Here in the North Carolina mountains, we call food preservation “puttin’ by.” Ditto for Kentucky where I grew up and where my parents and grandparents were constantly “puttin’ by” or “storin’ up” or “layin’ in” the meats and the garden and orchard goodies that got them through the winter months.
So here’s what I’m “puttin’ by” today —
Sweet peppers and a few Cayenne peppers from the garden. I will chop them up and put them in the freezer and then pull them out mid-winter to add to stir fries, quesadillas and soups. Yum!
Ohhh, salivate, salivate! My favorite (although I didn’t actually grow it) treat during the winter is to thaw a pint of creamed yellow corn and have it with dinner. This is not the way my Mom made it though — she used to fry it in bacon grease (and we all know that bacon makes everything taste better) until there were some yummy brown and crispy parts mixed in but, now that I’m vegetarian, I have to just “pretend.” It still hits the spot though when you want that fresh-from-the-garden taste in mid-February.
And last, but certainly not least, all the tomatoes that have been ripening on the counter over the past two weeks have been washed and popped into freezer bags. In the middle of winter there’s nothing like a V-8 style juice made with tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes! A quart of thawed tomatoes, a few celery stalks, some parsley that was chopped and frozen into ice cubes, a few carrots and voila — send it all through the juicer and then slurp it down. Takes about two whole seconds to empty an eight ounce glass cause it tastes fabulous!
The winter somehow seems a bit easier to take when you can enjoy the summery taste of ripe veggies. Go out and grow a few, even if you only have a couple of pots on your patio. Nothing beats the flavor of homegrown and — come winter — you’ll be glad you did.
