snapshots from the last few weeks

canning broth with a helper

harvested 12 lbs of potatoes from our potato towers!

sunday pizza night is back! hooray for cooler weather!

roasted red peppers for canned marinated red peppers, recipe from this book.

amazing tomatillo sauce. i'm making a double batch of this next year, recipe also from this book.

pizza with roasted marinated peppers. they take the pizza to a whole new level.

italian pot pie with broccoli.

prepping apples for pie

apple crisp pie right before going into the oven. it's a magical hybrid dessert with crust on the bottom and streusel on top. i got the recipe from this book. it is really delicious, but very rich. it's a special occasion pie to be shared with friends. 

i recently joined our local buying club and this is what i got this week! so long grocery store!

also-

my second trimester surge of energy seems to have left me this week. now i don't even want to cook dinner, let alone think about canning.

and of course, now that i don't have any energy my foot is almost healed. i am officially wearing matching shoes again. no more walking boot! acupuncture is a great thing.

i have been having fun setting up a registry for my baby shower. the things you want or need with a second baby are so different than with the first. i already have a lot of the practical things from last time and i know what i actually need versus what i thought i needed. plus, it's always fun to look at baby things...

and the canning continues

the lovely canning and homebrew storage shelving that my husband built. (yes, the basement is dimly lit...)

lately i've done some pickling, pressure canning, and made some pie filling.

my beets are coming up like crazy right now. they are so delicious, the roots and the greens.

dark pickled delicious goodness

chicken stock

did you know that regular canning lids are coated in BPA? and that you have to throw them away after one use? this summer i decided to switch to Tattler lids. they are plastic, but BPA-free and reusable. the rubber ring gasket must be new each time, but not the lid. they certainly cost more, but i love the idea of using them over and over. i'm a fan!

the cherry chomper and i having a date at 4am. pregnancy isn't always that great for sleeping...

last summer i discovered the amazing montmorency tart cherries from ayers creek farm. i didn't get any then, but dreamed about all of the ways i could use them. so this summer i did a little research and decided to can some cherry pie filling using these wonderful cherries. don't they look like little jewels?

the cherry chomper in action!

gigi and i had fun with a our new kitchen addition, the cherry chomper! so cute, and so easy to use a two year old can do it.

i used a recipe from Putting Food By. once all of the cherries were pitted, it came together really quickly. i'm really excited about the addition of almond extract. if you ask me, not enough things in this world are almond flavored.

three quarts of cherry pie filling with Tattler lids!

last year we hosted christmas dinner and i cooked and baked up a storm! this year i'll have a newborn at christmas, so my hosting dreams will have to be put on hold. the great thing about canned pie filling is that all i need to make is the crust, pour in a quart of filling, and pop it in the oven. i'm pretty sure i can manage that with a two week old baby. we'll see...

life

here's a bit of what we've been doing:

loving these santa mugs that no one loves but me

it's a busy, messy time in santa's workshop

homemade gifts

frosty morning cabbage

winter is the best time to can chicken broth

apple pie made with love

brussels sprout pizza; not my finest culinary moment, but not bad either.

tomatoes

last weekend gigi and i headed out for an early morning at the farmer's market. thanks to our csa and my garden i didn't really need to get anything, other than a breakfast burrito. i thought about getting some apples, but then i saw these tomatoes ($19 a box!) and had to have them. when i planted my tomato plants last spring (actually summer, which is part of the problem) i had visions of canning all sorts of sauce from their fruit. well, i didn't plant them early enough, and our summer was incredibly short, at least in terms of summery weather, and so my dreams of canning my own tomatoes were dashed. there was just no way i was going to get 40 lbs of tomatoes from my two plants. i know this now and am making note of it for next year's planting... so naturally i bought two boxes, never mind the fact that my husband had just had dental surgery, so i was doing everything around the house, plus caring for him and gigi. 

all i can say is thank goodness for moms. my mom came over and brought her old victorio strainer. when i was born my parents were living on a farm in the country where they had a big garden, kept chickens, raised a calf for meat, and raised irish wolf hounds. i of course have no memory of any of that since we moved when i was one. i hadn't ever seen this strainer gadget before, but i am sure glad my mom kept it for all of these years. 

it magically separates the pulp and juice from the seeds and skin. mom helped me with the first box and then i did the second box the next day. after doing all of the second box by myself i think i might invest in the kitchen aid strainer attachment for next year. all of that cranking and pressure really kind of took it's toll on my back. although i bet gigi would like to crank it next year... well, we'll see where we're at next fall. anyway, it's nice that there are all sorts of options, especially when i was initially thinking i had to blanch, peel and de-seed all of those tomatoes by hand. no thank you.

then i put the pot of tomato puree on the stove and simmered it until it was reduced by half. i did two batches and it took many hours. oh, and my stove looks like a nightmare. i decided not to add any additional flavorings (onions, herbs, etc) so that i'd have more flexibility in the dishes i could use the sauce in. now i can turn it into marinara sauce or enchilada sauce. i think my biggest surprise is that 40 lbs of tomatoes turned into 10 pints of sauce. i just might have to see if i can get another couple of boxes to make some more sauce, because 10 pints isn't remotely going to get us through the year.

savoring the last bits of summer

we've had a pretty mild summer in the pacific northwest. august brought us some heat, which the garden loved, but now it's starting to feel like fall. i've been busy canning, cooking, and gardening (and watching true blood), which has left me little time to blog...

here's a bit of what i've been reading and exploring:

thinking about fall and the festivals it brings.

drooling over this house, hoping that someday something like it may be ours.

looking for a good tomato relish or tomato jam recipe that isn't too sweet. wouldn't you love a savory burst of summer slathered on your fried egg sandwich in the middle of winter? or right now, for that matter...

reading the stash of River Cottage books that i've gotten from the library. i think my favorite one so far is the River Cottage Family Cookbook. i love how it has info, recipes and projects.

planning the winter garden. i impulsively bought some winter veggie starts at the grocery store and now need a place to plant them. my wonderful husband will be building some terraced beds in the front yard this weekend. looking forward to cabbage, leeks and broccoli!

turning 35 last week with a lovely dinner date with vincent. it seems like a milestone of sorts, but i don't feel any different.

jam

yesterday i made jam for the first time! 

hot jars!

the first batch was raspberry. super easy!

the strawberry was a bit messier...

steamy water-bath goodness

strawberry on the left, raspberry on the right

looks like at least one person wants a taste of that jam...