Homage To My Mama - My take on what she feeds me

 Day 34 Plant Based Paleo

I am a first generation American born Macedonian girl.  My parents grew up in Macedonia where they learned the arts of gardening and canning.  They carried these skills with them to America.  As a kid, I remember hating having to water the garden every night. My mom would tie a knit gardening glove or a sock to the end of the hose and I had to use this invention to water the garden with.  The garden consisted of millions upon millions of raised dirt rows, each of which had to be watered. (ok...it seemed this way as a kid but in reality it was a normal backyard sized garden)  Then I had to drag the hose allllll the way to the garden and place the glove at the end of each row and wait and wait and then wait some more for the water to get all the way to the end.  Turns out, it was well worth it.  Mid summer, the garden delivered my favorite salad, the village salad.  Fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers still warm from the sunshine.  We would roughly chop them up, drizzle some oil, a little salt & pepper then feast! So simple, yet amazing.

I also remember hating the fall because it meant all the women in my family would come over and fire roast bushels beyond bushels of peppers and tomatoes and whatever else that grew from that never ending garden my sister and I had to water every night....Then it got worse, I got to sit on a little wooden stool with a huge bucket between my legs and peel the skin from each and every item that came off that fire....ugh 

Now that I have accrued a few more years on my life, I can appreciate all of the efforts my mother made to create fabulous goods from the fruits of her labor.  Macedonian Ajvar is a spread created from the roasted red pepper, tomato and eggplant.  After everything was peeled, it was then combined and slow cooked for hours and then canned to enjoy throughout the winter.  Delicious spread on pretty much anything...mmm

The Kalamata Olive....I love her in her natural form but then my Mama does something else with her....

She dusts the olives with a crushed red pepper seasoning that just makes the olive insane.  It adds a little crunch and a little kick...I can't stop eating these. Seriously...