Last weekend, Tool Lady and I attended our very first Harvest Swap! It was based on the framework of the Food Swap Network and was hosted by the Radical Homemakers of New Mexico (Erin and Kyce)!
Although there were instructions given, neither of us had ever attended anything like this before so we really didn’t know what to bring or how to package it all, so we kept it simple…Jars labelled with permanent marker 😉
Here’s what we brought:
- 7 pounds of cherry tomatoes
- 2 quarts of unsweetened apple sauce
- 1 pint of pickle chips
- 1 half pint of pickled jalapenos
- 2 half pints of lemon cuke relish
- 3/4 pint of hot pepper tomatillo salsa
- 1 half pint of sweet pepper jam
- 3 pints of pickled cherry tomatoes
- 1 pint of lemon cuke pickles
- 1 pint of honey lemon apple jam
- 1 pint of apple butter
- 2 half pints of vanilla rhubarb jam
- 1 pint of apple wedges in cinnamon red hot syrup
And here’s what we came home with…
- A bag of frozen apricots
- Roasted garlic, whole grain mustard
- Smokey hot raspberry jam
- Dill (dried)
- A beautiful whole wheat sourdough starter
- Pesto
- Apple chutney
- Green ketchup
- Peach salsa
- Grape jelly
- Plum jelly X 2
- Green tomato jam
- A quart of whole tomatoes
- Peach BBQ sauce
- A bag of apple nut bars
- A jar of fermented yumminess
- A mystery jam/some sort of fruit butter
- (and 1 pound of our tomatoes & 1 quart of our apple sauce…everyone has tomatoes and apples this year, so I’m surprised we got rid of as much as we actually did)
Not only was it fun to see a few familiar faces, it was wonderful to meet some new, like-minded people! What was even better, though, was all of the absolutely amazing foods everyone created! Gorgeous, tasty, creative, simple…absolutely amazing!
I do hope our hostesses will make this an annual affair! After looking at everyone’s bounty, and after tasting some truly amazing items, not only do we want to get out there again, but man…we’ve got to up our game! 😉
xoxo,
M
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What a cool idea! I have never heard of this. I wonder if they do it around here. I’d love to trade some of my lemon balm jelly and/or pear butter for canned tomatoes and/or dilly green beans. (Neither of those did well for me this year.)
That’s the beauty of it…everyone gets to try something new or trade for something they don’t have 🙂 everyone wins!
Now that is so fascinating!! I just learned something new tonight. I love that idea. This gives me incentive to creat more stuff and either find one here or eventually start one. Awesome!
There are several variations of the food swap…check them out and see if anyone is doing it in your area…if not, you should totally start one!!!
They have regular food swaps here too but for some reason I’ve never attended. After reading this I am motivated to though – that is a fabulous haul!
It was a lot of fun! Definitely check one out!!!