Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

The tomatoes have started pouring in. I picked a 5 gallon bucket full last night. All shapes and sizes, mostly red and yellow. Saturday will be spent canning tomatoes. They will be so tasty this winter in soups and stews. I am actually considering canning just yellow ones just to see if I like yellow soup, instead of red. Even though I know the taste is pretty much the same, yellow soup just seems kind of weird to me.

I tried to make my own spaghetti sauce this week. I am not sure that I am going to like the taste of it. It seems kind of bitter now. Maybe if I mix it with store bought spaghetti sauce it will be fine.

One tip I'll share about store bought spaghetti sauce is to keep a large baggie in the freezer. When I use a jar of spaghetti sauce, I turn the jar upside down in the baggie and let it drain. It takes a while to get enough to use, unless you use a lot of spaghetti sauce. But you will be surprised how much sauce is left in the jar after you use it.

Zipper cream peas are doing well. I have another mess (as we call it in the south) to shell and get in the freezer. The raccoons ate all of our corn so I am having to buy corn to put in the freezer. And something is killing our chickens. We lost one of our prettiest older hens last night. It is pretty upsetting when you've had a chicken for so long.

It has been pretty hot here in Northern Kentucky, it reminds me of Florida this week. The good part of that is it doesn't last long.

We have been cleaning out my mother's in law home this summer, they have moved into assisted living, and I have been bringing home lots of cook books. I have an addiction to cook books. I keep getting more and more, so I have decided to try to make at least one recipe from each book. This will probably take the rest of my life. But this week I made a recipe from an old cook book on potatoes. I think it was called Terrific Taters or something like that. Here is the recipe and it was delicious.


Seven Layer Dinner
2 cups sliced potatoes (I used red unpeeled potatoes)
1/4 cup chopped celery (I omitted)
1 lb ground beef (I used ground chuck)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup sliced carrots
2 cups canned tomatoes (I used fresh and added a little water)
1/4 cup rice (next time I will put the rice under the tomatoes)

Layer in order in a 1.5 quart casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 1.5 hours. I had to put it in the microwave for about 6 minutes to finish cooking the rice. I don't think there was enough liquid to cook it very well so next time it will be under the tomatoes.

Did I say this was yummy!

Have a great day!
Mae