OK, the pics already…
Yes, I know I said I would post them so here they are. If you remember, last we joined our characters, they were processing quantities of food stuff. To give you an idea of one session, here are 45 pounds of plum tomatoes, blanched and being peeled/sliced. And a short while later, here they are in their final state, S&G’s tomatoe sauce, reducing down on the stove before being jarred and processed.
This is the finished product is the middle box, right hand side, and the box in the rear. The stuff in the front is tomatoe-jalapeno salsa and the other quart jars are whole plum tomatoes. We don’t run the sauce through a food mill, so it has seeds in it. We kinda like it like that, it’s like you just sliced up fresh tomatoes that way, but sauce purists may disagree.
These little jelly jars are Peach Jam, it’s quite good on a piece of toast when you want a snack. I want to try making some rasberry jam as well if they still have any up at the farm. But I have a feeling it may be too late in the season by this weekend. And here are some pickles, pickled veggies, and sliced tomatoes.
So that’s about the extent of our canning so far. We went to Stormville flea market this weekend and just picked up a few boring things. Some new pillows for our bed, a new cutting board, some oral-b heads, and crap like that.
I really like the new pot rack I hung, it frees up cabinet space and helps the kitchen flow better. Here it is but I don’t have enough hooks so my good sauce pans aren’t hanging yet… And yes that’s one of those scrolling/animated signs on the wall, it says “welcome to steve’s kitchen”, if I find the remote I’ll re-program it to say Steve and Graces kitchen. And since cabinet space is so limited I put a little rack unit up next to the fridge in that doorway I closed up that used to go into the computer room. I just keep mixing bowls and stuff on it, but getting the big and seldom used appliances (rice cooker, cuisinart, juicer, stuff like that) off the counter tops was the best thing I’ve done in awhile. And right in the middle of that rack you’ll see my new pot, a 12 quart calphalon stainless stock pot with pasta and steamer inserts. Yeah she’s a beauty, and very reasonable on sale from Amazon. I must say, if you check on Amazon from time to time, they have good sales on Calphalon stuff, plus I get special promo discounts too that help.
OK, so now you see the stuff we’ve been cooking, the stuff we’ve been canning, and the stuff I’ve changed in the kitchen, enough yet?
Me thinks so, I’m tired and gonna go upstairs and fall asleep.
