Processing the Harvest

It never fails that when my time is running short the garden produces a huge amount. After doing so much work to build this garden, plant it and nurture the plants I hate to let any of the harvest go to waste. So today I made two quarts of pesto. I still have a huge amount of basil, but I only had so much Parmesan and pine nuts. I hope my plants last two more weeks.

Then I replenished my Refrigerator Pickles. Russ and I have discovered the love of having a few slices of pickles with every dinner. The sourness helps cut any other rich food we might have on our plates.

The biggest thing I had to make today was something with eggplants. I needed to come up with an item that could be frozen since we don’t have anytime to eat all this eggplant. I didn’t want to make something as fattening as eggplant Parmesan. Most eggplant dishes don’t freeze well. I eventually found a vegan dish that was called eggplant meatballs. I found that a misnomer, since there is no meat in the balls.

I made three dozen big balls and now they are in the freezer. Now that Russ has given up meat I hope he likes these. It will bring him right back to those Fridays when we were engaged. He ate frozen meatballs after he had had driven from NJ to my house in DC after work and I would already be asleep. At least now he has homemade pesto to go on the “meatballs” with a side of pickles.