It has been a slow week in the garden. I have been working more on Halloween costumes.
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| I made the Pink Pumpkin, as you may have seen last week. I made her leaf necklace with felt. I made Mickey Mouses gloves and shoes out of old baby towels, and stuffed a couple of small scrap made pillows to make the shoes all puffy. Gramma made the Pumpkin's hat and the Mickey Mouse hat and body suit. I am so proud of our work. They look so cute! And then of course Bumble Bee I did not make, I wasn't even going to attempt that one! Maybe he will choose something a bit easier next year! MIL and I have made some super costumes the past few years, way better than the store bought ones! |
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| This morning I had a nice pile of raspberries and tomatoes. A few Purple Magnolia Sugar Snap peas, and an unknown tomato. This is the first tomato I have gotten off of this plant so we will see what color it turns. |
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| I worked on a bunch of tomatoes that had turned red on the counter, I canned 7 pint jars of salsa, 4 Quart jars of tomatoes and 3 pint jars of tomatoes. It was a bit of a pain because I live in a split level and the kitchen is upstairs, and have a glass top and you are not suppose to use the granite water bath canners on the glass top so my wonderful dh carried a full canner with jars and water down to the grill burner and back up while it was boiling hot. Maybe I should find a canner that is not granite! I love my glass top and sure don't want to ruin it! But all turned out well. |
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| We also had some pac choi this week. Dh and I love it but the kids have to force it down. Actually, I need to find a good variety because the varieties I have do not taste as good as the ones we first tried from the store. We only first tried it last year when my daughter learned about it on Kai Lan(a Chinese cartoon) and wanted to try it. Of course I encourage them to try all kind of new things from the garden! |
I am glad your husband was able to help you can those beautiful tomatoes. I have used my water bath canner on the flat top stove with no ill effects, but I know that there are warnings against it.
ReplyDeleteI use to can in the old glass top cause it was old and I didn't care, but now that I have a nice new one I don't want to mess it up! It would be just my luck!
DeleteI use a large soup pot as a water bath canner. It doesn't have a lift out jar rack, but I happened to have a round roasting pan insert that fit perfectly in the bottom, so it works well on my ceramic cook top. Your tomatoes and salsa look great. I didn't have enough of the larger tomatoes this year, so ended up with mostly sauce and ketchup with an overabundance of cherry and salad sized fruits.
ReplyDeleteI did use a soup pot and washcloth at the bottom for half the jars.
DeleteHomemade costumes are always best and you guys do a good job at it! Seems like they should wear them more than once! I guess our raspberries ae done. Will miss them. I planted pak choi this year too. About all l have done with it is cut some up in my salad. How do you fix yours? Nancy
ReplyDeleteSo far I have only sautéed the Pac Choi, maybe I will venture out and try something different.
DeleteThose are just darling costumes! What fun and such a great job at them too.
ReplyDeleteThe canned tomatos look tasty. I love having them lined up in the pantry - a nice reminder of summer - both in looks and the smell of them when you open a jar.
Those are cute costumes. That's a fun period with kids, enjoy it while it lasts.
ReplyDeleteThe costumes are fabulous. Its my sons birthday on Halloween, but Halloween not being particularly big here (although that is changing) we will celebrate his birthday rather than Halloween. Love the jars of tomato especially given the work the went into them.
ReplyDeleteSo creative, love that you use item you have on hand old and new.
ReplyDeleteThe pac choi in the photo looks like Shanghai bok choy, try the white stem baby bok choy, may be the kids will like that variety better.
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