Sauerkraut Stew

Sauerkraut, cauliflower, kale and kielbasa

Sauerkraut, potatoes, and kielbasa sausage has always been a family favorite food combination. Sometimes I'll saute up kielbasa cut in 1/2" slices to brown a bit and then add thin sliced onions and cabbage from our garden, kinda creating a fresh sauerkraut. This alone is great. I'll often add some chicken broth and thicken a bit. This is great over mashed potatoes. Sometimes instead of onions I'll use leeks - love leeks! Lately I'm adding kale and cauliflower. So that's what's pictured here.

Proportions?
1# sliced kielbasa, saute till golden.
Add:
1 thin sliced onion or chopped leak (make sure you cut the leek in half vertically and wash out all the dirt before chopping, and I like to use most of the green part too) - cook till they color.
Chopped kale, about 2 C - 4 large leaves (mine is frozen from last year's garden)
1/2 # cauliflower (mine is frozen from my garden)
Then add:
2 C sauerkraut, rinsed (I look for lowest sodium - usually fresh in refrigerator section)
2-4 C chicken broth, depending on how soupy you like it. I'll use the 4 cups broth if I add some potatoes.
Salt and pepper to taste - with the sauerkraut I never salt, unless adding potatoes needs extra flavoring.
We like to serve it with a dollop of homemade yogurt or sour cream.

Spring Fever

I've got the fever ... to get out in the dirt! I took these pictures early this morning and my hands were freezing as time wore on. But today is supposed to get up in the mid 60's, so I'm heading out soon to clean up all my perennial beds. I'm going to pull around a tarp the take my giant scissors, cutting back all the dead top growth, and rake the beds. I've got a lot of wildflower seeds - mainly annuals - to reseed some beds.

"Glory of Snow" bulbs in my grass

I used our electric drill and a 1/2" bit to plant 100's of the above flower bulbs in our grass several years ago. I guess that's one way to aerate!

Tansy

To the left of the above tansy plants are my first two perennial beds to the east of our front porch. Monte had brought the soil up from the woods. Wild raspberries came with the soil and I let them grow along with my flowers. So far they are the better producers of raspberries than the ones I've purposely planted. We freeze quite a bit of raspberries. The yellow flower heads of tansy dry beautifully.

Nights still freezing - frozen bird bath and old Sunflower head

I've not successfully planted sunflower seeds and gotten great plants. The chipmunks do the better job of planting birdseed sunflowers. All I have to do is pull out the extra hundreds!

The Herb Garden

I made herb labels several years ago out of Sculpey dough you bake in the oven rather than buy the expensive ones at the nursery. They're just tied with twine to bamboo poles. I could see the winter savory, thyme, sage, lemon balm, and oregano starting to send out green shoots. Behind this bed the tarragon, lavender, and sweet cicely bushes are popping up too. And then there's the crab apple tree ready to burst into bloom - by the end of the summer it's totally entwined with a clematis vine.

Chives readying to bloom

Autumn Sedum Joy beautifies the winter garden

Forsythia starting to bloom

Greenhouse garden seedlings started

I started my seedlings a bit late this year, but it'll be ok. There's broccoli, cauliflower, kale varieties, tomatoes, and then nasturtiums, clary sage, marigolds ... I've got to start basil, winter squash and more things next.

Clematis entwined in grapevine in greenhouse and green tomatoes

Grapevine needing to be pruned - starting to invade potted plants

Baked Cod Parmesan

Alaskan cod was on sale yesterday ... so what to make ... I was thinking of a homemade pasta dish. I made lasanga last week when Travis and Sarah came along with another young couple to stay a couple days and dye Ukrainian/Pyasanky eggs (check it out at my overflow blog). We made homemade lasanga pasta and it was THE BEST lasanga I have ever tasted - and they agreed. We were all rather silent savoring our first bites! UmmUmmGood!!!! I am going to make another homemade pasta lasanga this weekend, so I'll take pics and post.

