would only use them for a few days and then switch to cloth and he was not amused and reiterated, “No paper diapers for my brother.  He like cloth.”  Glad he’s sticking up for his little brother already.

5. Cook something new:

• Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup, verdict:  quite good and ridiculously easy.

6. Manage your reserves:

• Purchased 6 months worth of pasta from Amazon.
• There are a number of food items (pasta, peanut butter, spelt flour, yeast to name a few) that I order in bulk from Amazon as they have the best price.   About 25% of the time, my order has arrived damaged.  Because Amazon only sells by the case, their policy is to send out an entire replacement case, for free, even if only one item in the case was damaged.  I am not sure if I just have a violent delivery guy, but I don’t mind because it makes food from Amazon a phenomenal deal.

7. Work on local food systems:

• Going to give away my extra leek seedlings to the neighbors.  I don’t have room for any more!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Independence Days, Theodore, Thomas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.