Canning, canning

Ran out of freezer space long ago - probably mid July. So it's drying and canning for me. What's in those jars?

Sun dried tomatoes - Cherokee purple cherry tomatoes, yellow pears, and red cherry tomatoes
Tomato marmalades of all descriptions. Here's a great recipe to start off your tomato marmalade collection.
Pear chutney
Apple pear chutney
Citrus mango marmalade

Waiting on a load of grapes and tomatoes from Dr. Soozi's garden. Grape juice to start with - until we can figure out what to do with it. And stewed tomatoes.

I can't wait to dive into all these goodies when it's cold and freezy outside. Ohhhhhhh the taste of summer.

And then there's been the kefir, yogurt and mozzarella making episodes. More on them later.

Busy Putting Food By

I love this time of year - putting food by is a much loved activity for me. As a child, I loved helping put up pickles, and tomatoes, and corn, and relishes, and pickled beets, and bread and butter pickles, and lots, lots more. We'd work hard all day and sometimes late into the night. There'd always be a bit left over - not enough to fill a jar, so we would "have to" eat it.

Put up sauerkraut and pickles today. Open crock sauerkraut. Got the recipe from the Wild Fermentation book by Sandor Ellix Katz.

These pickles started out as the huge Hmong cucumber in the photo below. Egads! half a cuke filed a quart jar. These cukes are h-u-g-e!! For size comparison, the tomatoes are medium sized.

Summer food

What's your favorite summer food? Mine? Well, mine is whatever is available. I pretty much love it all - fresh corn on the cob, carrots, garlic, zucchini, patty pans, lemon grass, heirloom tomatoes, potatoes, beets, cukes, beans of all sorts, fennel, leeks, flowers, dill, parsley, cilantro, basil, farmstead cheeses, summer savory, rosemary, eggplant

And I love all the great dishes one can enjoy - fresh corn and tomato salsa with cilantro, grilled eggplant with summer savory, vinegars flavored with summer herbs, heirloom tomatoes topped with a slice of fresh homestead mozzarella and basil, lemon grass tea. And how about a vase of freshly picked flowers for the kitchen table?