I could have googled cod recipes, but looked at the few fish cookbooks I have instead. Several Fall's ago Monte and me visited Boston before heading up to New Hampshire. We walked all over Boston for several days and loved it. We were told, besides the historic trail, to visit the Legal Sea Food restaurant - we bought their cookbook. This cod recipe sounded good. I'm eating leftovers now as I'm posting this ... still good.

BAKED COD PARMESAN

2 lbs cod fillets
1 C fresh chopped tomato or Marinara Sauce
2 Tb chopped fresh basil
3 Tb freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1 Tb olive oil

Preheat oven to 425. Place fillets in baking dish and cover with the sauce and basil and bake about 8 minutes. Add the grated cheese and dots of olive oil and bake another 5 minutes, or till the cheese melts.

The fish smelled rather fishy when I opened the wrapping. Unless I have fresh fish I always soak most store bought fish in some salt/ sugar/ and milk water. I'd read those will rid the fishiness of fish. After about an hour Monte thought it still smelled fishy so rinsed it well and soaked it longer in ice water with lots of lemon slices. I cooked it a bit longer - 10 and 10 minutes and never added the olive oil. This winter I've had fresh herbs in my greenhouse - so I had fresh basil. I'm guessing I added more marinara sauce and cheese, but don't know, I didn't measure - just put enough to cover all the fish.

The cookbook suggested serving it with rice and broccoli. I usually like a rice mixture with wild rice and needed to pressure cook it since it takes longer to cook. Broccoli grows very well here and I usually freeze at least 20 pounds every year - in 1/2 pound bags, now that it's just Monte and me. The cookbook also suggested that mushrooms and chopped peppers could be added to the fish topping. That sounds good too. I usually always stock lemons/limes, mushrooms, peppers, and marinara sauce.

I like recipes that have menu suggestions.

Fruit Flies

Monte's been asking me questions - so I've been researching. He's been so tired of fruit flies and trying to attract them to get rid of them. I tell him every end of summer, harvest brings fruit flies. This year's infestation came with peaches.

Question 1: "How can we trap them?"

Putting old fruit in a container and then trying to lid it and take them out, doesn't work. If you'll notice, they tend to walk around the rim of the container most of the time and once the lid comes close, they fly away. I had put a small bit of wine in a glass close by for him to see that some will go there and drown. But the BEST trap I found is to put plastic wrap tightly over a bowl with some fruit in it and poke fork holes. It's amazing how many get trapped in one day! and the sound when you get close is eerie! He empties it after several days in the compost and starts over.

Question 2: "What's their life cycle? Are we just breeding them?"

Years ago when schooling the kids we did do a fruit fly experiment, but I forget the facts. I knew they have a short life span, but didn't think they grow overnight! I LOVE the internet! Diagrams, facts, tips, videos, virtual tours ... I took a movie with my little cannon elf. This is the first time trying to post my own movies! You'll notice the flies still walking the edge, so they never get back to the holes to fly out.

White Chili Chicken Soup; Chicken Broth & Roasted Green Chilies

White Chili Soup with Avacado

This soup is an all-time favorite!

Chicken Broth

Since I'd made the grilled "Dancing" chickens a couple nights ago and planned on a chicken left over, we'd put all the bones in a large pot and covered them with water. I always add a quartered onion with 3-4 whole cloves stuck in each onion piece, I cut off the leaf tops of celery I always keep in the fridge along with one of the older stalks cut up,  I look for the oldest carrot or two in the same fridge bin and cut up, then toss in some pepper corns and a tsp of salt. Simmer for at least an hour, then strain ... putting all in the compost. This is the way I make chicken broth all the time and freeze what's leftover. I like to freeze in pint sizes and whenever a recipe has a cream of ... something soup can, I make a white sauce of a couple TB of olive oil and WWflour in a sauce pan and stir in the thawed chicken broth till thickened. Because these bones and deboned chicken meat had been smoke-grilled, the soup flavor is even better ... and the chicken meat makes the best sandwiches ever too!

