Yummy things

We've been eating well lately. And spending a LOT of time processing food for the winter.

Last night we ate gnochi from our potatoes (although there are not many potatoes out there), with swiss chard pesto.

From yesterday alone, we now have the following new things in our freezer or in the cold room:

• gnochi
• pesto
• dried chives
• dried zucchini chips, chunks and shreds
• canned peaches
• peach jam
• apple sauce
• apple juice

I don't know if it's cost-effective to can peaches, but I did it anyway. I've always considered apples to be the cheap fruit, yet right now we can buy lots of things cheaper than apples. As long as peaches are under $1/pound, I'm buying them. I've got 40 pounds on my shelves in the cold storage in two forms: canned peaches and jam.

I know that if you heat the peaches with the liquid syrup, they won't separate so much, but I forgot. They don't look as good as they could, but yummy regardless.

The jam is also very good. I used more sugar than usual, but the peach flavour is great. I'm not a fan of high-pectin stiff jam, so I'm using green apples and forgetting about the pectin totally. I used 8 cups of peaches, 3 apples, and 6 cups of sugar.

Yesterday I experimented with dried zucchini. Unexpectedly the kids love it. We sprinkle one batch of the chips with popcorn spices (dill pickle and sour cream & onion) and they ate them like chips. A healthy alternative, I guess. I'm also drying chunks right now, because I'd like to able to throw them in stews, soups and tomato sauces.

I should have taken pictures of the apples and the beautiful end result. They are tiny, dark red crabapples and hard as rock, but they made the most beautiful juice and red applesauce.