Squirreling

Becky, my friend and neighbor, has a prolifically bountiful apple tree in her front year. She has just begun to pick them, although they're a little too green for good eating. So when she gave me a bag of her apples, I made apple sauce with them.

I leave the skins on, steam the cored pieces for 10 minutes in my instant pot, and then liquidize the mush with a good dollop of blue agave syrup.

My favorite part is printing out and applying the labels. When I'm done, I feel like a squirrel, storing up my acorns for the winter.

In the last month, I've made pesto from the basil we grew this summer, all nicely decanted into labeled plastic pots, cored and frozen plums from our back yard, as well as cherries from the two trees in our front yard..

The challenge for me is using the food I've processed. I'm a saver by nature so I love stacking up the containers in the freezer. I'm not so good at fishing them out and eating them. But frozen food is only good for about a year in my freezer, so there's no point hoarding it. It just goes off.

My resolution this year is to eat all the contents of the plastic containers before I start the process again next year.