Three large very ripe tomatoes were blanched, diced, brought to a simmer, then hot packed and are now a pint and a half of diced tomatoes. Yes, they were that large. I had some in the fridge that had parts trimmed off (attacked in the garden) that were blanched and went into a batch of marinara sauce (my tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and oregano are in it, along with Italian sausage, onion, red wine and sliced mushrooms from the freezer, and tomato paste). And still have have two large flats full of ripening tomatoes, a bowl full of really ripe tomatoes, and a bunch on the windowsill. There are a lot more in the garden also, and I picked more peppers and okra today.

Tomorrow I'm going to slice, bread, and fry some eggplant to take to my neighbor across the street who loves it but doesn't cook any more. With COPD she doesn't do much of anything any more. I have a friend coming in the afternoon who needs help shortening her rain pants for a trip to Iceland next month (my friend is very short and doesn't want to fall over into one of Iceland's many waterfalls because she tripped over the cuffs of her pants.) She offered any price to help - but I don't want my friend in that waterfall either, so of course there isn't a charge for this kind of sewing work. I wonder if I should point her in Skarpi's direction? Wouldn't that give a wonderful twist to the vacation?

So, salsa yesterday, tomatoes and Marinara sauce today. The house smells great, the pantry is going to start filling up, and I've spent a lot of time washing out pots and I'm running the dishwasher two days in a row. I have yet to get down the steam juicer, the real star of the food processing kitchen. I could steam tomatoes and make sauce and juice, could steam grapes for jelly, or even put a chicken in it and come up with some kind of non-boiled boiled chicken. At this point in time I could choose to dice and can all of the tomatoes and have them to use for the next couple of years, but I still have some left from last year, so it's more prudent to spread them around in different products of the kitchen. And we aren't to pickle or jelly season yet so I need to think about keeping some shelf space available.

I do love my garden, but it keeps me busy thinking of creative ways to use everything that comes out of it.