Gingergirl I hear your pain. Maybe Pogonips method will help with the tomatoes. No freezer in my life to do that.
Tadpol I am going to post a little salad story I wrote a few months ago. I thought of it when I read your post so I'll copy and paste it here. I hope it is worthwhile reading I've not posted it before.
Cooking with Granny ….. Making Salad
What’s for dinner is a question I ask myself and others every day of my life. I don’t have any complaints about that, it is just a fact of life. One of those thought about chores we do each day that must be done. Grampy had mentioned yesterday he wanted salad. In fact Grampy is a salad lover. I like a bit of salad and enjoy it but I somehow think he enjoys it more. I wander a bit here as Grannies are apt to do from time to time.
Salad making starts early here. I like to go out and get the ingredients before the sun gets up very high. I grab my scissors, colander, kneeling pad, hat, and off I go. It isn’t far; I planted salad ingredients just outside the back door in a raised bed just for that reason.
I’ve managed with an experiment in shade to prolong the lettuce harvesting this year.
I am very eager to see how long I can manage to keep it going. It gets fairly hot here with low humidity. So I draped a white sheet a few feet above the lettuce bed. I lift the sheet for watering and so far it hasn’t bolted. We’ve had a week of 90 degree weather and not a problem so far. Any other year at this time the lettuce has bolted and I make green salad from Swiss chard. I sit down and it takes no time to clip the largest leaves from the lettuce. I toss a few with brown edges to my lap chicken Squeek, and the dog Daisy. While I’m out there I found a weed, so I pulled that. I found a start of clover so I pulled that as well. Between my two companions they eagerly munch down the fresh grown treats I throw their way.
I see the Tarragon and remember it is so tall I have to cut it. So I go to that area and cut the Tarragon, chives and garlic chives. They’ll all be better for it and I should have done it a couple of weeks ago. The Egyptian onions are growing babies on the babies so I cut a few of those and stick them in some dirt that is empty. The stalks don’t seem to be falling over so that they can reproduce that way.
I bring my harvest into the kitchen. Separate the herbs into piles on the counter for cleaning after I finish washing the lettuce.
It surprises me how clean the lettuce has grown. I have fir chip mulch in the veggie herb bed and all the veggies stay very clean. I use a heavy spray on the lettuce in the garden every evening and that helps as well. I look at it and think yes looks restaurant clean. But I know its secret. I dump the big pile of lettuce in the white sink and start trikling cold water on it. As the water runs I take one leaf at a time and rinse each side of the leaf before returning it to the colander.
My mind slides into thoughts of lettuce, dinning out, buying those bags of pre-washed salad in the grocery stores. I wonder how they get the leaves washed and dried and manage to keep them from bruising and breaking. I wonder for a minute if they have a thousand Grannies all lined up along rows of sinks washing leaves with as much care as I am. I have a bit of a chuckle and think; no they don’t. When the sink starts getting full of water I hold the lettuce to one side and notice a fairly thick layer of little green bugs that have washed off of the lettuce. I know the lettuce looks spotless clean but those little green soft bugs are visible proof I was wrong. It reminds me of Grampy grading gems and saying that one is eye clean.
I rinse the sink clean, replace the sink stopper and carry on in the same way for two more sink fills till the task is finished. I then go to the linen cupboard and take a nice big white stiff sun dried towel and lay it out on a counter then arrange the lettuce leaves on there to dry. I sure would like to know how they get those leaves in the bags dry and nice. Can’t imagine they use my method. Probably some huge electric fan type thing does the job.
My mind wanders again to a commercial I saw on TV. A gal walking down the street saying I’ll just have salad. Well gal, a salad to me is a big deal and takes planning. My salad starts in early winter when I am looking at seeds to plant and goes from there. These seeds of course come from the previous year’s crop of lettuce that I have cleaned and saved safely over the winter.
I have radishes in the fridge I cleaned and bagged the other day. It sure is nice not to have to prep each item every day. This is my new method. I now keep lettuce in the fridge as well. Saves that daily trek to the garden I have always done before. I have some celery I bought in town and some tomatoes. Mine aren’t ready yet.
I’ll turn those lettuce leaves in about an hour and see how dry they are. I like to get them in the fridge for a couple of hours to crisp them up and cool them before eating.
I take sour cream and mayo from the fridge along with a big chunk of blue cheese and mix up a batch of salad dressing. I won’t go into sour cream making, mayo making or cheese making but I think of the people who are so far disconnected from their food they have no idea how wonderful the people are who do these tasks for them daily. I made the mayo but did buy the dairy at the grocery store. We don’t keep milking animals so that is the reason.
OK, so…. Grampy and I decided we are going to have chicken with the salad…. I’m off to do that….Yes another simple meal...
Grannies disclaimer.. please excuse any spelling and grammar errors. I did try to do it correctly.
