Tears In the Kitchen

 After harvesting all of the onions in the garden, we brought them inside - out of the hot humid weather where they'd surely be rotten by now.  The sit in our "onion curing room" which doubles as our parlor when we don't have a tarp on the floor and a baker's rack full of onions sitting in the middle of it.  The ceiling fan overhead is on high and has been circulating air for about a month now. We've been quite fortunate to not lose a single onion.  Oh, one or two has begun to get a little soft, but if you peel off the outer layer, everything beneath it is fine.

On Saturday, it was a rainy day and we figured it would be beneficial to begin processing some of the onions.  With so many to choose from, we set our criterion for selecting the first onions to process.  We decided we would begin with choosing any that had the beginnings of a soft spot.  We found only two.  Then we selected all the small onions.  They were put into baskets and brought to the kitchen.

The first step in processing is to pull off the loose skin.  Then cut off the neck and the roots.  Then slice in half and remove the outer, papery skin.  Here's what you're left with.  The other thing that you must contend with is tears.

Finally, we chop them up into chunks.  These chunks will be perfect for cooking with.  We use an old chopper that has seen better days, but it still works like a charm.  I would love to know how many pounds of onions, peppers, and potatoes over the years it has cubed.  It's quite loud when you slam down the top.  Tricia wears ear plugs while doing it.

Just getting started, but we have a long way to go.

After working for a bit and putting a bunch of onion chunks in a big plastic bag for freezing, we decided to take a break for a week or two.  There's no rush for doing this as long as the onions cure and hold well.  Truth is, we are planning to take the bull to the slaughterhouse this summer.  It would be a doggone shame to have the deep freeze full of onions when it could be storing beef.

Just this little bit of chopping yielded a whopping 17 1/4 pounds of chopped onions.  Imagine how much time we've saved on the back side.  No more prepping and chopping onions and crying while you are cooking.  We've taken care of those tasks on the frontside.

Look at the onion curing room following chopping up 17 1/4 pounds of onions.  We didn't even put a dent in the onion inventory.

That's okay, we use a lot of onions in our kitchen.  The only slight rush to clearing this area is that it won't be too terribly long before we will be harvesting garlic and we'll need this area for curing garlic here.