Cleaning up the garden = food in jars!

I have always been big on homemade jams and every year make at least one type.  This year I've made Strawberry, Strawberry Rhubarb, Blueberry and Peach.  All very tasty.

I recently bought the Canadian Living Preserving book and it has a bunch of really good looking recipes so I decided that it was time to expand beyond the world of jam.

One recipe that caught my eye as I was flipping through the book on its first read was green tomato chutney.  Every year at this time, as I clean up the garden, I'm faced with tons of green tomatoes with few ideas on how to use them.  This chutney recipe uses 4 pounds which makes me feel good about putting them to use rather than throwing them into the compost.

I also, after waiting for a lot longer than expected for them to ripen, have bunches of tomatillos.  Too many for salsa.  A few weeks ago, I baked some and used them as a salsa for fish which was really good but one can only eat that so often too.  So I looked in my new favourite preserving book and there are several uses for tomatillos.  I picked a recipe for a tomatillo salsa with roasted green and jalapeno peppers.

Finally, because I don't know when to stop, I also pickled the remaining beets.  Now I'm ready for a nap and realizing that I need to become the sort of person who thinks to eat chutneys.  I'll use them on sandwiches, at least.

Last week I was up in North Bay and my dad wanted help cleaning up crab apples that had fallen from the next door neighbours' tree.  I started bagging them when I decided that they should be put to better use than the landfill (no curbside composting up there).  So I made crab apple jelly.  This was my first experience with jelly and I found it quite easy.  Tasty too.

Now I just have to find room to store all of these jars.