Sylvia's Scenario

Our tomato crop is flourishing and we are now getting more than we can eat, like about 40 pounds...plus a couple of zucchini and some grapes. So, it's time to start canning tomatoes.   We made a smaller batch last week of 8 quarts after we brought in about 20 pounds of tomatoes. We go through a lot of tomato sauce during the year making soups, stew and pasta sauce.  It always disappears so fast so we never feel like we have too many tomatoes.  Thank goodness since we've already gone through 60 pounds of tomatoes and there are a lot still out there to be picked! We process them using a hot pack in a boiling water bath.  That means that you cook the tomatoes first and pour them into the jars while they are hot and set the jars in boiling water for them to seal.  Here is a step-by-step. After our last two batches, we figure for 1 quart of processed tomatoes, you will need approximately 2.75 pounds of fresh tomatoes.  20 pounds of tom...

Last weekend, we had an end-of-the-summer big barbecue bash.  Bruce brought back a freezer full of fish after going to the same fishing spot I wrote about in my post in 2012  Salmon Barbecue   called the Outpost in British Columbia on Queen Charolette Island by  the West Coast Fishing Club .   He brought home a total of 4 King salmon, 4 Coho salmon, 35 pounds of halibut and 10 pounds of red snapper (you can see why they are called red snapper...) So, our end-of-the-summer barbecue was again, featuring our favorite of all foods, King salmon. We invited 30 of our friends over for a fish feast since good food is meant to be shared.  Everybody brought a side dish to contribute to the feast and we had so much delicious food like these salads from peoples' gardens, such bounty! I made my cheesy potatoes and  cheddar jalapeño and chive biscuits  that go so well with salmon. We also had some awesome desserts like thi...

It's zucchini season and we are getting plenty of it from the garden so I decided to make this lemon zucchini bread that I got from   Lil' Luna blog .  It has an absolutely delicious glaze drizzled over the top that really seals the deal.  Makes 1 loaf 1 cup grated zucchini 2 cups cake flour 1/2 tsp. salt 2 tsp. baking powder 2 eggs 1/2 cup canola oil 1-1/3 cups sugar 2 Tbsp. lemon juice 1/2 cup buttermilk zest of 1 lemon Glaze: 1 cup powdered sugar 2 Tbsp. lemon juice 1 Tbsp. cream Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9×5″ loaf pan; set aside. 1.  Grate zucchini with peel on and set aside on paper towel to absorb some of the moisture while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. 2. Mix flour, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl and set aside. 3.  In a large bowl, beat eggs. 4.  Then add oil and sugar until well blended.  Add lemon juice, buttermilk, lemon zest to this mixture and blend...

It's that time of year again and the bounty is beginning to flow. We've been eating tomatoes for awhile on a daily basis and plan to can some today because they are starting to take over our kitchen now, providing more than we can eat. We ate our first watermelon last night for dessert after dinner and it was SUPER sweet, unlike from the grocery store, although the ones from the grocery store aren't bad like the store bought tomatoes.  But this watermelon was just as much sweeter as homegrown tomatoes are, in comparison to store bought, so you can just imagine. We are also getting a lot of cucumbers and zucchini which we are eating as they come in. I was just getting ready to make zucchini bread last night when Nick called from Japan and we ended up on Skype for 2 hours.  So, my evening plans changed a little. But it was a very pleasant change of plans after a day of taking harvest inventory of our two gardens and orchard. ...