From the Garden to the Jar - Fresh Garden Salsa

“What is paradise? But a garden, an orchard of trees and herbs full of pleasure and nothing there but delights.”

—William Lawson, 1687

This was a great year for the garden. Do you have a garden? A garden can be a very personal thing, like art, an expression of yourself. You don't realize how delicate it can be until you have a bad year (like I did last year) and you cannot figure out why nothing's working. Not so this year, thank goodness. The weather here in the Ozarks was perfect all summer. The squash are growing. The flowers are blooming everywhere. Rosemary, Thyme, Italian Parsley and Basil for days. The tomatoes are big and bountiful. I grew Early Girl, Beefsteak, Pineapple, Better Boy, Roma, and sweet big fat cherry tomatoes.

My roma tomatoes

The green peppers are big, fat, and beautiful, and although I'm not a jalapeno pepper fan, I need them for the salsa, and they did well. Everything was in place and ready to go for fresh batches of salsa--garden-to-jar, just the way it should be.

Bell peppers

Jalapeno pepper

A little morning harvest

 It's such a gift to go out to the garden, in the morning, pick peppers, tomatoes, herbs and flowers...stand barefoot in the grass (go ahead and Google "earthing") feel the sun on my face, and later in the day find myself with fresh flowers on the table and jars and jars of garden salsa--organic salsa that was fresh-preserved with ingredients that are not even hours old, freshly picked from the garden. I may not always feel like doing the canning right at the moment when everything is ready--but too bad so sad, because fresh vegetables will not wait! So going out, picking them, getting some fresh air, seeing how beautiful and magical it all is gives the natural energy I need to do this thing!

Garden bliss. Summer heaven. Feeling blessed. It's so good to have contact with the earth.

Spaghetti squash, peppers, zinnias, and parsley

I've altered my fresh garden salsa recipe every summer for what we like at my house and what is freshest. You always have to make sure when water-bath canning that you have enough acidity necessary in your recipe for a good fresh-preserved product--it's good to check the Ball Blue Book. And don't look at an old one. The standards change over the years. 

My garden salsa is all organic, sweet, mild and delicious. It is also a nice chunky salsa, and I can it in little wide-mouth half-pint jars, so that you can open up a jar and just start dipping! Or grab a little jar and bag of tortilla chips for an instant gift. This year, I've managed to can about forty jars--plenty to last for a year of salsa gifting and eating. I did this in smaller batches of course. My water-bath canner holds seven jars at a time, and my recipe will fill 14 half-pint jars. The best sound in the world is that "pop" your jars make when the lids seal after processing. It never gets old!

----------------------------------------------------------- Sandy's Fresh Organic Garden Salsa
8 cups of fresh garden tomatoes, peeled and diced
2 cups fresh garden green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
4 small, fresh jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
2 cups fresh organic sweet yellow onions, chopped
3/4 to 1 cup white wine vinegar
1 can (6 oz.) organic tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Fresh cilantro, chopped (to taste)

Heat to gentle boil, and simmer and stir on the stove for 30 minutes, until the salsa thickens.

Water-Bath Canning
Sterilize about 14 half-pint wide-mouthed jars. Wash and rinse the rings. Heat the lids in hot water. Ladle salsa into the clean, hot jars, wipe the rims, and apply the lids and rings. Place in the boiling water in the water-bath canner with water covering the jars. Most canners will hold seven jars at a time. Put the lid on, keep it boiling and process for 20 minutes. Take the lid off and let it continue to process for another five minutes. Lift jars out, and they will seal with a "pop" as they cool. Before storing, make sure they are all sealed. If the lids move up and down when pressed, they are not sealed properly.
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I hope you enjoyed this journey from the garden to the jar!

Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, Garden

My Garden Is Boss

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."

John Muir

FYI. My garden is boss. My boss. No, really. And I don't mean that like, "hey dude, my garden is boss!" -- like it's the best thing ever. Well, to me it is one of the best things ever--a huge blessing to have one--but what I mean is, my garden bosses me around! True story.