WHITE CHILI SOUP

3 16oz cans northern white beans

4 c cooked chicken

1 Tb olive oil

2 medium chopped onions

2 cloves minced garlic

2 4oz cans chopped green chilies

2 Tb ground cumin

6 c chicken broth

3 c  grated jack cheese

That's how my good friend Jeanie, who's moved away, gave it to me. Now I'll tell you what I do:

I usually use canned navy beans, but might at times cook the beans from scratch, which would probably be about 2 cups of dry beans. I prefer the smaller white beans. I usually cook up a whole chicken, both for the meat and the broth. Otherwise I use organic chicken broth. I usually have cooked chicken and turkey in the freezer from past meals, but in a bind, I've used canned chicken. I can't tell you the sizes, but I think I used three cans.

Roasted Green Chilies Frozen

Saute the chopped onion and garlic in the olive oil. I always add more garlic than recipes call for. Then add the chopped green chilies. We always have frozen roasted anaheim chilies in our freezer from the farmer's market. I get a bushel roasted and usually 3 chilies equals 4 ounces. I don't remove the blackened skin when freezing, but remove it when thawed and I'm readying to chop them (and don't like washing it off, as I think I'm washing away good flavor, but just run my fingers down the chili to remove the skin, stem end, and seeds, then I do have to wash my hands to remove it all from them!). And the cumin, I grind fresh. I rarely buy pre-ground spices, preferring their fresh ground flavor. My cute little wood mortar & pestle sits on my kitchen windowsill.

If I'm taking the soup somewhere, then I put the cheese in it too. At home, we grate cheese and put some in our soup bowls and ladle in the soup. From another chicken soup recipe, I fell in love with fresh avacado cut in chunks and added to the soup bowls. When we have guests (some guests having had it more than once - and they love it!) we typically set up meals buffet style on our island in the middle of the kitchen that the stove is a part of. So the soup pot stays on the stove and there'll be a wooden bowl with wooden tongs of grated cheese and a bowl of cut up avacados (with fresh squeezed lime juice to keep them from browning). Homemade bread and salad top off the meal.

Extending the Gardening Season

I'm currently cleaning my greenhouse, getting ready for winter. I've been deciding what potted plants I want to bring in and have them live longer for either their pretty flowering or produce they'll give us. Doing this usually introduces insects into the greenhouse. Tho they don't look to have insects outside, and the cooler temps keep them at bay ... bring them into the warm environment and voila, bugs! I usually spray them some with a safesoap for awhile, before deciding to add them to the compost.

I made some "cloches" of PVC piping and clamps and floating row cover (remay) material. I've put some in the kitchen garden over the peppers for a little warmth boost and frost protectant. Some are covering the bed on the south side of the greenhouse. I used to have a coldframe there, which produced salad greens most of the winter. Now it's a nice rock-lined raised bed. There's some pepper and eggplant plants there and two grapevines, but I planted some salady seeds.

I've put the same white material over lots of the tomatoes in the garden. Travis, I'm not growing Brandywine or Caspian Pinks (heirloom) again! I can probably start you some, but I've gotta grow smaller tomato and shorter season varieties in my neck of the woods! I've got to start looking up green tomato recipes! It sounds like the green tomato pie is like an apple pie. I've never cooked green tomato anything. I will be pulling out a lot of the plants eventually on to a large tarp and pull them into the garage. Then one-by-one most of them ripen.

In the greenhouse I've already got seedlings sprouted of carrots, raddishes, beets, green onions, cilantro, tomatoes, spinach, kale, mustard greens and lettuces. I'll be transplanting these to permanent bigger pots and planting snow peas too. I've got heat coils, and grow lights. This is the first year I'm going to see how growing over the winter in there works. It does get cold at night and hot in the day and sometimes freezes, but we'll put heaters in then for preventing freezing plants (and the sink pipes). Monte's going to do some insulation. I've started my garden seedlings early spring, but never fall planted for winter.

I'm pulling in (the big pots are on casters) a lime and fig tree, jasmine vine, four potted eggplants, two large pots of acorn squash plants, and herbs. I love gardening!

Baked Kale Chips

WOW!!! Another recipe from AllRecipes.com. My first words after first tasting, and eating more and more while waiting for my Artisan bread to finish baking and we'd sit down to eat supper - "Addicting"! What a good thing to be addicting: kale!! Kale is probably the most nutritious green you can be eating. All year round we add kale to our salad making. I blanch and freeze my garden kale for adding to stews, soups, lasanga ... or just sauteing.

