Wow! Where has the time gone? It's been almost 2 weeks since I last posted. I can tell you what I've been doing.......canning. And more canning. And working on plans for our soon-to-be-installed kitchen. That's a lot to do at the same time.
We seem to be swimming in tomatoes these days, but I'm excited to see how many jars of tomato sauce and tomato paste I've been able to can recently.
Notice the crock sitting on the floor in front of the A/C register. That's our sauerkraut fermenting in the cool breeze. Pretty soon it will be time to can the sauerkraut, too.
This is the handiest gadget ever. Tomatoes get fed in the funnel on the right while I hand crank the workings. And the seeds and skins automatically come out in the green dish while the good pulp and juice travels down the chute into the white bowl. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Well, you get the idea. All the pulp in the white bowl is dumped into a pot to simmer for hours on the stove and turn into sauce. And in a separate pot, the plum and paste tomatoes become paste. Yummy!
Today I picked 64 lbs. of tomatoes and then got caught in a downpour so I had to stop. There are still ripe tomatoes out in the garden but they will have to wait till the morning. It's so rewarding to cook out the watery part of the tomato and end up with nice, rich tomato sauce. I know we will really enjoy consuming all these tomato products in the dead of winter when we crave fresh flavors from the garden.
And then there is this delicious plate......Linguini with Summer Sauce, a favorite recipe of Joel's from cousin Linda's recipe box. To do this dish proud, you need to make it in the summertime when the tomatoes are at their peak. It's simply chopped tomatoes simmered on the stovetop with garlic. After the linguini is cooked, butter is melted in the pan and dried basil is added and then the pasta is tossed in the golden herb mixture. Throw the tomatoes on top and shave some Parmegiano Regiano cheese over the whole glorious mess. Yummy, yummy!
Since it won't be summer for another 10 months, it finally dawned on me that I could can up some Summer Sauce and we would be able to enjoy it year round. Oh, my, Joel will be overjoyed!
Um, yeah, we've been going through a few canning jars lately.
But I have been doing other things besides canning. I've made some new acquaintances lately at a new quilt guild that I joined. Two of the ladies in particular have taken me under their wing and we took a quilt field trip last Wednesday. This pic is of Becky's Barn in Clark Range, TN. Her hubby renovated this barn that used to house critters and hay and now it's an awesome quilt shop/retreat for ladies who travel in from all over the country to stay in one of the 4 bedrooms and quilt as long as they want to without interruption. Some quilters only stay for a couple days, others stay for a week!
There's a fully equipped kitchen in the back of the barn where the ladies prepare their own meals. Each has their own bed with a lovely quilt gracing it and the bedrooms come complete with a full bathroom. What a great idea! Last year they even added a covered porch with a picnic table, chairs for relaxing and overhead fans to help keep a cool breeze blowing. Becky even has a wonderful quilt store inside where you can purchase fabric, books and patterns galore. Sounds like a fun way to spend some time with friends, doing what we love best.....making quilts.
After hitting another quilt store, we retreated back to Crossville to have lunch. Valerie on the left is the applique teacher extraordinaire and Kathi in the center creates the most beautiful art quilts. It's so nice to have met 2 women who are kindred spirits and I think we may get into a lot of mischief, er, um, I mean, I think we will have lots of fun together in the future.
But back to the farm, during a break in the rain this afternoon I went out to the blueberry bush to pick some of the last berries off the bush. I will miss these little beauties until next summer. It's been such a pleasure to walk outside and stand at the bush and pop the warm, sweet berries right in my mouth.
While I was standing there I looked off into our woods and spotted the first tree with red leaves on it.....yes, Fall is right around the corner. And I can hardly wait. This year will be the first time in 35 years that I will experience all the nuances of Fall from start to finish. I plan on cutting down our cornstalks and using them to decorate our porch, along with the pumpkins we've been growing in the garden. I just love Fall and the change to crisp, cool days.....perfect blue jean weather.
But it's not quite time for all of that yet. For now, this is my life.....rummaging through the garden in my pink Real-Tree camo boots, picking all the harvest I can reach.
What a blessing,
Debbie
