Some of you may not know, our brother Benjamin is ministering as an intern for Vision Forum Ministries in San Antonio, TX for 6 months. Here he is pictured with the two other interns on their first day.
While we are delighted at this opportunity for Benjamin to serve alongside godly men for a ministry that has blessed us in so many ways, we sorely miss him.
One specific downside to his being gone was a temporary apathy towards food. Ben was one of the most appreciative persons in our family when it came to food and his daily encouragement provided the inspiration we didn't even realize we were getting... till now. A reminder to be always thankful!
In spite of our lack of posts on the subject, we have still been eating... :o)
and putting away fresh food in anticipation of winter cold.
A particular Lenz favorite is Pesto:
Our basil was wonderfully productive this year. Just 15 plants yielded several bushels!
We process 2 cups of basil, 1 cup walnuts and 4 cloves garlic, and then add 1 cup olive oil in a slow steady stream. Add 1 1/3 cups of fresh grated parmesan cheese, 1 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper and process. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1/4 cup hot water and process briefly again.
You can freeze this for basil pesto all winter:
Or eat it fresh mixed with 2 lbs. of noodles. We recently found some whole wheat spaghetti noodles made with just water and whole wheat. I thought they were delicious. I expect we'll be making our own noodles eventually.
Another unexpected blessing this year...
We have several apple trees on our farm but unfortunately we had a poor yield this year due to a late frost. The apples we harvested from our trees were all promptly turned into pies and crisps or eaten fresh.
Our family loves applesauce; we spread it on our pancakes and it features in many of our cakes and sauces adding sweetness and zest without processed sugar. You can imagine we were thrilled when Sam brought 6 bushels of Haralson "thirds" home from the local orchard!
I think I underestimated my project time a bit. Sam came to my rescue at midnight to help run the last few apples through the Squeezo, which, by the way, is a marvelous machine. We simply cut the washed apples in half, boiled them in 1/2 cup water for 20 minutes and run them through the sieve extricating the seeds and peels and yielding ready to process sauce.
The two bushels we didn't process should keep well in the root cellar for at least 3 months.
I am not picturing the 75 quarts of tomatoes and V8 so you'll have to take my word for it.
Enjoy the excitement and joy of this changing time of year, celebrating the provision of our Creator in every season.
3 comments:
Wow! 75 Quarts!!! We processed 100 lbs of tomatoes to make 14 quarts of spaghetti sauce. We still need to can our apples, but also in search of a large stainless pot. Love your pictures. It helps to get us motivated! Thanks for the Basil recipe. That has always scared me to try; but next year, it will be worth it!
Thank you for 'sharing' Ben with us, Lenz Family! He, and his co-interns, came over to our home on Saturday and helped our family with multiple projects. They were a tremendous blessing! We did our best to feed them well ;)
A few years ago, my sister Callan and I helped some friends can apples....it was so much fun! It took us two days to finish the canning - I think we did 5-6 bushels!!!
Delaney Seargeant
Delaney,
Ben told us he enjoyed Saturday with your family and your food was "really good"! :)
Thank you for your hospitality!
Aubrey for the Lenz Family
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