BAKED KALE CHIPS

1 bunch kale
That's all they say. Most store bunches seem about the same size year round. I should weigh a bunch to see how much kale it actually is. You should wash and spin dry store-bought kale. They cut out the thick stems and rip up; I just ripped the leaves up and away from the stem, putting them in a large bowl for tossing with -
1 Tb olive oil
1 tsp salt
Bake the spread kale on parchment lined baking sheets at 350 for 10-15 minutes, till edges brown but not burn.

I sprinkled them with granulated garlic too. Next time we don't want to use the salt, just the garlic, or our Chef Prudhomme's spunky Italian Seasoning. We froze some and it remained crispy! So guess what? ... I've still got tons of kale in the garden! and I'm going to make tons of these kale chips, bag in sandwich bags, and freeze in a box or one of my freezer baskets - so they don't get squashed.

I'm munching on a bag I test-froze right now as I'm writing this post. Yummmm .....

Chokecherries

Monte and me harvested the chokecherries today. The bushes are on the edge of the woods, edging my lower garden. We figure they were planted 100 years ago by a homesteader, along with our rhubarb. Only the clusters on the garden side exist. Bear, deer, and elk have eaten all of them on the woods side. The chokecherries weigh in at 30 pounds! There used to be aspen trees over them, so they'd not always fully ripen. Colorado has it's droughts and several years ago was a bad one and lots of aspen trees died. We're in another drought this year cuz we've not had rain for 1 1/2 months and there's been wildfires.

I used to make chokecherry jam and syrup, but I don't like the amount of sugar it takes to make them palatable, so I stopped harvesting them. This year I decided I'm going to try making wine of them. We have a friend who's made wine from just about everything - like even beets! So from her trials and reading, chokecherries make a great wine - and I'm going to jump in. The chokecherries are bagged in the freezer for now - which is the best way to start the breaking down process for developing the 'must' and not crush the pits (which are undesirable).

I'll probably post pics of the process, but I can't report on the results for a year!

Defrosting Freezers

Insulated plywood box

I usually defrost my freezers once a year - every September. I'd read that it's a good thing - for the life of the freezer - to let it totally defrost, like maybe 24 hours, to let the freezer walls thaw too. And I did say "freezers". We used to have three, two of them, uprights, we got used, so who knows how old they were/are. Now we're down to two.

My garden and cookbook shelves are above the freezers

When we moved to Colorado from Arizona, Monte made this large insulated box so we could bring his hard-earned game meat (bow-hunting). That was twenty seven years ago, and we still have the box. I've stored jarred things in there in the garage for years. Now our garage is insulated so things don't freeze, but I still store some things in the box. Then every September it's moved by the freezers so I can defrost them.

Harvested Broccoli

Froze the broccoli today. Now that it's just Monte and me ... 1/2 pound bags.

I cut off the floweretes, parboil or steam 5 minutes, run cold water over to stop the cooking and put in cold water to chill a bit, drain and bag and freeze.

I've got the sink full of cold salted water for dropping the broccoli heads in and soaking till I pull them out to cut up. The salt is supposed to drive any worms and bugs out. We don't really have bugs at our altitude. Some years there can be some aphids and I might find one or two worms that match the color of the broccoli! Our water year round is ice cold. For most of you, you'd put your steamed broccoli in ice water.

I marked on the calendar that I froze 21 bags. I'll be doing more over time since broccoli produces side shoots.

We'll pull these bags from the freezer all winter. Usually we'll just saute the broccoli up and add some lemon juice, sometimes toasted pinenuts or almonds, or walnuts, sometimes some parmesan. I love chicken divan (it's in my cookbook, using fresh ground herbs and spices creating a fresh curry mixture). I bagged the broccoli stalks and put them in the fridge - I'll be grating them for a Coldslaw.

