Tomato fever

It's been a long time since we've posted to the "cooking" portion of the site. Frankly, we cook all the time. We cook so much that it almost feels ridiculous to post to the cooking section, because cooking has ceased being special for us.

The fact that we cook every day, or nearly every day, is actually pretty special on its own -- but if we posted about that with any diligence, this would cease to be a house blog and would be just a blog about what we're cooking every day.

However, in the past few days an abundance of tomatoes has led us to a cooking arena which is off our normal routine. We broke out the hot water bath canner (and a trusty canning/preserving cookbook) and put up some tomatoes.

We actually had buckets and buckets of tomatoes. Here are some of them, including heirlooms. We also had tons of plum tomatoes:

After we cooked down the most ripe ones, Evan put them through the food mill. We then cooked that sauce some more:

Then we ladled them in quart jars with 2 tbsp of lemon juice apiece. We ended up with five quart jars, which we put in the canner for 35 minutes. Here they are before I lowered the canning rack into the canner for processing:

I burned myself a couple times on hot water. And the kitchen got very hot. We actually did the cooking and canning at night, which was good because the temperature was lower overall, so it only got to like 90 in the kitchen.

After they'd processed in boiling water for 35 minutes, I let them sit in the canner for another five minutes, then extracted them from their steaming bath so they could sit quietly overnight. Voila!

Windows #2 and 3

On Saturday, Evan hustled to install two more new windows. In fact, he moved so quickly that I didn't get a chance to take pictures while he was working. But here's the finished product:

Not sure what we're going to do with the old windows:

So, three windows down -- five more to go. And maybe next year we'll do another five or so, after we see how these survive the winter. Yes, we've got that many more windows to replace.

For now, we are overjoyed at how nice the new windows look. Viewing them from inside (these are all in the living room), they look clean and sturdy. And, unlike the old windows, you can open them. Ah, nice to feel a breeze in the house...

Corn pokin'

We've got corn! And lots of green beans.

Really excited, though, about the corn.

Last year we had corn but various things -- bugs, deer, other bugs -- ate it. I think we ended up with only a couple ears. Last year, the Japanese beetles also ate up the beans until around September, after which the beans rebounded and we were flush with beans for about a month.

So, 2008: very sad to report that aphid-like bugs infested my summer squash plants, and some of the pumpkins, so I had to pull them up. But, unlike last year, the corn and beans are flourishing. Here's the first ear that we picked, and then ate, last week. With a couple beans in the background.

To fill in where the squash had been, I forged ahead with 2008 Garden 2.0 -- lots of little exciting experiments: First, turnips, pak choi (supposed to be like bok choi) and swiss chard. Like, two feet of each. Just to see how they do. Planted those last week and they're starting to sprout. Turnips planted in late summer last year turned out great, so we'll see....

Today continued the experiment: Planted spring onions, spinach... and carrots. I suspect it is a little late for carrots in our zone 5/6 climate, but we might get some baby ones. We've got more than two months of summer left, after all!

Also, Evan started replacing the windows. He started today and got 90 percent of the work done on one. I didn't take pictures as we were crunched for time when he started, but we will document next weekend when he ventures to do the next one. He's planning on replacing eight windows before winter comes knocking....