September is when we are busy putting up lots of food for winter. This is a satisfying feeling, rather like graduation. The efforts expended in earlier months to feed ourselves prove fruitful.
Some end-of-season herbs, I dry, crumble, and store in jars. I particularly love lemon balm, mints, and red clover in teas. Anise hyssop is good, too. I also save and dry orange peel throughout the year (great in pea soup and teas). This year, I decided to dry nasturtium and mustard leaves, to enjoy their pungent flavors in winter onion dips and baked potatoes. (Nasturtium tastes like horseradish).
Other foods I can in mason jars, starting with vegetables. Last week, I canned about 15 quarts of kohlrabi, beets, cabbage, broccoli leaves, and mixed vegetable broth (from tough stalks). (Question: Does anyone really LIKE kohlrabi? It looks like an alien softball and the flavor is turnip-like, but it grows easily here.)
This week has been devoted to processing the rabbits, a time consuming, week-long endeavor for my husband and me. We raised 15 healthy Flemish giants this year. (An adult is bigger than a house cat). Six will go to a young mom in Willow who will return them (or six others, since 6 become 36 pretty quickly) to us in the spring. The other 9 will yield plenty of food this winter.
After what I hope has been a happy and healthy life for the rabbits, Bryan shoots them quickly with a .22. To skin them with a super sharp Cutco knife, he built a plastic, waist-high abattoir and pulls up a little bench. Saving the hides requires meticulous work, requiring about an hour per rabbit, so he harvests three in a morning. That is about all I can cook in a day, anyway, if I expect to accomplish anything else.