Being Domestic

In the area that we live we have AMAZING farmer's markets. In fact, this area of Utah is well known for them. We love that, and take full advantage of it each year when they are open. This year I decided that I was going to seriously make some improvements to my food storage. Thanks to my friends Shanna and Tiffanie I have some great ideas of how to do that, and the encouragement to get it done. So I decided to take advantage of the nice growing season here, all the moisture we get, and the farmer's markets, and do some canning. So far out of my garden I have gotten tons of green beans, snow peas, zucchini, spinach, apricots, and tomatoes. And from the farmer's market I have made strawberry, black berry, and raspberry jam, and corn. I don't have pictures of it all, but I did remember to document some of it. My kids thought it was a lot of fun at first, but now they are over it. Adia even volunteered to clean her room if she didn't have to help with any more "food saving". Now I know how my mom felt when I was younger. I am grateful that she made me help even when I complained. I just wish I would have paid more attention... This year in addition to my usual bottling tomatoes and making juice I tried my hand at sun dried tomatoes It takes a long time, but it was easier than I thought. Plus they taste SOOOO good, and made my house smell yummy!

Both of my kids are huge bean fans, so we are glad that our plants are producing tow to three pickings a week unlike last year when we only got two small pickings all summer long.

I got a GREAT deal on corn so I ended up buying nine dozen ears of corn. We like to freeze our corn instead of bottle it because I like to just grab a handful and throw it into whatever dish I'm making, cornbread, chilly, salads, pasta dishes, etc and I like to be able to adjust the amount according to how many I am feeding. If it's frozen I can just get out the amount I want and don't have to open a whole jar, and have the rest go to waste. It's a little easier to freeze, I think, and definitely takes less time. It was still a process though, and it didn't make the house smell nearly as good as the sun dried tomatoes or the jam:)