Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Life on the farm.  Or at least the suburban garden.  This year I planted a full tray of 72 tomato plants of several different varieties.  I neglected watering them a few times, because my plant starting stand is in Ed's garage and I was in the warm house.  So I planted the ones that survived in the garden.  It turned out mostly the new variety of grape tomato (cherry-sized) plants survived.  I also had a few Bloody Butcher/Fourth of July tomato variety plants survive.  And I went to the garden center for a Better Boy plant.

I've been picking a lot of tomatoes.  Over the course of the summer and now fall, I have harvested at least eight of the big round containers.   I also had some hot wax peppers survive my neglect.  I have canned over 50 pints of salsa. As usual, each batch has a different degree of hotness depending on the variety of pepper I use.  

It was an interesting experience to make salsa out of cherry tomatoes instead of the large Big-Boys I usually use.  I gave them a turn in the food processor with the onions and the peppers and they diced up very well. 

 

I have also been canning apple sauce.  Early in August before I started my bike ride, I made a batch of applesauce from the Yellow Transparent apples I picked in Michigan.

  

Yesterday, Ed helped me can 20 pints of applesauce from a bushel of Jonathon apples.  I am labelling the jars with the apple variety.  It is almost like fine wines.  You can see the difference in color between the yellow Transparent apples and the red-skinned Jonathons. 

I still have some Grimes golden apples in the garage to process, and also a bushel of Crimson Delicious. I don't think the Delicious apples hold up to cooking well, so I will see what I can find about how to use them.    

I also made a batch of hot pepper jelly.  I had never tried this before until at a church luncheon in Michigan, when someone served a brick of cream cheese with hot pepper jelly spread on the top.  The combination was fantastic, the spiciness and creaminess set off all kinds of buzzers in my taste buds!  I hope my jelly sets up, right now it is looking a little bit runny.  I understand it can take up to 24 hours to set.  I used fresh pectin and apple juice left from the apple sauce process, so there should be plenty of pectin to make it set.  I added a few drops of red food coloring to make it interesting. 

I'm not an affiliate, but here is a link to a recipe from Kraft-Heinz for a similar appetizer in phyllo cups. 

Now that I have labelled the jars, all I have to do is clean up the kitchen.  

I have set up a separate page on the blog to record any future bike riding adventures.