The world of blanks
We've grown a ton of zucchini this year, but the rain has negatively impacted the quality of the fruit. Usually, the zucchini stored well in the apartment, in a cool place in the hallway, all winter long, and we made pancakes with them and stewed them with vegetables. But now, in early November, the zucchini are spoiling, becoming soft and rotting. So we have to process them. We make zucchini caviar. I... 
We've harvested our cabbage. It's been bountiful this year, with large, clean heads. Despite the rainy summer, the heads haven't cracked. We wrapped most of the harvest in newspaper, taped it up, and stored it in the cellar. Most of the cabbage is the Zimovka and Kolobok varieties. We gave some to friends for pickling. We're planting the Podarok, Belorusskaya, and hybrid varieties for pickling. 
Good afternoon. Today I'll tell you how I prepare medicinal herbs, specifically horse chestnut. Relatives from Siberia sometimes ask me to send them medicinal plants that grow here in southern Russia. One of them is horse chestnut. This large tree, up to 25-30 meters tall, blooms in May with beautiful large (about 30 cm) white-pink inflorescences—candle-shaped flowers. This tree, apparently,... 
Every year, when the pumpkins ripen, I make a delicious treat from this healthy vegetable—candied peel. They're easy to make, and they're delicious and flavorful. These natural, homemade candied peels are much healthier than the brightly colored ones you can buy at the store or market, which are tinted with dyes—but you never know whether they're food-grade or chemical. The recipe for candied peel is very simple. You'll need the following ingredients: pumpkin—... 
Once the harvest is in, the question arises of how to preserve fruits, berries, and vegetables for longer. Many vegetables keep well in the cellar—potatoes, root vegetables like carrots, beets, radishes, and turnips. Storing them is no problem—they last until the next harvest. Cabbage is also easy to preserve; you can ferment it or pickle it. Our cabbage keeps well in the cellar. In the fall, we wrap it in tight, sturdy... 
We made pumpkin juice with oranges for the winter. The juice turned out delicious. The pumpkin was large, so there was half a pumpkin left over, which needed to be processed as well. I decided to make pumpkin nectar with apples. We bought pumpkin nectar in the winter and really liked it. It came in bottles like these. The label lists the ingredients as pumpkin puree nectar, sugar, citric acid, and water. I decided to give it a try... 
We're busy preparing things every day. It's tomato season, and the harvest is excellent. We're preparing tomatoes for the winter using various recipes. We're making juice, making a spicy condiment called "Eye-Crusher," and I'm planning on making ketchup in the next few days. And we've completely forgotten about apples. We brought a bucket of Borovinka apples from the dacha over the weekend. I washed some of them and placed them in a vase, and covered the rest with a plastic bag and... 
The pumpkin is ripening on time. We'll make some juice from it. Pumpkin is rich in vitamins, ascorbic acid, and carotene. We'll drink it for lunch, boosting our immunity! We've harvested a small pumpkin crop. Some are still in the garden; they haven't turned yellow, they're still green. We'll save a few for the winter. We'll cook millet and rice porridge with pumpkin, and make delicious, juicy manti with meat... 
Everyone's familiar with the spice called paprika. But what is it, and what is it made of? It turns out it's an overseas name for a mildly hot red capsicum. The name "bell pepper" was given later, when Bulgarian breeders began actively cultivating this crop and developed new varieties with sweeter, thicker-walled fruits. So, we can easily make this seasoning for the winter... 
I can't imagine myself living in an apartment, even though most of my friends and acquaintances live in high-rise buildings and don't stock up on winter supplies at all. "Why bother if you can buy everything?" they say. But for us, winter preparation is apparently in our DNA. With the arrival of autumn, we begin cleaning up the garden and vegetable patch, while simultaneously gathering herbs, leaves, fruits, and berries—...