Wool & Flax

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

What goes around comes back around....

My love of farm-fresh vegetables has definitely been passed down to me from my parents.  When I was in about 2nd or 3rd grade, we were lucky enough to have a garden at our apartment complex.  I'm sure you're picturing some kind of flower box contraption on our deck "filled" with 2 - 3 plants, but this was East Tennessee, and we had land.  It really amazes me once I think back to it, because it was such a unique situation, but behind the pool was a massive garden area, where many of the tenants could plant several rows of whatever they wanted.  We had about 5 -6 rows all total: 4 rows of green beans, plus okra, zucchini and yellow squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  I remember it all so vividly, mainly because we ate green beans, okra, squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers at almost every meal for an entire summer.  I always like to remind (i.e. give her a hard time) my mom that one night for dinner we had zucchini casserole, boiled squash, and zucchini bread.  I love the stuff, but that was a bit much!  My mom was warned that if she ever brought squash or cucumbers to church to give away, people would run in the other direction.  If you've ever seen how much one single squash or cucumber plant can produce, you'll understand. 



Though that was the only year we've ever had a garden, we've been lucky enough to find half-runner green beans every year.  My mom and I (and my dad, if we were lucky) would spend an entire weekend stringing, breaking, and then canning beans.  The process was long, tedious, and hot, but we were always so thankful to be eating green beans in December!  I have many memories of breaking green beans.  We broke beans outside, we broke them inside, we broke them on a car-ride from North Carolina to Northern KY, we broke beans while watching a horse auction at Keeneland, and I could go on.  I'm sure I would always complain, but I always did it.  It seemed to take a lifetime to get all those strings off those beans!



And that brings me up to the present.  The past 2 weeks in our CSA we've received green beans.  Luckily for me (and Keith) these are stringless beans, so it just requires breaking them.  I don't have the tools for canning, so I decided to freeze them instead, so that we can enjoy them in Winter.  I couldn't help but laugh as I stood there with my green beans, breaking them into the pot.  Can't wait until G$ is old enough to help his momma! :)

1 comment:

  1. Loved your post! I bet someone would gladly loan you a pressure canner so you could eat delicious beans in December. You can even can some tomatoes which would be absolutely delicious in chili, soup and spaghetti sauce. k

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