Basil Pesto and Uses

Last night I wanted to make something with pesto. I'd just made up a bunch of the pesto recipe below and froze. Tho not typically combined with pesto recipes I've found, I wanted to add chicken, so had a bone-in breast boiling, to create some broth.

In my Hearth & Home cookbook I have this pesto recipe and mention making a meal of it with adding potatoes in the pasta boiling water, drain the potatoes and pasta, and toss with pesto. The actual dish is called Trenette Al Pesto. You boil several quarts of salted water, adding 3 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced not more than 1/4" thick. I always cut the potatoes like french fries and boil them about 5-10 minutes before adding 1# of linguine or fettuccine pasta. And actually, I boil chicken first and then cook the potatoes and pasta in the chicken broth, debone and shred the chicken, and toss it in with the pesto. The recipe doesn't call for broth or chicken, I just do it.

Traditionally, pesto is made with an Italian basil. Non-Italian variations are made with other herbs and greens, and some have olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Differing 'nuts' can be used too: like walnuts or almonds. They could be toasted. Pesto is originally made by pounding the basil and mixing in a mortar and pestle. Cook's Illustrated Complete book of Pasta and Noodles has you first put the basil in a sealable plastic bag and pound with the flat side of a meat-pounder to bruise the leaves before processing in a food processor.

BASIL PESTO

3 C basil leaves
1/4 C pine nuts
1/2 C good tasting olive oil
3 lg garlic cloves
Process this in a food processor till grainy.
Fold in 1/2 C grated parmesan cheese.

When freezing pesto, I don't add the parmesan till I'm using it in a recipe. This time, since I quickly decided to clip off most of my garden basil, I made it without the garlic too, since I didn't have enough on hand. So my large ziplock bags, full of smaller bags of the recipe, are labeled "without garlic and parmesan", so I know to add it later.

There's differing basils, and not all make good pesto. I grow a large leaf Italian basil called "Genovese". Basil needs a lot of pinching off of the tops for branching and not getting leggy. So I cut back the basils pretty close to the ground, leaving some leaves and will get more before they're frosted out.

Another recipe using pesto, Rigatoni alla Fornaia, sautes onion, garlic and tomatoes, cooking down with some white wine, then adding a few tablespoons each of pesto and ricotta, tossing it all together with cooked pasta.

Last night I wanted homemade pasta. And I found another recipe similar to the potato one above with added green beans. I have a hand-cranked pasta machine. Though you can make eggless pasta, I prefer it with eggs. I always feel having some protein helps in better assimilation of carbohydrates - so not as much of a gaining weight producing food. I use my fresh ground (bagged in the freezer) whole wheat flour.

PASTA

3 large eggs, beaten
2 C flour
Have it all at room temp. Pulse in a food processor with the metal blade until dough forms a rough ball. If it seems too dry (flours differ, and too, humidity makes a difference) add water 1/2 tsp at a time; or if too sticky, add some flour 1 Tb at a time. Turn out the dough and knead a few minutes till smooth. Wrap in plastic wrap to relax at least 15 minutes. I divide the dough in 6ths, working with one at a time. Follow directions of the pasta machine, or hand roll it very thin and hand cut. Fresh pasta cooks up in boiling water in just a few minutes. Freeze whatever you don't use.

The recipe I made last night is called  
PENNE WITH GREEN BEANS, POTATOES, AND PESTO
tho I didn't use penne pasta but fettuccine (wider flat pasta than linquine). And I'd been boiling up that chicken breast, I started this post with. They boil the potatoes in separate water and the green beans and pasta together in water. I used the chicken broth, boiling them all in it, starting with the potatoes till almost tender, since the beans and fresh pasta only needed to boil 3-4 minutes. And I tossed in the shredded chicken from the cooled, deboned breasts. Someday I'll post about "umami", the fifth taste. The chicken broth is my umami addition to the recipe.

1# potatoes, slice 1/4" thick
1# green beans, ends cut off and cut in 1/2" lengths
1# pasta
pesto recipe above

Cook as I suggest above, toss together and serve immediately. Should serve 4.

