The Potager Provides

This should more appropriately have been a New Year’s Day post, but as usual, the thought didn’t occur to me until today!  New Year’s Day is the proper time for making resolutions, after all.  Those who know me well know that I journal every day, sometimes just a few lines, sometimes pages.  If nothing else, I log the weather as well as any major tasks done, books read, and usually what we made for dinner, our “big” meal of the day. Sometimes I add a major news headline, or the Dow closing, if the Colts or IU won (wouldn’t that be a treat!) or if any of the kids called to visit.  During gardening season, the posts are always longer, including plantings, accomplishments, harvests, etc.

As I was reading over the few 2017 entries to date, a “light bulb” moment flashed!  Every dinner so far had featured one or more ingredients from my bountiful potager!  “Not bad for a first year garden,” I thought, followed by, “I wonder if I can do it every dinner?”  I think I can; I think I can!  “Because I canned!”  Had I thought of it earlier, this post would have contained pretty photos of the dishes we made.  Since I didn’t you’ll just have to use your imagination.  Trust me, they were all delicious, and not even leftovers remain to be captured by the camera!

1st:  David had a big Chili Day with his flying club, and I had a cold, but I made a sandwich with my home-canned Bread & Butter pickles.  2nd:  Roast beef sandwiches with our own pickles and onions.  3rd:  Beef stroganoff, using my parsley, onions, peppers, a pinch of hot pepper, garlic.  4th:  Chinese Broccoli & Beef, with our own broccoli from the freezer, peppers, onions, garlic.  5th:  Beef Quesadillas, with red and green peppers, onions, garlic, and lettuce from the potager.  The lettuce is the last picking, stored in the fridge. (And that, thankfully, was the last of our New Year’s Eve roast beef!)  6th:  Lasagne, with our canned spaghetti sauce and dried oregano.

With all my canned goods, freezer filled, shelves of jars of dried herbs, and baskets of shallots, garlic, winter squash, and onions available, it should be do-able, if given enough thought. I know there are bloggers who grow ALL their own food, every day, so what I’m doing is no great accomplishment to them.  But, I’m happy with my commitment to grow more of what we eat and being more conscious of that effort.  This year it’s “something from the potager at every dinner.”  Who knows what it might expand to for next year!