Garlic ‘n’ Horseradish
One of my Mennonite friends told me last week that her husband doesn’t like ANY of that yummy stuff like garlic, horseradish or spanakopita. We enjoy those things.
This wheelbarrow-full is the garlic harvest for 2006, aside from a few that I pulled and sold at last week’s Community Market. Gary is the real garlic boss, but today I got busy and brought it all in from the garden because he has been so busy. If the bulbs are left in the ground too long, they get “looser”, which doesn’t seem to affect anything but the appeal to consumers. We still had a few pounds of garlic from last summer, so I peeled every bulb, dehydrated the lot, and ground it up today in an ice crusher (they are like a bunch of rocks when dried before being made into garlic powder).
In case anyone wonders, I happen to think life is too short to make garlic braids for sale to the public; but perhaps I’m not patient enough. My first attempts at garlic braiding… have sucked.
Last week at the Market I sold all of the HORSERADISH that I had grated and bottled, 10 four ounce jars. All that is added is vinegar and salt (some recipes call for sugar, but I’ll let folks add it themselves if they wish). I had a few more pounds of horseradish root, so today I thought I’d do ONE LAST batch; I’ve dug all the horseradish that was visible, though I know it will be back with a vengeance next year. I don’t know if these roots were stronger because of sitting around all week or because of being bigger than most of the last batch, but I ended up totally gassing myself and wasn’t sure I could get finished. My eyes were so swollen and irritated that I couldn’t even open them for a few minutes; I went outside to recover several times and finally got this batch put into jars: about another dozen little ones plus a quart jar to keep in the fridge for bottling later. While I kept running in and out of the house, splashing water on my eyes in the bathroom, etc., I was worried that someone would come here to buy trees or pick up their dog. I’m sure they would’ve been patient with me, especially if they were horseradish fans!
We have had near-capacity occupancy in the kennels, including boarding cats on the porch in comfy airline crates. Most dogs really seem to like being with us, so they are easy to be with both night and day.
I’m off to play Literati (online Scrabble) in Yahoo! Games; I’ve been too drowsy for several nights and am anxious to get back at it.
Thank you for stopping buy to read my ramble.
~Ann
