Busy Processing Food From the Garden

This week I pulled all my bok choy, chopped the stems, and pickled them in a sweet brine. Then I canned them for future use on top of salads and cooked greens that are finely shredded and steamed - kale, chard, spinach, sorrel, and red turnip. The brine with the bok choy partners beautifully with bitter greens. I had dried cranberries, so added those, too.
I've started to make watermelon pickles - this is a good way to use every part of the watermelon (green skin removed). Photo, flickr - Rebecca.

Some of my turnips and rutabagas had grown long stalks - in the past I composted these - but this year I noticed how flavorful they are when boiled in a stew with other vegetables in turkey broth. So, I canned four quarts of these too - to add filler to casseroles and soup.
After using the turkey broth in my canning I prepared broccoli-turkey alfredo, (photo credit) with egg noodles, to put that turkey to good use.

Spent five hours making Ragu Napolitano, simmering the rich broth for pasta. (photo, thanks to Dina) The various cuts of meat are simmered a long time in the ragu until bubbles plop-plop, then removed to enjoy separately from the pasta and ragu. Dina says,

"To those who are uninitiated you may ask why is it such a labour of love? It's all about the meat, as many kinds of meat as you can cram in there. That is what gives the sauce its flavor and of course, in today's world what we would call a one-pot meal. Starting with the necessary meatballs and sausage it gets more elaborate and time consuming from there. I add braciole which is round steak stuffed with pesto, pine nuts and parmesan cheese. Many people also add short ribs, veal shanks, boar shanks, pork loin you name it....but you must have the meatballs and sausage. These meats take a long time to cook and fall off the bone, add even more time if you are cooking it from fresh tomatoes." She said, if you ever prepare ragu napolitano you will never use sauce again, and you'll prepare extra for the freezer - she is right, and I did!

I also used gar

den vegetables and an assortment of colored young onions for my 'tarka dhal', a cornmeal crepe fried with all the vegetables on the bottom. The crepe is served with a thick chunky puree of vegetables, made with beans and lentils, and seasoned with garam masala, dried chilies, garlic, and Ras El Hanout.

Lastly, I made orange marmalade - storebought is too expensive, and store-bought jams have high-fructose corn syrup.