Fun on the Farm (err... garden?)

My parents let us plant some stuff in their garden and my grandma gave me an old pressure canner. The result has been learning a lot about cooking and storing tons of produce. We have bottled enchilada sauce, chili, white chili, tomatoes, green beans, and pears... so far. I have also frozen some bags of corn, carrots, pesto and zucchini. As well as dried plums and pears. We eat fresh fruits (from the wonderful Bountiful Baskets program) and veggies all day everyday, and I absolutely LOVE it! Here are some of the highlights of our abundant summer.


I was pretty focused on helping to can the green beans and apparently not being a very attentive parent.





As kids living on the farm, I still remember 'corn days.' There are several steps in getting the corn from the field to the freezer and everyone was always assigned a job based on age and ability. That combination always left me as the 'scraper.' My job was to take a butter knife and scrape the old cobs to get off all the little pieces still clinging onto the sides. This year, I decided to impart my extensive knowledge of corn scrapping onto Corbin. He lasted through about 1 1/2 ears before he got bored and wandered off. But don't worry, Makelle was more than willing to pick up where he left off. She also worked as an unofficial and unwanted taste-tester who ate massive amounts of corn, indigestible by her little tummy. Lovely.


The kids were pretty excited about this gigantic carrot that grew (I guess you really should thin those things out :)



Last year my parents gave me a juicer, which we LOVE to use for all sorts of veggie and fruit juices. In combination with our trusty blender we have been enjoying lots of healthy (and not so healthy) smoothies. Some of us clearly show our love of a good concoction more than others.


We have also enjoyed massive amounts of fresh picked, made from scratch recipes. Our favorites include spaghetti sauce (Corbin thoroughly enjoys squishing the tomatoes), salsa, roasted veggies, grilled veggies, flavored ice cream, pie, stir fry, homemade yogurt and tons of different salads.