CSA Week 14

Oh dear!  I lost a week!   I cant believe I didnt post Week 14 yet!

Saturday and Sunday were crazy busy days..  Thats my story & Im sticking to it!  

I got up early on Saturday morning, showered and got dressed for a wedding..  then hit the road to pick up my veggies & those of my friend who is now out of the hospital and at home!  Yay!  Shes doing well, by the way! 

I picked up the veggies, dropped her's off at her door, picked up my daughters room mate and ran home to meet up with the rest of the family & hit the road to Eastern Ohio for an early afternoon wedding and evening reception..  

I didnt even take my photo until I returned home late that night around midnight..  I was determined to get a photo on Saturday.. haha. 

Here is the bounty! 

Beets, kohlrabi, celery, bunching onions, romaine lettuce, grape tomatoes, baby baker potatoes, 9 gorgeous tomatoes, slicing onions, blackberries, green bell pepper, 3 Carmen red peppers, 6 beautiful peaches & 4 chocolate sweet peppers..   

A gorgeous bag indeed.  My favorite of all are the Carmen red peppers..  They're sweet as candy & I just ate every one of them out of hand as a snack..  Yum! 

I canned the beets with others I'd been saving, Im fermenting the kohlrabi into pickles, we ate the potatoes as slow skillet fried (only 1 T of olive oil) potatoes with some sausage & my homemade sauerkraut..  I've eaten another of the chocolate peppers and I stuffed the green pepper along with others I had and cooked half of them & froze the other half for a meal another day..

I sliced & froze the top half of the celery..  I love using it in cooking in the winter.. 

The blackberries got put in the freezer for blackberry smoothies.. I find I prefer them that way... I love blackberries but I dont love the seeds in my teeth..  My VitaMix purees the seeds so they arent an issue for me anymore...

I havent done anything with the tomatoes yet.. Im waiting for this weeks bag hoping there will be another good sized bunch coming.. I'll can them up into something if there are..  maybe make tomato soup or V8 juice.. Yum! 

I made a nice sized pot of tomato soup one day last week and canned some of it up to use over the winter. 

I dont eat store bought canned cream of soups because of the wheat they put in them.. so I just made my own.   

M'honey & I had a nice bowl of tomato soup & a grilled cheese sandwich for supper that night.. what was left, I canned.   I got 2 pints & 8 half pints of tomato soup & I canned up 4 pints of beets in the same canner batch...  I could have just water bath canned the tomato soup but since I was pressure canning the beets, why not add them to that..  The beets timing was just 5 minutes more than what the soup was so they were fine together at the longer canning time... 

Here are a couple other things Ive canned in the last few weeks..   

Remember the bushel + of pears I got from our niece Maureen? Pears from Maureen

I made Old Fashioned Pear Preserves & Pear Slices in Heavy Syrup.  Yummy Yummy in my tummy! 

I juiced the remaining pears yesterday and got 4 quarts of pear juice..  I need to strain them to lose some of the pulp and I'll either can it or M'honey will drink it quite quickly!  :) 

Have a wonderful week!