Out with a Bang! ~ Paste Tomatoes are Done!

Lemony-Basil Tomato soup (BHG recipe).  One last canning day with paste tomatoes. Next year we plan to grow several types of paste tomatoes.  I have put a towel over my sauce and put sticky notes until the 24 hour period has passed, so I can label before I forget what is what ha ha!

The big pots are being put away, and tables taken down and folded up.  The tomato splatters all washed away, stove top scrubbed down.  It's a hoorah moment today.

It's a good feeling when the tomato season (other than our slicers left to enjoy) has come to an end.  I have been canning daily here for almost 2 weeks, and it will be a fine joy to have a day off today.

As most of you know, when canning season is in full swing, other work suffers inside and outside the homestead.  It will be nice to get some things in order today.  I hope to get my emails read finally too.

Canning season is not over yet.  At least I hope not, as we need hot pepper relish in the pantry.  I most likely will not can hot pepper jelly this year.  I guess we'll see, as some of the kids like it.  It just depends on supply and time.

I took a look-see at the other squash, and I do not see one acorn squash on the acorn squash plants.  Strange, unless the bees were so busy on the zucchini this year, they didn't make it over there??  I will take a closer look after the garden dries out a bit.

The rain that came through here, and even last night, has brought us a welcomed cooler weather.

One last note:  I asked my husband to pick me up a few pounds of ground pork from a local butcher.  He didn't.  He went to the store and got 2 pounds of grocery store "country" sausage.  Read the labels, and this is why I make my own breakfast sausage.  It contained "corn syrup" as the 3rd ingredient.  No wonder some people are diabetic and have other health issues.  Just an FYI.  You'd never think, corn syrup would be in sausage.  They often use a sweetener in store breakfast sausages and roll sausages.

Cabbage Lasagna ~ New Recipe Tried ~ Sauce Maker Issues and other Tidbits

 

Although not the typical dinner for such hot weather, I tried a new recipe.  I had thawed the meat, and had the cabbage, so it was made.  It was delicious!  It was some work, but instead of boiling the cabbage first, I am told you can freeze your cabbage and thaw it, and it will be soft and pliable.  Is this true?

Either way, we did not miss the pasta.  I used home canned tomato sauce (herbed) in place of Marinara sauce.  It was very good, and of course perfect for my husband's health (and mine).  I will be making this again.  Recipe is from Sugar free Mom online.

 I'm still canning.  I canned another half batch of tomato sauce yesterday.  See that white bowl in the upper left?  My husband dropped it and broke part of the pour spout off, and the handle is cracked about 2 inches downward.  The smaller matching bowl was also broken.

I went to look up the price of another set of these, and they are now $109.00 for the set of 3!!  Crazy!!  I will be looking for other options. 

The one on the left is the original, the one on the right was the replacement a year ago.  The bottom gasket for it, where it goes into the inside of the sauce maker, and where the handle goes in from the outside, has been out of stock.  I have to wrap a towel around the base to collect all the liquid that drips out during the process when I crank the handle on the sauce maker.

The replacement for these are up to $22.00.  I found one similar to it on Amazon (saving me $7.00), that is made for a different brand of sauce maker, and it works.  It's slightly smaller, but it works, and hopefully will keep working until this canning season is done this year.

In the midst of looking for something, I found this box that was packed up during the kitchen renovations.  Daughter K made it for me.  I am keeping my leftover bits of cotton yarn in it, along with a crochet hook.  I can now work on small scrap projects while watching the canner pot.

We had some thunderstorms come in yesterday, but it was still very hot and humid.   They say it will cool down now, and I am looking forward to that.