Waste Not, Want Not

I have a toddler leaning on me and sleeping. So since I'm stuck here (because I don't move sleeping children,) it is as good a time as any to write a blog post. I now have two kids not feeling well, and I'm in denial about that tickle in my throat. There is too much to do! As a friend of mine recently pointed out, I also seem to have developed a late night canning habit...

These are the last of the tomatoes from my garden. My mother-in-law picked them while she was here because I was sort of afraid of the spider army guarding them... The spiders are really all over the place now that Fall has come back to the PNW and they really creep me out. I plan to make the greenies into Green Tomato Chutney. I tried it at Shelly's place (aka Tipsy Acres) last year and it was amazing - sweet, spicy and delicious! The perfect sort of thing to serve on a cracker along with some brie and a glass of wine.
Earlier this summer I joined a group of gleaners, and this has opened to door to large quantities of over-ripe fruit. Gleaners are food rescuers... They do a service for the community by reducing waste and in exchange can take a share of the gleaned items. We develop relationships with businesses who regularly throw away food and other goods, and rescue them before they go in the trash or in the compost bins. I signed up because our local group makes a trip out to PCC - a Seattle-based organic food co-op. It wouldn't be practical or economical for me to drive to this store otherwise. It is too far away from home and their prices are higher than I am able or willing to pay for produce. By becoming a gleaner, I put in about 8-12 hours of volunteer work a month... and receive a decent amount of organic produce in return. Granted, most of the fruit or veg is on the verge of going bad. It needs to be eaten or prepared quickly and efficiently so it doesn't go to waste. Other gleaned items that are available to our group include day-old bread (Panera), clothing, books, gluten-free bakery items, and pizza. The PCC run requres a whole afternoon and some heavy lifting, but overall I find it to be a very good gig. And every once in awhile there is an abundance of something like mushy apricots and I'm staying up until 3am making jam. In my last run there were many over-ripe tomatoes.

A few things I learned while canning tomatoes... 1. Quart-size jars are a bit cumbersome to handle when they are full. 2. Ripe, peeled tomatoes are slimy and slippery! 3. It takes a long time to process tomatoes. This isn't the sort of activity that can wait until after the kids go to bed. Thank goodness I started these that afternoon otherwise I would have been up all night.