Summer bounty

I meant to do my final post for ice cream week today, but instead spent my day dealing with the over-abundance of produce from our CSA.



The past three week's worth of beets became these chocolate beet muffins (thanks to Sara for tweeting about them yesterday, as I'd had no inspiration for dealing with the shelf full of red globes). They were a huge hit with the whole family, and I'm sure the extra cup of beet puree that I stashed in the freezer will be put to similar use soon.

The drawer full of cukes became seven jars of bread and butter pickles, a hot packed version of these fridge pickles. I love the ease of refrigerator pickles, but just don't have the fridge space.

And finally, I revisited small batch canning when I received a bag full of tomatoes, a ton of green and hot peppers, and onions in this week's box: three jars of hubby's favorite salsa.

For the first time, canning seemed more natural, less overwhelming. I didn't need to review the instructions every two seconds, and I made all of the salsa and almost all of the pickles without needing another pair of hands. Makes me feel more confident about the next over-flowing box of goodies coming my way!