We had a very busy homestead this weekend. Pictures were not taken of all activities, but here's an update:
We made beef broth. Last year's soup bones were discovered in the depths of the deep freeze, and we've been out of broth for a couple months. Three roasters later, I had multiple pots of broth to clarify and de-fat.
We had three pressure canners running flat out. Mr. Caffienated is the babysitter for pressure gauges.
Yield: Just over 9 gallons. 34 quarts, four pints, one 12-oz. jar. One quart didn't seal and was turned into soup.
Remember the pear thing from Friday? Well, we did that again on Saturday. And again on Sunday. There are now exactly five pears in the house that have not ripened up yet. Everything else is in a dehydrator or the freezer. All dehydrator trays and engines have been put to use.
Then Mr. Caffienated made an investigatory trip to the garden. I was planning to practice music. But, no.
Pickles obviously needed to happen.
There was a small bin of tomatoes that accompanied the cucumbers. Those needed to be turned into salsa, with some peppers and garlic from the garden and onions from my in-laws.
I also made a couple of extracts. Mr. Caffienated has made a couple of amazing lemon-infused angel food cakes recently that were utterly delectable, and I ran out of lemon extract. We used lemon oil in the last one (delicious!), but Mr. C was not convinced that lemon oil was a reasonable substitute. Upon investigation, I discovered that lemon extract consists of water, alcohol... and lemon oil. Further studies revealed that lemon extract can be made at home with lemon zest and vodka. Since I happened to have lemons in the fridge that needed a raison d'etre, homemade extract was added to the list.
The same site that had that recipe also had a recipe for cardamom extract. As I adore cardamom, and as this extract only takes two days - the lemon takes 2-3 weeks! - the cardamom from the pantry was hauled out and put into service.
While all that was going on, there were zucchini (of course) that needed to be dealt with, and I've been craving Indian food. So sambhar (soup) had to happen.
I love this stuff. Do I follow the recipe to the letter? No. It doesn't call for zucchini at all, nor onion, nor garlic, all of which made it into the pot. This soup is one of those recipes that can pretty much handle whatever craziness I throw at it, and tonight's version turned out really good.
The crazy part? This cookbook - my favorite Indian cookbook - is published by Betty Crocker. No kidding. Here's the link. The chef is a native of India, so it's not a completely whacky proposition.
In the middle of all that, Mr. Caffienated took a few hours to redesign the compost area (now 8x8 instead of 8x16), install a very nice new garden gate for me, and spent a couple of hours shifting dirt around with the skidsteer.
We're all looking forward to a nice, peaceful day of sitting down to work tomorrow!
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