I freeze some pesto in ice cube trays, so the bag has lots of pesto cubes, probably about 2Tb. I LOVE pesto spread on a toasted piece of my homemade bread! I also like to cut tomatoes in half for baking/broiling with pesto on top. I make a pesto pizza, spreading the dough with pesto and adding fresh sliced tomato and mozzarella cheese.

Curr(a)nt Harvest Happenings

I thought I'd post a bit about what's currently happening around here. Karey's kitchen is so amalgamated with Karey's garden and greenhouse. On my calender this month I've recorded that I've frozen snap peas, sliced zucchini, currants, raspberries, kale, and pesto. We'll soon be cutting grape clusters in the greenhouse and bagging the whole clusters for the freezer - tiny grape popsicles! And there's so many tomatoes trying their darnedest to ripen, but our nights are going down to 40 degrees now, and that slows the process. Lots of green beans are coming too. I need to go check out our old garden.

We actually started our old garden before we built our house 25 years ago. As I said in a rhubarb post, rhubarb and chokecherries were already here. There's evidence of an old homestead. In fact, Monte's writing a book called The Secret Of Singing Springs incorporating some historic stories fictionally intertwined with some of our own stories. One historic occurrence in the vicinity is with Jessie James. Our old garden has a 6 foot fence to keep elk out. If we could keep voles and pocket gophers out it would be almost perfect. We put an old sink in the garden which adds to the atmosphere being next to the woods of pine, fir, blue spruce and aspen. There's springs in that thar woods - thus the "singing springs" (we sing ... and I guess the breeze thru the trees sings - we named the road we live on Singing Springs Ln).

That garden used to be our only garden, but now I've planted a lot of fruiting bushes and small trees: native plums, saskatchewan bred cherries and blueberries, black and red currants, and gooseberries. Besides the chokecherries on the back fence and rhubarb, there's asparagus and raspberries. Next spring I'm going to plant more strawberries. Monte's tending this garden. He's weeding it and keeping all the cabbage family watered: broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, rutabaga, cabbage, and then leeks - are what we planted there this year. One year I froze 30 pounds of broccoli. This year will probably be one of those years! I planted some fruit bearing siberian mountain ash trees, but don't know yet if the voles killed them.

The currants we just harvested and froze were from one bush, an old bush. The newer planted ones aren't bearing much yet, and I've just been eating them. They're sure tedious to harvest. I wrote on my calendar that I froze 13 cups, having first spread them on cookie trays to freeze, then bag them up. We like them in homemade ice cream, and I have homemade yogurt every morning with frozen/fresh fruit, and dried sprouted flax seed. Wow, when the others do start bearing, we'll have a lot. Maybe I'll consider drying some. Dry or frozen currants could be used in muffins and quick breads. Currant pie? Hmmmm...

I grow and harvest kale for its nutritive value, not that I love it - like vitamin C and calcium, for example. We have it in all our salads, including spinach, beet greens, and occasionally mustard greens. I just froze the red tinged kale, next I'll be doing the curly kale, then tuscan. I'll be freezing spinach pretty soon too. Greens, as do most veggies, need to be blanched a few minutes, before freezing. It's been tested, and they retain more vitamins when blanched first. Monte likes to pull a small bag from the freezer, chop it up, saute, and add parmesan and lemon juice. I'll add it to lasangas and stews.

This year in my closer kitchen garden I planted five varieties of beans. The four pole beans are planted together, for their varying colors, climbing the bamboo teepees. Scarlet runner beans have bright red flowers and larger beans - I'm trying to pick these before they get large. Then there's two purple varieties: the Hyacinth bean has purple vines and deep purple flowers, the other has pale violet flowers. Neither are purple bean pods. Then I planted some bush beans because they bear earlier than pole beans. But the Scarlet Runner beans are a close second. Then there's these Fortex pole beans I've never grown before. They sure are skinny. It's all so fun!

I made spaces in my kitchen garden, pulling out older greens and volunteers, and harvesting things so I could plant more salad stuff seeds to carry us into fall, and by covering with floating row covers (a white cloth looking like sewing interfacing) these greens might grow into winter. I did some stripping of tomato branches and leaves too - to allow more sun to get at the plant base for more warmth, and to force plants to focus on ripening tomatoes.