First, I'll back up to just a couple of days ago. It was Sunday. I woke up with a terrible pain in my left leg. Got on the treadmill--it eased up a bit, but two miles and a lot of stretching later, it still hurt. I stayed home. I went out to water the garden, not because I really felt like it, but because it hasn't hardly rained, and my garden was dry and calling for me to come water her. See? Bossing me around. There were things that needed to be picked, like tons of tomatoes...beautiful tomatoes...green peppers...jalapeno peppers...squash...herbs...and gorgeous zinnia flowers! Bouquets needed to be made! Salsa needed to be made. There is no putting off the putting up. When the peppers and tomatoes are fresh off the vine, this is when the salsa must be made. You can whine about it...moan and groan with your pulled muscle...but just like the Olympics you've got to suck it up and perform when it's time to go!

Me--on my way out to the garden.

"The sun shone down for a nearly a week on the secret garden. The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place."

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

You know, I'm a quote collector. I don't just collect any ole quote either--I'm kinda picky about my quote collection, and I have certain criteria and all that. But I'll tell you--there are a lot of beautiful, sentimental quotes about gardening and gardens. Really, really beautiful quotes. And in all the quotes I've ever ran across about gardens, no quote has ever said, my garden is my boss and it's wearing me out! Or, I'm so tired of watering! 

These seeds made me plant them and water them every day back in March!

"A seed is a magical thing. A fat, pale bean, a flint-hard corn kernel, the chafflike seed of marigold, or a speck from a coleus blossom--in the most important way these, and every other seed, are alike. Within their tiny, inert bodies, all of them hide an endless potential."

--Gardening from Seed, Martha Stewart

I just love that quote about seeds from my little paperback M. Stewart seed book. Maybe I like the fact that seeds are so magical, that they come to life and tell you what you are going to do for the next eight months! (planting, watering, transferring, hardening off, transferring again, watering, harvesting, watering, salsa-making) Pretty brilliant. So, back to my Sunday pain-in-the-leg gardening. I had no choice, I had to pick the peppers that day AND make the salsa. Fresh-off-the-vine ingredients wait for no man. And you do not want to go to the trouble of canning unless what you are canning is pretty amazing. So I put on my apron, stretched out some more, and went for gold.

Click here for my salsa-making-and-canning how-to Dancing with Tomatoes.

Salsa!!

Aren't they the cutest? Those Ball Elite Collection little fat jars never let me down. Once you've chopped everything (seeding and chopping the jalapenos is the worst for me) and cooked up the batch of salsa, the rest is easy breezy. We're talking 25 minutes in the waterbath canner, and you're done. With these little fat jars, the lids start sealing with that big "pop" sound before you can even get all the jars out of the canner! Sweet! Now here's a tip. When you are chopping up your peeled tomatoes, to go in the big salsa pot to cook, let some of that tomato juice drain off as you add the tomatoes and you'll have a chunkier salsa.

Uh oh...time for another beautiful garden quote.

"All gardening is landscape painting."

Alexander Pope

Now, as for all those cherry tomatoes--a friend of mine sent me a great recipe for oven-dried cherry tomatoes where basically, you put your little halved tomatoes in a sheet pan, drizzle them in olive oil, sprinkle some sea salt, bake at 270 degrees for one hour and 45 minutes. They should keep a couple of weeks in the fridge. I'm going to try it! Now here's another idea I came up with. Pretty simple.

All my cherry tomatoes are now in little snack bags, in the fridge, ready for everyone to grab for lunches and snacks! All you need is a little thing of ranch dressing, and you are good to go!

"In the garden, after a rainfall, you can faintly, yes, hear the breaking of new blooms."

Truman Capote

Alright, that's my last beautiful garden quote of the day...and I'll quit whining about my garden bossing me around. I think I struck gold with my first batch of 2012 salsa--it's fresh and chunky and sweet--and today, my leg feels great! I just did my little yoga-Pilates floor routine. I'm good! (too bad the Olympics is over)

Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, Grow

Saturday at Home

Good morning! Don't ya love a Saturday at home?  

Especially if you've had a busy week of work, errands and chores. When I've been this busy, I have not even had time for my morning egg. Saturday at home means I do that extra mile on the treadmill, and have a nice brunch! I love having coffee on my greenhouse sunporch or the deck if there's a nice breeze. The temps have been much better this week, so who knows, I might actually get to take a walk around the beautiful lake at the park!

