Put Up or Shut Up

Porkchop and I should be painting the office nook tonight, but instead we're resting. Of course, "resting" means that Porkchop made the most delicious dinner of local bratwurst with apples and onions, mashed potatoes, and roasted (homegrown) delicata squash (well, I did the squash, but it wasn't much work). And then we did dishes, picked tomatoes, and Porkchop did some paint clean up.

Here is the painting as it stood Sunday morning:


Woo! Bright colors! The colors in the two rooms are actually the same, but they look a little different. These rooms have now been touched up, and Porkchop put the first coat up in the bathroom - a lovely dark chartreuse which looks pretty darned good.

While painting this weekend, we also canned sweet pickles. A lot of them:


That's about 7.5 lbs of cucumbers. And they made 10 pint jars. Canning in progress:


Did I mention we made pickles?

That isn't the only canning we've been up to. Two weekends ago we went blueberry and peach picking:


We took the fruits and made blueberry-lime jam and peach butter:


I think we have 8 jars of the blueberry lime, and maybe 5 of the peach butter (which is amazingly delicious, oh yeah).

We've also been putting up tomato stuff: oven-dried tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, and tomato-basil dressing (which we also use as a pasta sauce). Oh, and I canned two pints of crushed tomatoes over the weekend. I also have designs on the butternut squashes ripening in the kitchen window. Last week I made a super tasty bisque with a squash, so I intend on making up and freezing a couple of batches. To get us through the long winter, you know.

Going back to tomatoes, we're in a bit of a lull right now. The cherry tomatoes and sungolds are still coming in, but I've picked the green zebra, black krim, marvel stripe, and brandywine clean. Now a second wave of baby tomatoes has started, and I can't wait for them to grow and ripen!

Here's the last black krim...it's a bit naughty looking, don't you think?


Oh, and the tomatillos are starting! Here's the first one:


What else...

We bought school supplies for a couple of neighborhood kids:


If you're in the neighborhood, I encourage you to do the same! The info is here.

That's all! Have a great week!