Weekly Local Booty 8/3-8/9/08

Attack of the garden booty! It was quite a productive week in our garden's - it's getting to be the "bounty" time of year, and Brett and I are reveling in it. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes! It's amazing how many tomatoes we've gotten from our garden, and yet we are still happily getting some in our CSA and buying more from the market on top of that. I don't know if there is a better snack than a plate full of B's Famous Summer Pickles and a few tomatoes sliced up with salt. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

Check out this week's garden booty:















Tomatoes, 2 banana peppers, and a ripe cayenne to add to the ristra.















3 petite bell peppers, a green bell pepper, and a ripe Super Chile.















Brett took this one, he was feeling artistic. We've got: tomatoes, a Super Chile, 2 petite bells, and a yellow straightneck squash.















3 jalapenos, 2 of which were ripening. Yum!















2 ripe serranos, 1 ripe Super Chile, and a green bell pepper.

Onto this week's CSA:















Starting from the left this week: potatoes (I believe it was Catherine who reminded me about hashbrowns, that's the plan for these spuds), a yellow summer squash, 3 ears of corn, a green bell pepper, another glorious muskmelon (these are the best melons ever, I'm telling you, I have a strong fondness for Dan and his willingness to share his delish fruit even though we didn't get a fruit share), a little cucumber, 3 beets, 2 tomatoes, 3 small onions, mint.

And the farmer's market booty. This ran us $35. Not pictured here are 2 granola bars like we got last week. We ate them before I could take a picture.















Let's switch things up a little and start from the right: an Uprise Bakery French baguette, lots of little onions (just yellow and white this week), a bulb of German Extra Hardy garlic, a bulb of Chrysalis Purple garlic, lots of shiitake mushrooms, a gypsy pepper, a bell pepper, local eggs, basil, local homemade penne pasta, 2 large red and 2 large yellow tomatoes.

I got some birthday money in the mail, and though we are participating in the "Buy Nothing Challenge", I didn't think it fair that my and Brett's family should have to participate too so we made an exception and bought a.....















Boiling water bath canner! Wahoo! We'll get some pint sized Mason jars, and next weekend I'll be trying my luck at making pickles and pickled jalapeno and banana peppers. I'm pretty stoked. And I don't feel guilty about getting it. It will help us put up some of our abundance for winter, and there is nothing bad about eating locally in winter. But, with the challenge in mind, there will be no more purchases. In my defense, I didn't buy these, Brett's mom Linda, my Mom, and my Nanny Beth did. Thank you guys so much!

Not much in the way of food preservation activities this week. Trying to take it easy so I can enjoy my birthday tomorrow in true Jen fashion: doing nothing and being lazy. :-)

I will be boiling, mashing, and freezing the beets, as well as boiling and removing the corn from the cob, it will be eaten this week though.

FYI: The Garden Update for this week will be posted on Monday. The next piece in Brett's "What is Food" series will be posted on Tuesday.

'Til next time.