My favorite: smoked ham, egg and cheddar on a whole wheat muffin.

A nice walk and some good food, (don't forget my coffee) and I'm ready to tackle the day! Things are going pretty well in the garden. I've heard from a lot of friends whose gardens actually dried up! It has been a chore to have to water so much, but I couldn't give up on it! The tomatoes are doing great, the squash could be better, and the peppers and herbs are fine.

Daily harvest

I keep planting herb and flower seeds!

I have herbs and flowers all over the garden--diversity is very healthy in a kitchen garden. I also have a huge variety of pots with all kinds of flowers and herbs. These are handy when you just need a snippet of this or that--and the flowers just make me happy!

I just fresh-preserved another little batch of tomatoes--both red and yellow. When we have our first big family chili dinner this fall,  these will go into the chili, making it extra yummy with that garden-fresh taste. Visit my tomato-canning blog here for instructions on how to fresh-preserve your own garden tomatoes.

As I walk back up on the deck, Joseph follows me and flops down with his snake. I keep a green fake snake on the deck all the time. I don't know--it's the mischievous child in me. But at some point, Joseph decided that this was HIS snake, and he plays with it every day.

Stepping from the deck onto the greenhouse, this photo shows the long narrow end of my greenhouse sunporch. You can see my aloe vera plant way at the end, and a cat of course. I still have a shelf full of happy meal toys that my nephews like to play with. Some of them are vintage too. In the winter, my greenhouse will fill up with plants.

I'm still so proud of my picture frame project--and thank you for your kind comments about it! I took a plain brown paper frame, bought for 25 cents at a thrift store and made it into this with scrapbooking papers, stamps and glitter. Pretty basic! You can visit my paper frame blog here.

I love to wear my embroidered shorts! They are wild. That's why I'm working on embroidering two more pairs of cutoffs. It really doesn't take very long, and I feel so creative when I wear them! Crazy!

Joseph followed me into the house, and when I got down my new tote bag, he was, of course, all over it. Why does he like my new things so much? I had been wanting this India-style tote bag all summer from Target, and they just now marked them down to half price. Yay! I love a bargain. More money for crafts!

And now back to my angel project. I am designing five angel cross-stitch patterns and hand-crafted kits. So excited. It involves some beading which also makes me happy. And I found an ingenious way to keep track of my bead needle! (My bead needles were always getting mixed up with the fatter needles)

Here is a peek at my first stitched angel, done in the prettiest muted colors of DMC linen floss--I'll have better pics coming soon.

Well, it's time for tea. Thanks for hanging out with me today! I really love all my crafty blogger pals, and your comments always mean the world to me. Have a beautiful, crafty, creative day!

Eat, Write, Dream, and Stitch the day away.

Summer Dreamin' and Schemin'

 So here we are...approaching mid-August..and what have we done? Every fiber of my being is completely rejecting the back-to-school promotions right now! I've still got summer plans to carry out! While my official summer break is over, and I'm back to the office 40 hours a week--I'm not giving up on my summer dreams and schemes! I actually love my work--and that includes all my work--but I do love and appreciate the actual work I get paid regularly for. I have a lovely office, and work with the most wonderful people. I'm pretty organized, and I get a lot done. Sure, I'd love to be able to just write all the time and create my stuff--but a paycheck and health insurance are true blessings! I live close to my work, so I have several hours even after I get home to get creative, and I have the weekends and a lot of holidays and vacation. Am I ever tired? Sometimes I think I'm always tired! But it's not a sin to be tired. I even walk two miles every morning when I get up, first thing. So I know how to push through tiredness--and even a pinched nerve in my back. I'm pretty good at just acting like I feel wonderful! And sometimes, when I act like that long enough, I do!

So back to my summer dreams and schemes...I'm working on a few things...designing...sketching out plans...finishing up a big writing project...and having fun in the middle of all of it. My little idea book and creative journals are hopping with creative madness and mess. I've simply got more cutting, coloring, gluing, stitching, cooking, gardening, writing and socializing to do before we call it a summer kids!

