The fall equinox hits this Saturday, September 23rd and I’ve been hard at work preserving all we can from our garden and orchard. So far this list has included: pickled jalapenos, corn relish, chilli sauce, tomato sauce, apple cider vinegar, and freezing tomatoes, green beans and swiss chard. We still have to harvest and cure our herbs and pot plants; I’m planning on making and canning some apple sauce, and we have friends and family coming up the following weekend to press our apples and make hard cider. Living off of our land this summer has been one thing, but to conserve our food for the winter months is the most fulfilling labor that I didn’t know was missing from my life - It feels spiritual, ancestral, and connected to the cycles of time. I’m finding my groove deeply in this new version of life and the season that approaches!
Poetry aside, I’ve also been on a bit of a cleaning/tidying/organizing tip to prepare our home for spending most of our time indoors after a summer of outdoor living. We have some small projects around the house that are starting to feel more crucial, like ordering some extra shelving for our kitchen cabinets, painting our worn down kitchen table, figuring out some privacy elements for our ground floor bedroom and bathroom windows, and organizing the dreaded miscellaneous boxes that we shoved in the basement. While some of these tasks are less than attractive, I do love a good kitchen overhaul which is what I spent my time doing this past weekend. Wiping inside every drawer and shelf, cleaning out the fridge and freezer, reorganizing the pantry. While I was arranging my spice drawer, I got quite excited about all of the upcoming opportunities to use them in the cooler weather. My spring/summer cooking is fresh herb focused, while fall and winter lends itself to the dry spices that warm us from the inside. I thought it would be helpful to give you a run down on the basic spices that everyone should have in their kitchen, their medicinal and nutritional properties (they are the original superfoods IMO), and how I like to use them.
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