Last Week in the Kitchen

In between work on stories and preparing for a weekend getaway, I had canning to do. The garden is still thriving despite the lack of rain. It has been almost 6 weeks since we've had anything but 30-second light showers. So dry.

First pic is bread & butter pickles (my favorite), cider, and tomato juice. I think I will be making at least one more batch of pickles before the vines are done.

Apple Spice Conserve--I call it conserve because there are bits of apple in it. So good! Tastes like apple pie. It takes a lot of chopping; I should have used the food processor, I guess.

Larry put a few bags of green beans (Tenderettes, our favorite) in the freezer this morning, and last week I canned another 12 quarts, plus gave some away and cooked some with potatoesfor dinner. There may yet be another picking.

I stopped work long enough to pich a fall bouquet last week. The flowers are struggling, and I know I've lost many perennials to this drought. We can only water so much, since we're on a well.

And more tomatoes...not sure what we'll do with these, although I am eating them as fast as I can. I dearly love a good ripe tomato. The tomatoes were mostly small this year for some reason, not sure if it was the early heavy rains, the intense heat all summer, or something else. They taste just as good as big ones, though, and they're easier to eat out of hand.

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