<p>we eat a lot of soup in the winter & while I don’t like canned soup that much, progresso has been on sale 4 cans for $5/</p>
<p>I do like homemade potato soup though- and that reminds me- my leeks must be ready soon. :)</p>
<p>My mom, a child of the depression, often tossed the leftovers into a pressure cooker, brought it up to a boil for a while and left it sealed on the back of the stove until the next addition of leftovers. A weeks worth of additions was the base for the weekend stew or soup. Not sure if she was creating a toxic slush, but the results always tasted great.</p>
<p>I’ve dried 20# of Other People’s apples. 10# of our apples.
We have harvested 10# Gala apples.
I have done 8 jars of chokecherry-grape jam. Fruit from our bush and OP grapes.
I will do another 4 jars of evergreen huckleberry from neighbors bushes.
We have 3 pints of juiced blackberrys from roadside blackberrys.
I will do 8 quarts of italian prunes. Given away 15#. Picked from roadside tree.
Harvested 10# of Brooks Prunes. (4# have spoiled)
I will do 2 batches of dried Italian prunes.
Have replanted leaf lettuce to main garden.
I will seed for indian mustard leaf and collard greens for early spring harvest.
We have harvested and fried 3 pints of shallots.
I have planted shallots for next year.
We have harvested 40 pounds of Comice Pears.
We have harvested 40 pounds of Asian Pears.
We will harvest maybe 20 pounds of Fuyu type of persimmons in November
We will get from friend 30# of kiwi fruit.
We have picked, eaten, given away a plastic bag of peppers.
We have picked, eaten, given away 50# of tomatoes.
We have eaten 30# of pole beans from a 15 feet of beans.
We have harvested maybe 20 english cucumbers
We harvested 10# of crab apples.
We harvested, eaten and given away 20# Santa Rosa Plums.
I make 12 probiotic yoghurt every 2 weeks from dried milk or skimmilk with a little bit of vegetable oil for creaminest (starter from a common branded yoghurt)
Wife makes bread from scratch, by hand.
We let the basil go. Flowered too early for our intended use. </p>
<p>Bragging, you bet. In a small space you can harvest alot. And you can have decorative trees providing food instead of leaves to rake in the fall. </p>
<p>Its been a poor year. harvest wise.</p>
<p>^ Wow.</p>
<p>My simple addition is egg salad sandwiches. So humble and overlooked, but most people LOVE them - my family freaks to have this as a dinner.</p>
<p>Another idea is risotto. It’s so easy - a little oil, arborio rice, chicken stock, cheap wine. Throw in a small amount of diced meat, poultry, or shellfish and cooked, chopped veggies. This can even be leftovers from the night before.</p>
<p>I love basil & tomato sandwiches, doesn’t matter if it has flowered.</p>
<p>I like risotto too. What makes a difference is using good wine- browning the rice first in a little butter, then adding the wine and letting it be absorbed before adding the chicken broth. I usually just add a little fresh parmesan & maybe a pinch of truffles or saffron.</p>
<p>If you are making soups and want a change in the broth, get some miso paste for something different.</p>
<p>And there are different kinds of miso too. The traditional “red” miso (actually just a darker brown) is heartier and used tradionally in te colder seasons. “White” miso (actually a lighter brown) is milder.</p>
<p>I am not sure what it is made from, but try hoisin sauce on baked potatoes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LongPrime, you are quite a gardener! Do you get plants from Raintree Nursery?</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of the so-called edible landscaping, too (if only I could do something about the recent infestation of cottontails!). In adddition to tasty, antioxidant-full berries, blueberry bushes provide beautiful fall foilage. Early in the spring the cornelian cherry in my yard gets covered in a yellow fuzz of miniscule flowers, and in the fall I harvest the berries and make preserves. The groundcover is alpine strawberry, and everyone who tries my jam made out of the berries it produces, loves it. The peach tree did not do so well this year, and the plums were eaten by pests while we were gone. However, there are apples and quinces to be picked later. This was a bad year for garden vegetables in my neck of the woods. The tomatoes are just starting to ripen! Squashes and cukes were OK.</p>
<p>I planted some blueberries last year- 6 or 7 different kinds that hopefully will become hedge like- a couple have amazing color and nice structure
The groundcover is alpine strawberry
most of my strawberries are beach strawberry- want some? I am ripping them out and repotting them to give away- fast growing ground cover though ( and intense berries)
don’t have a fruit tree.
