Friday, September 2, 2011

Tomatoes Are In

I have been busy, busy, busy with tomatoes! They are taking all my extra time. But I love my Brandywines! They are heirloom tomatoes and take a little longer to come in but are worth the wait. I do have a few other plants out there like a heirloom Italian one our son gave us and one called Champion that we like, too. And don't forget the ever popular cherry tomato. The peppers are coming in, too. We have 4 different varieties of them. I have been making alot of sauce and my hubby made a batch of katsup. or ketsup. I really don't know how to spell that! When he looked up recipes for it, it showed up both ways. I don't know........

I digress...

The past couple of years I have been making sauce out of the tomatoes. I used to cold pack them and put them in a pressure cooker but there was always 'that one' that the lid blew off and made a mess of the pot. So now I make sauce and cook it down by half and put it in hot jars and water bath it for 10 minutes and voila`!  no probems. I usually put peppers in it, too.  Next on the agenda is to make some salsa. I think I have enough sauce now.



I also like canning in the old timey mason jars. No, they do not stack all nice and neat and square on the shelves, but I like the eclectic look it gives. Like grandma used to have. And the old blue jars look a little purple with the red sauce in them. That is fun, too! There are alot of different styles of the vintage canning jars out there. Why have them boxed up in your basement and go out and buy new ones? Just don't drop them and you can use them forever. How green is that?

Well, I hear some tomatoes calling my name!


Talk to you soon,

Tammy

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