I have also been canning. and canning and canning. We had an early freeze this year so I spent an hour and a half outside in a snowstorm picking tomatoes and the rest of the garden produce. Luckily a friend came to help or it would have taken me all day. We picked 16 pumpkins, four watermelons, two cantaloupes and 430 tomatoes. Yes, you read that right. I have 430 tomatoes in various stages of ripeness on my kitchen table. Salsa anyone? I have already done two batches of salsa but neither of them really came out. One was too sweet (it also called for several of my cucumbers), the second called for over a cup of vinegar and that is all you can taste. Sooooo.......this next batch will use the second recipe but cut the vinegar wayyyyyy down.
I canned my peas and carrots together because I didn't have enough of either to bother canning. I got a batch of green beans done and two quarts of tomatoes.
I did end up being a judge for the fair and there was a judges category (whoot) so I entered. I won three blue ribbons! We were up all night judging the hundreds of jars and had to come early the next day to award the ribbons.
The chickens are all molting and the yard looks like a fowl massacre with feathers EVERYWHERE. I wish they didn't do that right before the weather turns freezing cold. Mr Chicken and my chicks are completely clueless as to how to use the cat door we installed on the coop. My older hens are used to it and go in and out several times a day. It is too cold to leave the big door open and it is driving me crazy to have to let them out every morning and catch them every night to put them back in the coop. I hope they figure this out sooner rather than later.
I already gave you the update on the bees. Kind of. I have just gotten scared enough of them that I don't really go out there unless the smoker is fired up and I am in full beekeeper gear. That is just such a pain in the butt that I usually don't get around to it. Plus, my little photographers are not willing to get that close either. It doesn't help that my oldest son is allergic to bee stings.
So there are all of my excuses. I am going to try harder to keep up with this but if I disappear for a while again, I am sorry.
Wish I had that many tomatoes. One year I tried drying some and quite like the results. I cut slices and then put them in my vegetable dryer. They shrunk quite small, and were crispy, like potato chips. I found they were good crumbled into things like vinaigrettes and soups, and sprinkled on top of salads.
ReplyDeleteI tried a recipe for oven roasted tomatoes but it didn't turn out very well. I think I am going to break out the dehydrator and try again. There really isn't as much as it sounds, most of them are smaller. They still taste yummy though!
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