I'm warning you--it might be late September before I call it another summer-past. If it stays warm, and I'm still picking tomatoes...it's summer!

In the meantime, I think what I like about having plenty of summer dreams and schemes is knowing that I'm cooking up a lot of projects that won't even be through until the middle of winter. When I move in for the winter, and I'm not sitting in the sun and out in the garden, I will need plenty to keep me busy and happy in the house!

Sadly, my big writing project actually involves Christmas--they are Christmas scripts and I need to get them to my publisher by September! The other Christmas item I want to do way ahead of time is make my own cards this year--I think that's a fab idea. Along with that, here are the other schemes I've got going and things I just want to do. I'm sort of rewinding and fast forwarding at the same time.

I want to make more cards--like this one for my daughter's birthday this summer. I love adding tags to cards--and I'm working on acquiring more of those lovely stamps. I think stamping is a lot like when I was little and had a coloring book in my hand all the time. Because you're not drawing--the stamp does that--you're kind of decorating...and that is so fun and relaxing.

Here we go--I had to have an excuse to show my doodle-embroidered cutoffs again! Doodle embroidering is at the top of my list and I have two more pairs of cutoffs to do. I don't know where to fit them in with all of the other things I want to do--and timing is critical so that it's still warm enough to wear them for heaven's sakes! One pair is green, like these, and the other is white--talk about a blank slate with doodle embroidering on white shorts...the possibilities are endless!

I keep wearing these all the time because they make me feel crazy creative!

Okay, do you see this tree? This pitiful little dead cherry tree? It is in the very back of my property, past the garden. It used to be the most gorgeous cherry tree--we enjoyed its harvest, year after year. So did the birds if we didn't pick the cherries soon enough! But sadly, one winter, a horrible ice storm hit, and our sweet little tree didn't recover. I can't bear to have it completely cut down...soooo...I'm going to yarn bomb it! I can't wait! I think it will be really cute. So stay tuned for that--I'm saying no more!

 In other news--I'm going to keep eating more veggies! Fresh, steamed, whatever...I'm going to keep doing this. I had an excellent checkup at the doctor--my bloodwork, blood pressure...all that blood stuff...was EXCELLENT! At my age, I'm very happy and proud of that. (51, by the way). So veggies, let's do this thingie!

Speaking of veggies--I'm going to keep picking and eating cherry tomatoes, every day, until there are no more. I'm not tired of it...no really...I'm thankful. Love these thingies! They are expensive at the store, so glad to have them for free right in my own backyard.

And speaking of tomatoes in my own backyard--I've got tons, including yellow ones. So I've decided to fresh-preserve the yellow ones too! I think they are pretty and unique--you probably can't buy canned yellow tomatoes at the store. Right?

 I'm going to keep planting seeds--especially basil--it goes with my tomatoes and I LOVE fresh pesto.

SAD! But not for long.

We are beautifying this sad little alcove by our outdoor workshop building. It is going to be ahhmazing--we're talking lots of paint...furniture...creative flooring...even beads, hanging things and painted rocks--so fun. I'll share all about it when it's done with all the before and after pics--this will go well with the yarn bombing. Can't wait! (Can you tell I've been watching Worlds Most Extreme Homes?) Of course, my hubby is in on this, doing the heavy lifting. He's the best.

Here's my hubby with some friends--we've had some fun times this summer, and I want to meet up with more friends and have more fun!

I will let sleeping cats lay...even if they're laying in a basket of my fabric!

Reorganize my sewing niche...

Buy more notions...

Open my Etsy store...Teacup & Pebble...

Bake more rosemary and tomato bread...

Glitter more and create more papercrafts...(this project was so fun!)

Work on my mixed-media projects so dear to me...(yay bowls o buttons!)

And one more thing...go to more ballgames! That's me on the left, peeking out from behind our mascot when I sang the National Anthem with a group earlier this summer. I love going to the ballgame with my hubby--having a bratz...sitting outside in a nice breeze. It has been horribly hot this summer--so I'm ready for some nicer evenings and simply more fun. We also go to my little nephew's ballgames...very fun. Family time is important, most of all. And I think my creative life just makes me a better mom, worker, family member and friend.

Keep scheming and dreaming!