One Potato, Two Potato

In a few hours, these will be french fries or home fries.

This year, we're harvesting the potatoes, Yukon Gold, as we need them rather than waiting until the end of the season. So far, we haven't had any worm issues, unlike in previous years.

Sunday Reading

Catholic Herald: Called to Forgive

Casaubon's Book: Do the Right Thing

Small Treasures: To Grow in Love

15 Minutes in Command Central

Now that family activities are finished for the rest of the summer, I'm tackling the area that serves as Command Central for my job as family manager. It may not look bad to others, but a full receipt box and two full inboxes mean it's time to file, purge, or move on.

The FlyLady's 15 minutes mantra is how I get it done.

This online stopwatch program that I downloaded this morning is another tool.

Zucchini Recipe

I came up with this side dish for dinner tonight. I think I may have done something similar last summer with Italian salad dressing, but I like this version better. It was fairly well received by my vegetable-phobic children who do like spaghetti sauce.

Ingredients

9x13 pan
2 to 3 zucchini sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
28 oz. can of diced tomatoes
balsamic vinegar to taste (about 1-2 T.)
salt
pepper
chopped onion to taste
chopped pepper to taste
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 cup shredded mozzarella

Directions

Mix the balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and diced tomatoes together, and spread about half of the mixture on the bottom of the pan.

Lay the zucchini rounds in a single layer. Add the onion and pepper to the tomato mixture and spread over the zucchini rounds.

Sprinkle bread crumbs on top and finish with shredded mozzarella.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Oakmont Farmers Market, Wednesdays 3 - 7 p.m.

The kids and I went to the Oakmont Farmers Market in Havertown yesterday afternoon. Given the time for us to get there, it is a trip that I would make every other week.

After receiving a promotional e-mail from the Farmers Market, I expected to see a few more vendors than showed up, but it was a nice mix of vendors. There were two meat vendors, an orchard one, two vegetable ones, a bison meat vendor, a bread vendor, and a cheese vendor.

One of the reasons for me to go was to check out the meat vendors. Both offer pre-ordering for pickup at the market at any time during the market hours. Both meat vendors come from Lancaster County.

Hillacres Pride offers cheeses, beef, pork, lamb, hummus. I picked up two of the 3-pack deals of ground beef (3 lbs. for $12.50). The ground beef comes in one pound packages. The prices are comparable to what I've seen at Whole Foods.

Lindenhoff Farm, the other meat vendor, offers chickens and eggs, turkeys, lamb, and pork. The turkey is not available yet. They will be offering beef very soon. Their prices were slightly less than Hillacres for similar items. I picked up a whole chicken, weighing in at just under 5 lbs, and two one-pound packages of bacon ends which were slightly cheaper than the bacon. The Lindes will have larger whole chickens starting next week.

The other vendor I visited was Fruitwood Orchards. I picked up cherries ($3/pint), blueberries ($3/pint), and white peaches ($3/pint). They also were offering honey, strawberries, and some veggies. I froze the cherries and blueberries, and I will be canning the peaches in apple juice later today.

Parking was a bit of an issue. I showed up about ten minutes before the market started and had to drive a little bit to find a spot. Half of the Oakmont parking lot is set aside for the vendors and it's difficult to get through that part of Havertown because of the traffic. I ended up parking in the lot at Grace Chapel and hoofing it over to the market. For those needing handicapped spots, there were at least two spots available, and perhaps a total of four handicapped spots. I recommend checking out the parking page on the Farmers Market site to see what's available.

Sauteed Mixed Veggies

One of our favorite ways of preserving our home-grown vegetables is by steaming and freezing quart bags of mixed veggies. Generally, these will have zucchini, carrot, pepper, and the occasional onion.

One way to cook these mixed veggies is to saute them immediately after taking them out of the freezer. For the first fifteen to twenty minutes the vegetables will release their water which we pour off in the sink. Once the water is gone, we add olive oil, salt, pepper, and spices and saute until done.

Canning Supplies for Local Folks

While I was at Walmart in Eddystone, I checked out the canning supplies. These are located in the kitchen section across from the vacuum cleaners.

I found both Ball jars and Golden Blossom jars. The Ball jars came in a variety of sizes with both wide mouths and regular mouths. The Golden Blossom ones only came in regular size pints and quarts. The Golden Blossom ones ran about $1 less than the Ball jars, with the prices marked on the white and yellow stickers on the packages. I think the pints were $6.88 and the quarts were $7.88.

Walmart is also carrying boxes of regular and wide mouth lids, and boxes of both sizes with bands and lids. I also saw a package of canning supplies - funnel and jar lifter. In addition, I saw two different brands of pectin for making jams and jellies, containers of pickling salt, and boxes of the white plastic lids.

Nearby was a 16 quart pressure canner made by Presto.

Just a note for those who may have found a Presto pressure canner at a garage sale this spring: Do spend money to replace the rubber ring, and the pop-up part. You'll thank me for it when the lid seals correctly when you're pressure canning. Just find the model number on the canner and do a search online. Amazon is a possible resource for the newer Presto models. For older one like mine, I had no problem finding the parts at a distributor. The ring was sold separately and the pop-up part came as part of a set.