Oh, Goodness!

It's been entirely too long since I've posted.  The days have flown by with family visiting and canning, canning, canning.

A couple weeks ago, my neighbors got together and we had a salsa canning party.  We prepped the veggies in the afternoon and canned in the evening.

And drank Margaritas while the salsa was in the canner.  Three of the five were canning newbies.  It was so much fun it is now going to be an annual event.  And they want to do applesauce in the fall and strawberry jam in the spring.

44 pints of salsa in one night!

Another really fun evening was last Wednesday when I was finally able to go to the Virginia Beach Farmer's Market Auction.  I met some new friends and had an absolute blast.

And I scored all these goodies for $63.  The corn was canned, the pears are ripening, the greenbeans were for my neighbor, and the potatoes and onions will eventually be dehydrated.  I used the peppers in This Yummy Recipe for Spicy Pepper Mustard and had enough to freeze and use in a second batch of salsa.  The figs were dehydrated and also made into a batch of jam.

In addition to peaches (more on them later), I also have been processing grapes.  The local orchard doesn't open for picking until September first, but the supermarket had some on sale for .99/lb and I decided to experiment with making juice to see if we liked it.  If so, I'll make a bunch with the local grape varieties like Muscadine and Scuppernong.

I used This Recipe which couldn't be any easier, assuming you have a pressure canner.