Weekend food prep

Today was Sunday so I did some food prep for the week.  I got a bunch of groceries at the store:  potatoes, butternut squash, apples, veggies, non-dairy milks, juice (for housemate), oranges, frozen fruit, herbs, rice, etc.  During the week, I stop at the store on my bus ride home, so don't want to carry too much heavy stuff then.

Then I made a double batch of Jeff Novick (JN) basic burgers.  I divided the mixture into two, and added different spices to them.  I seasoned one half with (if I remember correctly) thyme, basil, oregano, and onion powder.  The other was sausage seasoning!   JN gives a recipe for this in his burgers DVD.  It's sage, thyme, savory, garlic powder, black pepper, and fennel seeds.  I think JN's burger method is sheer genius.  They are easy to make, are healthy and low-fat and high nutrition, taste good (maybe a little bland if you don't add enough seasonings), and the genius is in the variety:  regular, mexican, curry, falafel, italian (meatballs), southwest, kasha, and breakfast patties.  It's the breakfast patties I'm after with the sausage seasoning.  I'm going to eat them with my hash browns--starting tomorrow morning!  I made smaller versions for the morning "sausage".

Then we had a cookout.

Then during the rather painful Packer game, I harvested basil and kale from the garden.  Every month or so, I cut down most of the basil plant, pick off the leaves and freeze them.  That's about how often I mow down the kale too.  I don't know how much kale I harvested, several lbs.  After stripping the leaves, I stuffed half of it into a large ziplock bag to freeze.  The other half I cooked up in two large pressure cookers with onion and mushrooms.  After cooking and cooling I put them in bowls to freeze--easy to take out for a daily portion of greens.  Next weekend I'll harvest the collard greens.

Housemate is the tomato harvester.  She has canned 92 pints in the last month!  One reason I haven't eaten too many tomato dishes lately is that I'm saving them for later in the Fall after the fresh tomatoes are gone.  We eat lots of fresh tomatoes on salads and burgers and just on their own sliced.   It will be a treat when they are gone to start eating tomato-based cooked dishes using the cans.

This morning I made a batch of soy yogurt.  That will be ready in about an hour.  That is super easy to do, takes a few minutes in the morning to prep, and a few minutes 12 hours later to turn off the heater, put on the lids and store them in the fridge.

Finally, I cooked up some rice, and soaked beans to cook tomorrow morning.    I make these in fairly small batches because I prefer to make them every 3 days or so, and not have them sitting around longer than that.