Canning Tomatoes

Tonight I spent some time canning tomatoes.  Why?  This is why:

My dining room table

I got a total of six quart-sized jars and only used up about 40% of them.  It will be nice to make some homemade sauce in the winter when garden-fresh tomatoes are scarce!

I used the pressure canner that my in-laws gave me a few years ago.  It was used during the years my husband was growing up.  He has many fond memories of going to his grandfather's garden and picking green beans so they could process them and store them for the winter.   The canner has obviously seen a lot of use and it comes to me outfitted with a new seal.

Hopefully I will have a chance to do another round in the next few days to use up the remainder of tomatoes.

Pickles

Garlic Dill Pickles

Bread and Butter Pickles

Dinner Tonight!

Couscous salad with organic cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers and basil

And of course some corn from the garden!

It Doesn't Take Much...

It doesn't take much...

Only this amount of corn plants...

Yields this amount in one day's harvest...

To feed some hungry boys...

Yummy organic goodness!

Garden to table in 30 minutes!

Deer Like Tomatoes Too

If you come into my house this summer you are bound to see a collection of tomatoes in various stages of ripening.  The deer have been munching on them in the garden so I have resorted to picking the fruit off the plant just when I start to see a little bit of pink.  They ripen just fine inside and I don't have to worry about coming out in the morning to a  pulpy mess.

Salsa anyone?

Tomatoes ripening on my dining room table

Pickles

I've got cucumbers!
I'm going to make the standard fast and easy pickle recipe.  I'd like to try something else, too.  Does anyone have a favorite pickle recipe they'd like to share?