Under Pressure

I used my pressure canner for the first time last week! A gift from my cousin Joe and his wife Caitlin for our wedding, it's sat in the box since we received it. I finally got up the nerve to use it.

I think it was helpful that I tested the pressure cooking story for EatingWell this year, so I was familiar with how it worked. And it was really the same thing--nothing to be scared of.

I finally killed my cucumber plants--I just couldn't take it anymore. Now I'm swimming in tomatoes. I've made 2 batches of tomato sauce—marinara and fennel-herb—and made my first batch of salsa last night. The dehydrator has been whirring away practically non-stop since I pulled it out—I have quarts of dried peaches, tomatoes and zucchini tucked away in the pantry. Zucchini and peach chips are so tasty!

I'm sad that we will only have this garden for a year. We did manage to find a house to rent in Portland that has a root cellar and raised beds, along with berry bushes. Not sure how we lucked out there but wow! Now I need to get a root cellaring book to see how to store our bounty properly—glad I can put our delicata and potatoes down there, maybe the celery as well. They even cured pancetta and prosciutto down there so perhaps I'll dabble in that too!