Garden bounty and simple gifts--

SO MUCH SAUCE. 

How was my weekend? Fruity. Saucy. And that does not describe my grand-daughter or any of the other folks I've had around me. 

OK, bad jokes aside, I polished off those three (!) wash-baskets of apples and pears. One large slow-cooker apple crisp (yummy), spiced with a special blend of baking spices that Meg found at the Old North Church gift shop in Boston: it is purported to be the particular favorite of Abigail Adams. I concur; it is lovely. And then I got peeling and dicing, stewing and then stowing, and we ended up with sixteen pints of various incarnations of apple and pear sauces. These joined the ones I put in the freezer last weekend. We will not have scurvy, anyhow.

And there's still more cooking and freezing to do... I ran out of oomph. The next project involves herbed butter, and that really does not take a lot of time, other than the prepping of the herbs. I'll cut those probably Tuesday, and see what I can do about getting that done. I have the unsalted butter already, and the ice cube trays are ready to go (I use the tiny ones, so the cubes are about a teaspoon's worth each). It is so nice to have herbs at the ready for roasting chicken or doing pan-fried chicken tenders, to stuff under the skin of the Thanksgiving turkey... yeah, worth the few minutes, for sure.

The tomatoes that climbed up the cherry tree are visibly orange from my living room window, so I suspect I'll be doing something with those-- but likely, something immediate, not putting them in the freezer. I'm honestly running out of space. I don't know why I feel squirrel-like (not squirrelly--that's another thing altogether), but when my garden space produces, I must honor it. 

We have gifts abounding, if we only know where to look, and if we are ready to receive them. It's about patience, gratitude, and the willingness to put in a little extra work on my part-- all good lessons for just about everything in life, right? Here's a musical interlude to start your day... "Simple Gifts" as performed by Yo-yo Ma and Alison Krauss. 

Have a great day,

C