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My dear husband, seeing me toil and sweat in the heat of the kitchen, went out Saturday and bought an a/c for the kitchen. It is heaven to work in the kitchen now. It is so nice and cool even with the stove and ovens on. It is so nice that this is what I put up this weekend - 3 quarts cherries in heavy syrup 2 pints blueberries in heavy syrup 3 1/2 pints blueberry jam 1 pint strawberry jam 4 1/2 pints Strawberry jam 8 quarts creamed corn 2 quarts green beans 3 quarts yellow squash 6 quart fresh baby spinach 1/2 bushel peaches I have really been blessed the past month in a huge way. We replaced the old washer and dryer that was left in the house with the Bosch Nexxt Premium series "laundry system". I love this washer and dryer. It uses half the water and detergent plus I swear the clothes are cleaner than ever. The only thing about it that I hate is the buzzer on the drier. You can't turn it off completely and the lint trap causes it to shut off and then beep until I go empty the trap. I would prefer it just run the cycle and let me empty it at the next load. Sometimes it is not even full when it buzzes and shuts the drier down. Other than that I love everything about these machines. They even have a less wrinkle/reduce ironing setting. This is great! I have tested it. I won't have to iron every single one of Steven's shirt this fall and winter! Yayyyyy!!! We also replaced the stove that was part and parcel of the house. It was an aweful thing and ugly. Nothing regulated, everything in the oven burned if you didn't watch it like a hawk. Sometime the eyes might come on and sometimes not. Sometimes they even came on and went full blaze high and would not turn down. I did not get the gas stove I wanted initially. I instead chose an electric stove with ceramic eyes. Simply because we needed a stove and I am not ready to have half the kitchen ripped out just for the sake of a gas stove. I don't have time to be out of commission in the kitchen. Even though it is not my first choice in a stove I am really getting to like it. All of the eyes work as a large and small eye. The double ovens are convection -which I love. The lower oven also doubles as a warming drawer. I am really glad I was put in a place where I needed to decide and not lollygag over a model. I like this stove it just takes some getting used to. One day in the future I will get the gas stove that I want. For now I have this stove. For the record: in order to have a gas stove in this house we will have to have the gas company bring out a tank, run gas lines and drill through the hardwood floors of the kitchen. I am not ready for the mess or the expense right now. It makes me sweat just thinking about it. We also have replaced our microwave. I chose this one. It is not installed yet. The electrician has to put in some wiring and outlets first. That will take place this week. The end is in sight!! The plumber is here to see if he can straighten out our mess of pipes and to fix the leaky copper and iron pipes. I have to go but I'll be back later.

The week before vacation I had to decide what to do with all the produce from the garden. There was only one real answer. Freeze it or can it. I made a giant stock pot of vegetable soup using all of the fresh veggies that came out of the garden. You can find the recipe here. Yeild: 12 quarts. I stewed all the tomatoes that came out of the garden the weekend before. Yeild: 12 quarts. I canned the whole tomatoes that came out of the garden the Thursday before. Yeild: 7 quarts. Everything else I sent to work with Steven to hand out to anyone at work who would take a bag. He took about 20lbs of tomatoes and gave them away. I just could not do any more with them. I was tired and still battling morning sickness. When we came back from vacation Steven and I picked a 23 quart stock pot full. Tuesday Colby picked 2 grocery bags full. This time I made spaghetti sauce and canned it in quart jars. I was in the middle of scalding the tomatoes so that I could peel and seed them when I remember to get the camera and show y'all the process. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Put in the tomatoes and leave for 1 - 2 minutes. I had 3 pots like this one to scald 30lbs of tomatoes. Using a slotted spoon remove the tomatoes from the boiling water and submerged them in a pan of ice water. You will have to add ice as the hot tomatoes cause the ice to melt quickly -as you can see in the photo my ice disappeared fast. Not only because of the hot tomatoes but because the kitchen at the back of the house is not air conditioned. It was over 100 degrees yesterday. Add to that steaming hot pots and you can imagine how hot my kitchen was. Once the tomatoes are cooled (just a couple minutes) the skins will slip right off. Cutting them in half and giving them a good squeeze and the seeds will come right out. Squeezing also yeilds plenty of juice. I always save this to a pan and strain out any seeds that might slip through the collander. This