We've Got the Beets!

We have way too many beets. They've begun to take over the fridge. I've been putting them aside thinking I'll can them when I have enough to make it worthwhile. Clearly, when all three drawers in your fridge are filled to the point of exploding, the time has come.

I've really enjoyed getting back to canning. I feel that it is such a worthwhile use of my time and energy. The sunny days of CSA pickups are beginning to dwindle. In the cold of the winter it will be so comforting, and economical, to dip into my cupboard of home canned foods.

After reading several bulk cooking books a while back, I've begun to embrace the logic of keeping the liquid content of frozen foods (usually water or broth) low. I've thought about it and carried it one step further. In the past, I would take the apple butter I'm working on, make it into apple muffins and then freeze the apple muffins. Well the apple muffins take up a lot more freezer space than the cup of apple butter I used in them. If I froze just the apple butter to use later wouldn't that be a better use of my freezer space?

I think constantly questioning why we do things a certain way is really helpful in breaking out of our wasteful ruts. Speaking of this, my daughters are both going to the homecoming dance this year. When we went to homecoming it was not a very dressy thing. Now, I'm told (or is it, now that I'm old?), it requires a rather fancy dress. Tasha went "shopping" in her aunt's closet of dresses that have been worn exactly once. She came up with a beautiful black dress. Leen's going shopping in the same closet today. I love that they both chose to do this without any prompting from me.