Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard & More......09/06/2012

Since I harvested so many tomatoes this past Sunday, I finally made some ketchup!! Oh yum!! We have been out of ketchup for some time now. I use a recipe from the Ball Blue Book.

The ketchup cooked all day until it was nice and thick!

I ended up with 6 Half Pints and 1 Pint of Ketchup!!

While the ketchup was cooking, Erin had posted a challenge called "Medicine Cabinet".

I know I'm the last person to be issuing demands and challenges since I've been such a bad blogger lately, but since I put up the kitchen photo and it is that time of year, how 'bout you share a photo of where you do your canning and a photo of what you have stashed away so far?  I'll call this the "Medicine Cabinet" challenge, because you have to admit that for us like minded folks looking at photos of other's canning spaces and under-bed storage pantries is like other peoples' fascination with medicine cabinets!

Here's what my place looked like on Labor Day Monday.

View of part of the island and kitchen

At the other end of the kitchen.

Doesn't everyone have their computer in the kitchen and veggies everywhere??

There's even canning jars under the table on a chair!

The ketchup cooking at it's earlier stage before it was transferred into a different pot. 

Don't you like our recycling center?? A bag hanging on a knob and a box for the paper???

This is the cupboard in the basement....

and the other side.....

I started stashing tomatoes on another shelf downstairs. That shelf will have to be reorganized soon to accommodate the rest of "The Italian's" tomatoes!! 

While I was down there taking pics, I took this pic of the chest freezer and all it's frost!!

So, I defrosted it , reorganized and it's still full!!

There are also two side by side refrigerator/freezers, garlic hanging and potatoes stored in baskets.

I think you get the picture!!

What's been going in or out of your Cupboard lately.....and how's your mess???

Happy Harvest Labor Day Monday.........09/03/2012

Since I have been busy catching up on my preserving this past week, I only went to the plots to harvest yesterday. I really didn't think I would have too many tomatoes. But just in case, I brought all of my containers and some bags too. It's a good thing I did!!! This is everything I harvested yesterday!!!

Some Asparagus & Chinese Noodle Beans and tomatoes..... 

and some more tomatoes.....

and more tomatoes......

and even more tomatoes......

and yes, tomatoes.......

and tomatoes......

and my first little Pumpkin. I think I planted Sugar Pie and a huge Butternut Squash.....

and some more tomatoes......

and some lovely sweet peppers.

The tomato total for the day/week was 75.38 lbs! I guess I'll be laboring on this Labor Day for sure! I hope everyone has had a safe and enjoyable Labor Day Weekend!

Harvest total for the week: 88.95 lbs

Beans:

     Asparagus, Red Seeded - 7.1 oz

     Chinese Red Noodle - 5.6 oz.

Peppers, Sweet - 36 oz.

Squash:

     Butternut - 99.95 oz.

     Pumpkin - 68.55 oz.

Tomatoes - 1206.05 oz., 75.38 lbs.

Hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions, our host of Harvest Monday to see what's going on in Veggie Gardens around the Globe!!

The Word is Out.......the best

bird seed in town is at our place! Well, at least the Gold Finches think so! Last week I went to the Bird Store to purchase some Nyger Seed for the finch feeder outside my kitchen window. A Finch Feeder is the only feeder I can have here in town because of the #$&!!ng Squirrels!! They had a new blend that would work in the thistle feeder which has fine sunflower chips in it. I thought I would give it a try. Boy, do we have a busy feeder!

It's tough to get good pics through the glass and screen.

                              

The feeder is loaded with finches all day!

We also get some other visitors to the feeder. But they don't stick around long enough for me to get a good picture. The finches are quite aggressive with other birds!

There's even a waiting line on the window sill and sometimes on the screen!

This gal was looking at me like.....when do I get a turn??

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard..................8/30/2012

With all the produce coming in, the days have been long. I think I'm keeping up pretty well considering. This past week I have canned Tomatoes and Tomato Puree almost daily. I also made some meals and froze them.

This is the Zucchini & Tomato Bake that Dave posted a few weeks ago here. 

We just love it! I have made several and froze them for use over the winter!! I only made one adjustment to his recipe. I sprinkled some seasoned breadcrumbs in between the layers.

Here are a couple of the Tomato Bakes packaged and ready for the freezer.

I also made several Eggplant Parmigiana and froze them too. They are the thicker packages at the bottom of the pile.

Another time consuming canning project was making the tomato salsa, recipe here. I stayed up late on Tuesday evening and made 8 pints. That's enough to get ME through the year! I will also make some Green Tomato Salsa.

Some other things that were frozen this week were Chinese Red Noodle Beans and Asparagus Beans. I think we have enough of the Chinese Beans frozen. But, we can definitely use some more Asparagus Beans in the freezer.

What's been going in or out of your Kitchen Cupboard lately???

Harvest Monday..............8/26/2012

Just when you think you have the fruit flies under control in the kitchen. You go to the plots to do a little harvesting and..........well

you get this......

and this.....

and this.....

and these....

and of course more Chinese Red Noodle Beans....

and a ton of tomatoes.....

and at the home garden I got these.

The tomato plants at the plots are still hanging in there. They don't look too good. But, I am picking every good tomato and semi-ripe one I can find. Not only are many of the plants diseased, there are also some issues with nibbling. I suspect tomato hornworms, although I have not seen any.

I realized today that my harvest spreadsheet was not calculating my year to date totals correctly. I fixed it and I have harvested a little more then I previously thought.

Total weighed harvests: 51.8 lbs.
Beans:
     Asparagus Red Seed - 5.95 oz
     Chinese Red Noodle - 23.5 oz.
Cuccumbers - 9.25 oz.
Eggplant:
     Black Beauty - 22.95 oz.
     Lunga Violetta Di Firenze - 22.1 oz.
Peppers:
     Hot & Spice - 8.05 oz.
     Sweet - 24.45
Tomatoes - 712.55 oz. 44.53 lbs

Hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions, our host of Harvest Monday to see what's going on in Veggie Gardens around the Globe!