is the clear liquid that seeps out of fresh ripe tomatoes and is known not as tomato juice but tomato water. I'll show you why at the end. This is the first pot of scalded tomatoes cut and seeded. This is a 16 quart stock pot and when Colby and I finished it was 3/4 full of tomato meat. On medium heat we cooked the tomatoes until they started to extrude more juice. To the pot we added our own favorite ingredients for spaghetti sauce: 2 cups chopped onion (I only use sweet vidalia onions from Ga.) 8-10 cloves garlic, crushed 5 tbsp finely chopped basil 1 tbsp finely chopped oregano 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes 1 tbsp salt 1 tbsp fresh cracked black pepper The sauce mixture simmered for approxiamtely one hour. During that time the jars ran through the dishwasher to sterilize. The sauce was ladled into the hot jars right out of the dishwasher. Lids and rings were then screwed on hand tight. The juice that came from the dripping tomatoes and the squeezing and straining of the seeds was brought to a boil and then poured into hot jars with lids and rings applied. The jars went into the pressure canner where they were processed for 35 minutes at 10psi. After processing the jars were removed from the canner and left to cool. This morning the jars were cold to the touch and the lids had sealed. The tomato juice had separated so that you can see the real juice of a tomato, commonly known as tomato water. Shaking it will recombine the bits of tomato pulp and you can drink it or you can use it to poach fish in or to add to stock for soup or sauce. Many many useful things to do with tomato water. The juice of the tomatoes in my jars in no way tastes like the tomato juice you buy in bottles at the store. Mine is not thick. It is not salty. It is not filled with preservatives or color additives. Tomato juice in its purest form is a delicious and refreshing drink by itself but you should try adding a dash of hotsauce and some vodka -the best Bloody. Mary. Ever. Cost Analysis Tomatoes from garden $0 Quart jars in stock $0 Herbs from garden $0 Spices in stock $0 Yeild: 5 quarts spaghetti sauce and 2 quarts tomato juice Total cost $0 Being a frugal housewife pays off in so many ways! -This winter we have our own fresh spaghetti sauce to enjoy. -My kids will not be eating any preservatives or chemical additives. -My sauce is 100% organic. -The children learn a lesson of gardening, providing for yourself and NOT relying on commerically grown foods. -They also get a lesson in food preservation. -Steven gets to see my canner in action and how just turning the knob on the stove regulates the pressure in the canner. -Shows him I can indeed adjust and keep that canner at 10lbs psi with little to no effort. (For the longest time Steven could not understand how I could regulate the the canner without different weighted vent regulator knobs.) The weekend that I made the soup I also put a bushel of fresh white corn (Silver Queen) in the freezer. We ended up with 30 gallon bags of corn-on-the-cob. My kids love fresh corn and having summer goodness in the dead of winter sure is better than Green Giant nibblers. I am hoping this weekend to get 1 more bushel of corn to cream. Wish me luck!

During the cold of winter nothing tastes better than a nice bowl of hot soup. But not just any soup. The best soup you can make comes from summer produce cooked in a giant stock pot and then hidden away in the freezer for those early dark nights of winter. I was taught to make this soup when I was about 13 years old. The lady who taught me to make it often let me free in her kitchen as her daughter, my best friend, had no interest in learning her kitchen secrets. Miss Rachel's husband was a truck driver. Mr. Luther was gone alot so for much of my early teen years it was Miss Rachel, Ann and me at their house in Augusta in the summer. In a very large stock pot: 2 quarts butter beans 2 quarts peas 6 strips streak-o-lean Water to cover Bring to a boil, turn down heat and gently simmer until the beans and peas are just tender. When cooked taste them and add just enough salt to season the beans. To this add: 1 large head fresh cabbage, chopped 2 large vidalia onions, chopped 1 quart fresh cut okra 12 ears of fresh corn, creamed 2 quarts fresh tomatoes, seeded and rough chopped Return to boil. At the point of boil you will see you need to add liquid. You can add vegetable stock but I find it is better to add tomato juice. It makes the stock much richer. Reduce heat to a low simmer. Allow soup to slow cook for a couple hours until the broth is rich. Add salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into freezer containers, allow to cool. Then freeze. This soup is best served as the entree with fresh corn bread and butter. I promise, you will need nothing else to make a better meal -summer or winter. One thing about this soup. There is plenty of it. If you make a stock pot full you have to give some of it to a friend or neighbor. Share and share alike. It's the country folk way.