Thursday, September 18, 2014

Small Batch Time

I made way for a fall seeding of various greens and pulled a few under performing tomato plants on site. I plucked the small green maters left on them because I can't seem to just let them go. Mom dropped off about 1.5lbs of tomatillos. Veg production is on the decline as the days get cooler and shorter, so it's prime time for small batch canning.

Small batch canning consists of canning one or two jars. If you can time it right you could do different types of stuff- like these pickles and salsa at the same time. Just make sure both require the same time in the hot water bath or pull some out early if one requires less time. The nice thing about small batches is it can be done quickly and without canning materials. There is a nice site called Food In Jars. The author also has a book, called Preserving By the Pint. I haven't read it, but the link above has many small batch recipes worth checking out. Today I made a Salsa Verde based on her recipe, but I roasted everything (not just the garlic & tomas).

I picked, prepped and made these in less than an hour. 15 minutes in the water bath.
 Dill Pickled Green Tomatoes

 Roasted Salsa Verde

 Post Hot Water Bath

Got my first and probably last flush of Shishitos today. I had to restart from seed 3 times. My fault. I plan to collect some seed and try to overwinter the few plants I do have in pots. Looking forward to roasting these.

Coming projects
I got this hairbrained idea to build a new geodesic greenhouse using a climbing playground set as the top. It's in the mail. Ha. This should be interesting.... pics and comments to come.


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