Produce Donation

Well, we just donated 19 pounds of cucumbers and hot peppers to the Food Bank. Felt good, and I literally saw folks who were going to use the veggies dividing my gift up. That was felt even better. I told them, "Those peppers are really hot!"

Not sure how many points this gets me with the big man, but hopefully the gardening thing can now help prevent me from burning in hell.

Bonus nachos!

Canned!

We have a lot of tomatoes.  So many tomatoes that no matter how many we give away, eat, or sell, there is still more left.  Lots more.  Two nights ago I canned every red tomato in the house.  I decided to keep it basic and just make plain crushed tomatoes.  Below is the visual record of the process. 

The starting supply of tomatoes.  It's a lot. 

Peeling the tomatoes...boil them a little, then drop them in ice water and the skins slip right off.

Skins on the right, fleshly mounds of tomato deliciousness on the left.

Close-up of the skinned tomatoes.  Angel says they look gross.

The canning set-up...filling jars from the big pot of crushed tomatoes.

I cut the 'maters in half, squeezed out the juice and seeds, and crushed them with a masher.
I added salt and lemon juice and brought it to a boil before filling the jars.

Hot water canning: boiling the filled jars.  I had one jar that wouldn't fit in the big canner.
However, I discovered that the asparagus steamer (with wire basket) makes a perfect one-jar canner.

The finished product is on the right...6 jars of homemade crushed tomatoes.
On the left is salsa that I canned a few weeks ago.
I've also canned dill pickles and another earlier batch of salsa.