Wow, you’d think that with a week between updates, I’ve been slacking or something! Well, maybe a little bit on Saturday. Ya see, it was my 40th birthday, and so I was indulged that day – George took me up to a estate/barn sale, and a couple of garage sales, and you can read about those adventures on my other blog, Kitschicat’s Den.
Another stop we made was at a farmer’s stand, where, amongst other things, we bought two half bushels of tomatoes – Romas and slicers, and wow, has it been a busy few days with canning ever since. See, our tomato crop here at home has been pretty minimal this year, but we still wanted sauce and other goodies. The stand we went to had beautiful tomatoes for a very reasonable price, so we supplemented what we had here at home with those.
Sunday, we made salsa – tomatoes, onions, sweet pepper, hot pepper, garlic, and artichoke hearts. It was my first time doing it, and while the flavor is pretty good, I’m a bit disappointed in the liquidity of the stuff, if I’m honest. I should have drained the tomatoes better. Nevertheless, I’ve already made it through a pint and a half of the stuff, so it’s not terrible. We made 20 pints total.
Monday was pasta sauce day, and yielded only 7 quarts, much less than last year. But the sauce is also better than 2009’s freshman class, so, there is that. I know that next time I make sauce, get an entire bushel of Romas! I used fresh basil, both from my outdoor plants, as well as the hydroponic ones George is growing in our basement. I had a little bit left over that wouldn’t fit in a jar, so it was kept in plastic in the fridge, and I used it on some vermicelli yesterday for lunch. It was delicious!
Yesterday, I used up some remaining tomatoes to make homemade ketchup – just over 2 pints of the stuff. I didn’t formally can those, it just didn’t seem worth it. One jar is in the fridge, and the other in the freezer. It’s quite good, and I will be refining the recipe to try again in the future, with a greater amount of tomatoes, in order to make it worth the effort.
Our very kind neighbor gifted me withe a lot of canning jars – both she and a friend of hers have gotten out of canning, and so I’m receiving the bounty! I’m really grateful for it, as I’m always running out of jars. You can see some of those empties in the background.
It’s been really windy the past couple of days – autumn has definitely made its presence known already. We wanted to go to our favorite cider mill on Saturday (Hy’s in Romeo), but they were not yet open. We checked out one closer to home, Diehl’s in Holly, and their cider, while a different style than Hy’s, is quite good. We were just really disappointed because they did not have donuts available, and that’s such an essential part of the experience! Oh well, I’m sure there will be plenty of those consumed over the next couple of months.
Well, a good part of my morning has been spent composing here in front of the computer, and I’m getting a bit peckish. In fact, I think there’s some salsa calling my name…
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