Duchess of Evil

 ~ Writing.  Not as much as I should, but enough to still make my June 30th deadline for finishing this third rewrite.

~ Gardening.  Anyone who knows me IRL would probably gape in shock, but for some reason this year, finally, I'm tired of my yard being...well, blah.  Last weekend, I planted eight candy tuft plants, an equal number of phlox with purple flowers, some snap dragons, two blue berry bushes, four tomato plants, two lilacs (one of them a transplant start from my current lilac), three raspberry bushes, and a wisteria.  I still have a bunch of strawberries to plant, but the weather turned to rain, and I haven't done it yet.  

I've also decided I'd like to put two or three raised garden boxes in my back yard, over the section we've never gotten to really grow well.  Unfortunately, the cost of materials is a little higher than I anticipated, so we'll see if it gets done this year, or next.  But I really, REALLY want a garden.  With cucumbers and lettuce, rhubarb, onions, radishes, carrots, zucchini, green beans....

Yes, I have gone garden crazy.  It baffles me, too.  I blame last year's discovery of canning.  

Speaking of which:

~ making jam!  My m-in-law and I bought two flats of fresh picked strawberries from a Saturday market-esque street vendor, splitting the cost.  She made strawberry shortcake and gave the rest to me.  I begged some rhubarb off her very nice neighbor, and made two batches of some fantastic strawberry-rhubarb jam from the Blue Ball book, and then a low sugar batch of strawberry from the same book (5 1/2 C of sugar instead of the 7 the recipe wanted - 7 is just too much for already sweet strawberries!)  Both are excellent.

The rhubarb version turned out so awesome, I want to plant my own rhubarb now.  I gave my m-in-law's neighbor two jars as a thank you, and split the rest between my m-in-law and me.

I was shocked when I looked in my cupboards in preparation for this, and realized we were almost out of all the jam I made last year.  Good timing!  In the meantime, my plans for canning this year are much more ambitious than last year's efforts.  More pears, more peaches, and hopefully some new things.  We'll see as the summer progresses.

(How sad is it when I stop during commercials to watch a gardening-related Home Depot commercial??  This is so weird.)

I don't know if many of you know this about me, but I'm a farm girl. Born and raised on a farm. We raised and either butchered, or had butchered, our own beef, sausage, pork, chicken (until the pair of hawks living on our property ate them all), rabbit and, um, hmm. We also had a full garden every year.

I hate weeding to this day. And I have a terrible black thumb. I kill plants, indoors and out. So instead of growing my own, I buy from the local farmsand go to the Farmer's Market on Saturdays sometimes.

I vaguely recall my Mom canning when I was growing up, but then she got a full time job and that never happened again. Well, recently I made some jam from $10 worth of peaches I bought at the farmer's market. In the same week, I chipped in on a friend's fresh tuna buy and ended up with 23 half pints of freshly canned tuna that is freaking amazing.

Today, I went searching for canning tips online "what else can I can with my barely adequate rustic water bath, home canning set up ?" But tomatoes and tomato sauce, it turns out, are low acidic content and either need acid added, or a pressure cooker to can. More research yielded that this is true of most vegetables and meats.

So, I wanted to upgrade my water bath set up, anyway. I need a taller, wider pot to do more cans at once. I need jar tongs, instead of the regular ones I've been using. The difference between getting this, and getting a pressure cooker in which I could either pressure cook OR water bath can was approximately $50. I went with the pressure cooker.

Free amazon two day shipping, that baby will be to me, um...crap. Next Wednesday, thanks to the holiday. :( Oh, well.

In the meantime, I'm on the hunt for the perfect tomato sauce/spaghetti sauce recipe. Alton Brown, don't fail me now! also, my boss has cucumbers coming out his ears from his garden. Perhaps I'll snag some and try my hand at homemade pickles! I do believe I'll make some homemade applesauce this Fall, as well. Mmmmmmmm.

Some central part of me misses that "home grown"-ness of the farm. I might not be able to raise my own cows, but we bought a quarter of a steer last year, part of which is still in my freezer, and I'm loving the canning possibilities.

Do any of you can? What are your favorite canning recipes?