The Domestic One

Oh, this week has been an adventurous one in the kitchen. I have always enjoyed cooking, but I believe I canned way too much with my mom while I was younger to have any interest in that. Well, this year we overhauled our backyard. I love the way it turned out, but it is not quite done yet. One of the things we did, was move our garden and made it bigger. I planted 36 tomato plants, thanks to our neighbors who supplied about half of those plants. With the price of groceries going up and a ton of tomatoes that needed to be used, I decided to try canning this year. My neighbor and wonderful friend, Sarah, gave me two different types of salsa recipes to try. So this week I've been canning. One of the things I swore I would never do. I canned 54 pints of salsa. One of the recipes was suppose to taste like Chilis salsa. However, the recipe called for 1/4 cup of salt per 25 Roma tomatoes. Needless to say it tasted good, but VERY salty. The second recipe I tasted while it still warm and it didn't have a lot of flavor to it. Was it because I was used to the one with all salt, or could it be it just needed to sit longer. I don't know. I guess I will need to open up a jar and try it again. I really enjoyed canning. Maybe it was because I did just a few at a time and most of them I canned at my house at my pace. Blake gave me the go ahead and I spent $130 on canning supplies so I will have my own stuff and not have to borrow Sarah's or my mom's. Anyway I already have plans on other things I would like to try: stewed tomatoes, applesauce, apple pie filling, pears, pear butter (my sister-in-law wants to do this and I don't even know what it is, but what the heck), and pickles. I guess what they say really is true, I really am turning into my mom!!!