I cooked up the bean that I grew in my garden today. Jon and I had them for lunch with some quinoa.
My friend Emily gave me a simple recipe of simmering the beans with a clove of garlic, a bay leaf, and a hunk of Romano cheese. It adds just the right amount of flavor to the beans without taking away from them.
I grew a mix of three different kinds of beans, thanks to Marsha who sent the seeds to me. Not that I remember what kind they are now. But I did appreciate having something to eat this time of year that I grew in the garden.
Eating from my garden makes me appreciate farmers in a way I never did before. I can’t imagine having to grow enough food to keep us eating through the winter. I think of all the shelves in the pantry in our basement that would have to be filled. There are bars on the two small windows in the pantry, which speaks to just how precious all those canned fruits and vegetables were.
The door leading to the pantry in our basement. Now the only things on the shelves are my dahlia bulbs.
We had a root cellar that held all the home canned goods. I grew up canning and gardening with my mom, and also at my Uncle Steve’s house. We grew a lot of vegetables and berries and the canned food always got us through those cold Wisconsin winters. My favorite was making jam from all the different berries and from the peaches on my uncles peach tree.
I envy you that you know how to do that Josie. It’s not something that was even imaginable where I grew up. It’s interesting how it remained a way of life in some places and was lost in others. I’m thinking that proximity to cities had something to do with it.