( I do have an Indian plum- but I don’t know if it is male or female as I just got it)
this is what I have now- after I ripped out my sod .
Vacciniums
blueberries-
deciduous & evergreen huckleberries
loganberries
native cranberry
strawberries coming out our ears
raspberries
thimbleberries, which I have never had, but it was growing with a wild rose that was given to me.
Salal
rose hips
rhubarb
tomatoes- determinate and indeterminate
lots of basil thai/italian
oreganos- & sages
( sage is really quite decorative)
rosemarys & lavender shrubs and hedges ( really like smells- plus mediterranean plants do well here- wet winter- dry summer- rosemary is great for flavoring poultry and bread, & lavender I use to flavor shortcake & lemonade)
Thymes ( great ground covers)
mints ( far away from everything else)
korean stone pine ( for pine nuts)
beaked hazelnut
oh and lots of various mushrooms but I don’t know enough about them to pick them.</p>
<p>I wish I could have a goat or two to make cheese, but they would eat all my plants!</p>
<p>I also planted some leeks and alliums, and I am making a place for more root veggies too.</p>
<p>LongPrime, I am soooo very impressed! All I’ve done is a couple batches of tomatoes and froze about 8 qts. of beans.</p>
<p>canning scares me to death for some reason.
Maybe it is because my grandma would bring stuff out that obviously had been processed a long time ago ( dusty) and would reassure us that she " hadn’t killed anyone yet".</p>
<p>I still do some water bath canning–tomatoes, applesauce, jellies. However, my grandmother used to can meats, pull them up from that dark, damp, cobwebby cellar and I had the same reaction–my little dog came in handy under the table!</p>
<p>Hoisin sauce is made from-get this-oysters. But I love it nonetheless. </p>
<p>Mmmmm-tomato and basil sandwiches…yum. Add some mozzarella, and it’s like the perfect sandwich.</p>
<p>I do not do much canning - I read too much about botulism. However, my grandfather used to can all sorts of stuff which never killed anyone human. And it was stored in a precisely the same kind of cellar: dark, dusty, and cobwebby. Grandpa would attach paper labels to jars, and sometimes rats or mice would get into the cellar and chew on those labels - ewww! Once a huge rat gnawed through the metal lid on one of the jars with strawberry preserves, had a feast and drowned in there! Ewww! Neither my sister nor I would touch starwberry preserves for a lo-o-o-o-ong time after that incident! I’m fine with it now :)</p>
<p>Yuck, strawberry drowned rat. That might put me off for awhile too!</p>
<p>oyster sauce has oysters I think hoisin sauce is either soybeans or azuki beans</p>
<p>very vivid picture of the strawberry rat.
Did you hear about this?
[Woman</a> gets extra jolt from morning coffee – chicagotribune.com](<a href=“Chicago News - Chicago Tribune - Chicago Tribune”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ia-odd-batbrew,0,7361901.story)</p>
<p>Our discussion of healthy, inexpensive meals has morphed into Fear Factor. That’s the CC way!</p>
<p>OK - now I am really hungry (and we are definitely having risotto for dinner).</p>
<p>I do agree that it tastes better with good wine, but I was trying to be economical. :)</p>
<p>Hanna and others, talk about 1950s and 60s cookbooks reminded me of this website, which has original recipe pamphlets from manufacturers with hilarious commentaries from the author. How did people eat this stuff?
[LILEKS</a> (James) Gallery of Regrettable Food](<a href=“http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/]LILEKS”>LILEKS (James) :: Institute :: The Gallery of Regrettable Food)</p>