I just like saying that title…it is like so many words or combinations….it’s just a fun thing to say.  What words do you have like that…stuff that’s just fun to say?

Anyhow, I’ve long posted on gardening endeavors so this is in that tradition.  We have a little habit of planting too much and then filling our kitchen full of food that we can never hope to eat before it goes bad.  We go a little pioneer (or more like early 20th century) on it and can everything!

It seems like we can never start the canning process before 10pm though.  Anyone who has ever canned knows that starting that late has its good and its bad aspects…it’s usually cooler later at night and canning makes things in the house pretty hot.  Canning also sometimes takes a long time so starting late might mean sleep deprivation.  In our case, we just never have time before 10pm so heat has nothing to do with it.

Anyhow, the other night, we started spaghetti sauce at around 10.  Spaghetti sauce is a great way to use up a lot of tomatoes…our recipe calls for 30 pounds at a time.  We add spices and veggies and meat and fungus mushrooms.  Adding those things means we have to pressure can and boil the living fire out of the jars.  Tomatoes alone are pretty acidic so any nasties can usually be killed with straight-up boiling and letting the acids do their work.  Adding the other stuff prevents that so pressure canning is necessary…pressure canning simply allows the temp to get a lot higher.  Our recipe calls for the canner to stay at temp for 1 hour.  Talk about a late night!  We did clear out most of our tomatoes though and we will have lovely vittles this winter when spaghetti will taste especially awesome!

Speaking of awesome, home-grown veggies are usually in the own league compared to store bought.  I think the biggest difference comes in potatoes.  Taters are easy to grow and are just so much more tender and smooth to me when I grow them.  It’s striking and makes it well worth the work of digging the tubers.  This year, we planted one crop which we harvested in July.  We turned right around and planted another crop which appears to be doing very well!  I love the idea of two tater crops this year!  We usually plant once and take what we get, but the taters were just too good to pass it up!