My friend told me shes getting stuff from the Grocery Outlet for her chickens. But they are giving her some pretty good stuff. Its way more than she can use tho. So she wanted to know if when she got the stuff would I want to come get some. I said yes but really didn't know if I would take it or not. So today she went and called me to come get stuff.
When I got there she had her pickup truck backed up to where the chickens were. I guess whatever she didn't want, she would feed them with. There were several boxes. Most looked pretty tired but was still usable. So we sorted thru what we could use and tossed the rest in the box for the chickens. There was a big box of cantaloupes but they were really not worth it , same with a bag of potatoes.
The my friend was tossing stuff into the chickens pen. One time she tossed a coconut and OMG it hit one of the girls. We thought at first she was hurt bad.....she walked funny and hardly at all and her wings were out and weird looking. My friend ran to see if shes ok saying omg Ill never do that again. By the time she got to her she was walking fine and on the other side of the pen so she must have just got knocked silly for a moment.
But they tossed more stuff in and lots of corn too. Omg the girls were having a party. I wished I had my camera with me then cuz it was so funny. They were so excited and running around tasting things. Before I left she let them out to run around a bit and she said boy were they full, they ate alot. It was fun to see tho since I never grew up around that kind of thing.
But I got several bunches of asparagus that were a little worn but still usable. We got tons of small oranges and lots of lemons and limes. I got several bunches of cilantro, some nice tomatoes, some zucchini, a few jalapeños too. Also got one jicama, that's all I took since I don't eat it much. And we got one usable coconut that has no milk but tastes good. So tomorrow I'm going to grate it and put it in the dehydrator.
While I was there we started doing the produce. I had all I wanted in my car. But there were tons of limes and she didn't want them all. So while I juiced all the lemons and limes, she cleaned the yellow squash, zucchini and her asparagus.
I got one quart of lime juice which I'm going to freeze in ice cube trays to use for cooking. Ill do the same with my lemons here tomorrow. I did her lemons and limes too. I told her how to snap the asparagus stems so she could blanch them. She cleaned the squash and froze that too. It was a nice afternoon tho of yakking and learning. And for helping her I got spoiled.....she gave me a big bag of frozen razor clams to make chowder with. I cant wait for the cold weather, those are great clams to use.
And so now I decided to cut up and save what I could of the asparagus. There was quite a bit so I decided since they were free, I'd pickle them. And so I searched online for ideas and ended up with my own recipe. They are in the canner right now. Ill let them mellow for a few weeks then try them. If they are good I'll post the recipe.
I'm washing the cilantro right now. I'm going to save what I can and run it in the food processor with some olive oil, then freeze it in small freezer containers. This way I can just scoop some out when I'm making my Mexican stuff.
Tomorrow Ill worry about the rest. Ill juice the rest and freeze it. Ill zest the small oranges too. My hands are pruney today so I don't want to put them in the water anymore. We are supposed to get more on Thurs. This might get to be quite a treasure hunt every week lol.
And so while I normally wouldn't do this sort of thing, money is getting tight and free is good. Now I think I understand why gramma did this.
OMG! I would be in dog food heaven... well that would be until I got all the stuff home and had to turn it into slop. But this is just the type of stuff I feed Teddy every night.
ReplyDeleteFor the asparagus, also consider steaming and then mixing up eggs, cheese, milk, etc. with them and freezing. Quiche in advance!
Sounds like a fun day and a great haul!
Alex Im finding that the hard part is the processing. I made the pickled asparagus and was so tired from the day. I decided to soak the cilantro in some water cuz some was icky. But I was too tired that nite to do more after making dinner too. So I left it overnite, big mistake. I could barely save any, so most got tossed. Good thing it was free. But I grated the coconut and decided just to freeze it since I never have fresh around when you need it. And I froze the jalapenos too. Then I cleaned the zucchini and decided to shred it instead to freeze for zucchini bread later. But there really wasnt alot so I measured it and found out its just enough for one recipe. And so I decided to bake lol and now two loaves of zucchini bread are on the counter. I did manage to separate all the citrus but I was doing wash too and cleaning up the mess in my kitchen. I ended up defrosting some homemade minestrone for dinner cuz I was just wiped out. It wouldnt be so bad but I have a bad back and all this .....well I was in a lot of pain too. And today I have to go pick up the stuff for her cuz she wont be around. Here I am not done with the last batch and more is coming. I am not sure I can keep up with this.
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