This is the time of year in our home that we're busy storing up food for the rest of the year.
We have two very happy apple trees in our yard. We'd picked apples before leaving for vacation, and they were waiting in our fridge upon our return. We've picked one more box in addition to these you see here.
I usually make applesauce, but we still have some from last year (and two of my children won't eat it anyway), so this year I decided to use our apples for apple pies. As you can imagine, this idea was met with great delight by my husband. Apple pie is hands-down his favorite dessert.
This past week our evening activity has been peeling, coring and slicing apples.
So far I have 9 bags of apple pie filling.
I broke down on Saturday morning and made three batches of applesauce afterall (just to change things up a little). I'm down to one more drawer of apples, so within the next couple of days we should be done with the apple season (and have nearly 20 bags of apple pie filling! How many apple pies can one make in a year? Mark says, "Never enough!") I'll be glad to get down to the last apple. I'm a bit appled-out!
Most of what we stock up on is fruit. Each year we go strawberry, raspberry and blueberry picking. We end up with bags of frozen fruit that I use for smoothies or an occasional berry pie. Every other year I make jam. This year I made raspberry freezer jam- and lots of it! This past month we did the strawberries and raspberries, and this week we'll go blueberry picking. (And yes, based on my last experience, the thought of heading back to the berry fields makes me nervous, to say the least.)
We've also been pulling zucchini out of our garden. Last night I made two loaves of bread and froze a number of 2-cup portions of grated zucchini, which is what my zucchini bread recipe calls for. There's many more where that came from. I'm sure I'll be grating zucchini for weeks to come!
Later this week the beans will be ready in our garden, and then we'll be snipping, cutting, and canning. The corn from our garden we'll freeze. There will be carrots and onions and hopefully cucumbers (although those don't look too promising; we'll see).
I'd love to hear what anyone else does to stock up your freezer or pantry for the winter months!
~Stacy
Proverbs 6:6
Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider it's ways and be wise.
Proverbs 30:25
Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer.
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