a whole lotta homemade

We hit it hard on the food processing front this week. It always feels good to get those gleaming jars filled and the freezer fattened up. There are a lot of reasons we can and freeze:
We both watched it happen in the kitchens of our childhood. We love growing food (so you gotta do something with all that bounty). Taste and more taste (nothing beats dumping a jar of sun ripened tomatoes, that you packed yourself, into that pot of winter soup). Health (I'm just not happy about those BPA-lined food cans). And money (it saves us lots).

The sad story for us this year was late tomato blight. It wiped out our entire tomato yield (we started these babies from seed back in March so it's hard to weather that storm!). But the happy news is that many Amish growers in our neck of the woods (who grow huge quantities for Organic Valley) had plenty of seconds. So, for the first time in our gardening years, we bought tomatoes. Thankfully ones grown organically just over the hill. The interesting thing about purchasing this year was that we were able to track quantities and cost. We purchased 180 pounds of tomatoes for $56. From that 180 pounds we made 30 pints of salsa, 47 quarts of whole tomatoes and a couple of pans of baked sauce for the freezer. We eat a lot of tomatoes.

Of course I did the math and that works out to about $.30/pint for salsa and about $.85/quart for whole tomatoes. (We had all other ingredients needed in our garden).

The whole time we were canning I just kept thinking about all the folks before me that have done this hot, steaming, rewarding work. And so many friends and family that are doing it today. It feels good to be among those troops.






And after tomatoes a little medicine. Last winter with the flu hitting hard I did some research on herbal flu remedies and elderberry came up time and time again. I knew elderberry grows wild and plentiful around here. I picked lots, froze it and played with it all winter. We liked it in lots of ways. Whole berries tossed into pancakes or muffins, sweet honeyed syrup for the babes, tinctures and cordials for mama and papa. So, this fall I'm at it again. First tinctures set aside to steep with a whole lot of intent to be healthy this winter.

Hope you are finding just a bit of sweetness in this harvest season.