Onion info from Fedco (Moose Tubers)

This description on growing and storing onions was so good I just had to paste it here for my future reference.

"Onions and Shallots

Allium cepa Onions and shallots are day-length sensitive—to produce large bulbs, plant in spring as soon as soil is workable. Shallow rooted, they require rich, weed-free soil, and consistent water. Plant onions 3" apart in rows 1' apart and thin to 6" as they grow. Mulch when they are 1' tall. Plant shallots 4" apart in rows 1' apart. During the season, pull any plants that begin to bolt and use them as scallions. Clean and grade before storage. Process any double-bulbed onions instead of storing them because they won’t keep. Ideal storage conditions are temperatures at 32° with humidity of 60–70%. If you can’t do that, work to get a total number of 100. For example, at temperatures from 50–55°, humidity should be 45–50%."

You can find the original at http://www.fedcoseeds.com/moose/MooseHeaders.php?title=Onions%20and%20Shallots

Freezing Tomatoes

This week we got some surplus tomatoes, 1/2 bushel, for $7. Half of them went into spaghetti sauce and half just became diced tomatoes. So for $7 we got approximately 5 jars of spaghetti sauce and 10 16 oz. cans of diced tomatoes. Totally worth it.

Vegetable bouillon

So, supposedly if you dry soup vegetables and then powder them in a blender you can add them to soups, scrambled eggs, etc. Here, tomatoes, leeks, and kale. I'll let you know how it goes.

Summer blueberries.

Reaping the bounty still. This morning I made a blueberry popover following the recipe in the Tassajara bread book.

Easier than pancakes if you can believe it.

Strawberry sorbet

Note to self: make more next year! I can't remember exactly how, but I think it was just mashed strawberries, some sugar, maybe some lime juice, and here's the kicker: mint. Ohhhhhhhh... It's so divine. It's been in the freezer for 4 months and it's like summer is back.

Apple butter

I am so ready for bed, but I know I'll be happy I did this.

Applesauce

So, like I said, I think I'm writing a food blog now. My friend Karl and I planned a big saucing day and he brought at least 2 bushels from a local farm. I think he also became addicted to the peeler/corer/spiral cutter my friend Emma lent us. Ignoring whether or not I could keep up, or even whether or not we had enough pots to hold the apples, he plowed through the entire collection. The majority were winesaps, but we also had ginger gold, yellow delicious, and jonagold. I think winesap and jonagold are our leading apple varieties at this point.

Two crock pots and two of our largest pots on the stove, and this is probably only half the apples.

Here's one half, of my half, canned and ready for storage. I made a batch with some of my frozen raspberries.  (I LOVE this stuff.) But I also canned some plain. Some of these jars were canned with the new Tattler lids. These are BPA-free plastic canning lids that are reuseable - two awesome points in their favor. It was my first try and they worked great. Now I'm going down to finish canning all the apple butter. I'm ready to be done.

Herbed salt

My latest favorite way to store summer flavor...herbed salt. This batch has thyme and sage, the last was rosemary and sage. Think veggies tossed with olive oil and herbed salt and roasted, or patting a chicken with the tasty salt, or on scrambled eggs, or, popcorn?

I followed a recipe from the Splendid Kitchen: http://www.publicradio.org/columns/splendid-table/recipes/homemade_tuscan_or_other_herb_salt.html

You wish you could put your nose over this bowl right now. And I wish I'd thought of this before my herbs' last days.