We've got these volunteer squash. I pulled out most, but some were growing where it was ok to let them do their volunteer thing ... But what are they?! They're starting to turn from green to yellow ... and maybe orange ... are they pumpkins? We shall see ...

Harvesting Peas, etc

My sugar snap peas have been beautiful this year, the best ever. I planted them early this year for the first time - my veggie garden just happened to be ready early this year. Timing: weather cooperating and husband/son cooperating. The compost piles were screened and piled for me to distribute. We had manure ready. And then a beautiful day. So I tilled, planned my gardening layout, and planted lettuce, spinach, kale, greens, radishes, carrots, and onions. I say early for me, but really not early according to the books. Those things are cooler tolerant plants. Then a visiting friend said my climate is good for those veggies - cuz, if you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of summer, and in most places these veggies would be fried. But then my timing between frosts is typically 90 days. And that's why I can't grow some HOT weather veggies - it's why most of my tomatoes are in walls-of-water, and I might get a couple peppers before frost.

Monte decided to help me freeze the peas by picking them. I froze 3 lbs. Sugar snap peas give you pea choices: eat them like snow peas, in the pods, or let them get large and shell the fresh peas. I thought I'd shell these, so I'd left them. Monte said, "No. Let's have them for stir frying over winter." AND I really don't like shelling peas. I like to do it for an occasional meal, but not for doing a bunch for freezing.

FREEZING SUGAR SNAP PEAS

Either boil or steam blanch for 3 minutes 1lb of peas at a time (I didn't wash them or anything, just removed blossom ends).
Cool quickly by either very cold water (which our mountain tap water is - I often need a bit of warm water running too if I'm washing much, like lots of spinach, cuz our water freezes my hands!) or an ice water bath.
Drain and pat dry on a towel.
Distribute on a tray and freeze.
When frozen solid, pack in a freezer bag.

These frozen do not retain their crisp texture. They could be removed from the freezer, cut in bite-size pieces, and added to a salad a few minutes before serving. We typically use them in stir-fry: slightly sauteing veggies.

Now for the rest of the story ... Monte often hates to get rid of good stuff. Just like my baby veggie starts from the greenhouse. He made new planting spots for extra kale, broccoli, etc this year that I had so much extra of (I always have extra and he just happened to be around this year helping). I tried to tell him the price of seeds - like 30 plants - is the price of buying a 6-pack of the veggie at the nursery. So we can throw them in the compost. I know, it is hard even for me. Some years I've frozen 30+lbs of broccoli, and I get tired of kale! So we had this leftover water we'd boiled the peas in ...

Monte loved the taste of this water and wouldn't let me throw it out. It's in a large jar in the refrigerator. When Dawson came home from his mountain bike ride, Monte told him to try the "Pea tea"! The next morning Monte tried it cold saying it would be better sweetened, thus, "sweet pea tea"!!!! ;-P

Our table grapes in the greenhouse are almost ripe. This year there's probably a hundred clusters! - some hanging down at head level and Monte ties up higher, since I'm often busy doing my textile art dyeing in there. I called them table grapes differentiating them from wine grapes. I used to trim them back hard like you have to if you want a lot of wine grapes. This process did not give us grapes, so I had to research. Now I don't trim them, but for cutting back the too long ends wanting to take over the greenhouse. I just bang down the dead leaves in January or February.

Raspberries are now producing. Tho I've now planted raspberries, everbearing ... and we'll see how they do. The raspberries we've got are wild. But they're growing in two of my flowerbeds. They are my oldest flower beds and Monte had brought dirt up from the woods by some springs (that's why we called our road Singing Springs Lane). The raspberries came from that dirt. They try and take over the beds. I do pull out a bunch periodically and last year I cut them all back in the spring. I thought our wild variety were everbearing. But no. We didn't get any raspberries that year. Everbearing bear on current year branches and bear throughout the growing season off and on. Others on older canes. I don't mind them mixed in with the flowers. My gardening style is 'cottage' and I've got veggies and fruit co-mingled with perennials.