Busy Days

Days have been filled to overflowing here lately. Hence, my poorly updated blog.

I have zucchini coming out my ears, so I have been canning and freezing it. I have shredded, sliced and cubed zucchini in the freezer and canned squash as well as another experiment: pineapple zucchini. I got these recipes in the comments section of this post. The zucchini crisp listed below is pretty good I think. We've had it twice now. I just canned pineapple zucchini. The person who gave the recipe said that you can't tell the difference between this and regular crushed pineapple in recipes. We'll see, but my daughter licked the pot after it simmered and she said it tasted like pineapple. (Mom, can you email me your pineapple bar recipe??)

Zucchini Crisp My Way
Topping:
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
5 oz. (5/8 cup) butter or margarine

Filling:6 to 8 cups zucchini, peeled and cubed
2/3 cup lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan. Prepare the pastry topping by combining the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Cut in the butter or margarine until crumbly. Set aside.

In a medium-sized pot, cook the zucchini in lemon juice until tender, about 10 minutes. Add the sugar, nutmeg and the teaspoon of cinnamon. Simmer for about a minute then add a half cup of the saved pastry topping. Simmer until this thickens stirring constantly. Let cool a bit. Pour the zucchini mixture into the baking dish. Sprinkle the topping over the zucchini. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Zucchini Pineapple
1 gallon ground zucchini, green or yellow
1 1/2 cups lemon juice
2 1/2 cups sugar
46 ounce can unsweetened pineapple juice
2 tsp. pineapple extract

Mix together all ingredients except extract; simmer 20 minutes. Add extract and stir well. Fill hot jars according to manufacturer's directions. Process in hot water bath 20 minutes. Makes 9 pints.

My husband graciously helped me can 38 quarts of peaches and I have canned and froze green beans and broccoli. The tomatoes have started ripening. I can hardly wait to dehydrate some of the roma's for sun-dried tomatoes. I have some scrumptious recipes that call for them.

I'm getting revved up to have a regular school schedule. We've been trying to establish a routine, so within a couple weeks we'll be ready for how the next year will go. My struggle at this time is figuring out how to do school with a 20 month old wanting to destroy the house. I'm toying with alternative schedules, and trying to have multiple containers with activities to occupy his time. I've gotten some good ideas here, here and here.

In addition to a school schedule, we've been desperately trying to get into a chore schedule. My older two have their list of chores and are expected to know their chores and do them fairly independently. My "house destroyer" helps me with my chore list. He adores filling the washer and dryer and helping carry folded clothes to various rooms with me. Now that we've been doing it for a month or so, it's finally becoming more tolerable. Less-thandesirablee attitudes have surfaced more than once in the children and adults in this house. It's amazing how "work" brings it up from the depths of the Adamic nature. I appreciated what a friend told me that she tells her children, "Work is a major part of life. It would be better if you decided that you were going to like it. Otherwise life is going to be quite miserable for you."

Also, our farmette has started. We added on a lean-to on our shop for a "barn" this spring. We are now proud owners of 6 rabbits and 4 kittens. We got two male and two female kittens, so hopefully we can get some to stick around. We were proud to see that one of the females got a mouse already today. That's their job. They have to earn their keep. Talk is that we may get a pig next spring. I'm not sure what to think about that yet, but the bacon sounds good.

Off to pick more zucchini...