I’m starting to lie awake at night wondering what we’ll do with all these tomatoes! Look at what we picked just today. My Mother in Law, who helped us immensely with planning and planting our garden, remarked, “Hmmm, we probably planted too many tomatoes!”

I found this recipe for Roasted Tomato Soup at You Grow Girl! Perfect, look at all those tomatoes it uses up. I did not have a food mill, but I pushed the tomatoes through my fine mesh colander and it was perfect. Since I’m a Campbell’s Tomato Soup junkie (Side note, ANYTIME, Campbell’s, that you want to rid this beloved soup of High Fructose Corn Syrup is fine by me…), this homemade soup’s taste was a bit too “real” for me! So I found this Food Network recipe and used the rest of that recipe to create our own Cream of Roasted Tomato Soup. It was pretty tasty, although I think my tastebuds have been ruined by good ‘ol Campbells, sad to say. Hey, it’s one of those tastes you grow up with that you can never shake.

A huge passion of mine is Scrapbooking. I so wish I had more time to devote to it. I’m woefully behind with the Pearls’ books. I love the papers and embellishments and creating something lasting and beautiful. I haven’t quite gotten into Digital Scrapbooking, although I’ve used Photoshop Elements extensively to create invitations, announcements and the like. A friend shared this wonderful freebie with me from Shabby Princess. She has created these beautiful digital scrapbook layouts for your computer desktop. You’ll need a photo editing software like Elements to drop your photos into it. It looks like September is up and posted, so I’d better get searching for some photos for it. Here is our version of August desktop. Now, go make your own to enjoy!

Get on over to The Pioneer Woman today and enter to win a gorgeous Kitchen Aid Stand mixer! You’ll need to comment on what is your favorite dessert. How easy is that? Look at all those gorgeous colors they offer now. I think for me, it would be a toss up between the silver and the green. Good luck!

We were checking Father of Pearls’ Mom’s garden when in only a week’s time, we discovered one of those huge, overgrown zucchinis. We plucked it out of there and my food processor made super short work of grating it up. We tried a Chocolate Zucchini bread recipe that was just OK, but then we tried thisChocolate Zucchini Cake recipe and found a winner! It was very moist and was a cross between a brownie & regular cake texture. The kids even ate some after breakfast and it wasn’t frosted. I know, I know. But it brings to mind that hilarious Bill Cosby skit, “Dad is great. He gives us some Chocolate Cake”.

And in big garden news, the three cauliflower plants that have been taking up WAY too much garden real estate without producing a thing have finally started to develop a head of cauliflower. The Pearls’ were so excited to make this discovery. Yum, I can taste that roasted cauliflower recipe already.

I just love vintage kitchen stuff! I found these cool vintage canisters recently at the thrift shop, marked down half to $3.63. I simply couldn’t pass them up! The olive green is perfect to match our granite and kitchen decor and the maybe-one-day-to-be-painted kitchen. Although Father of Pearls is still holding out that I’ll find the brown vintage ones he grew up with, these will work until then.
I love to Google these vintage finds to learn more about them. On the bottom of the canisters is “Lincoln Beauty Ware”. I didn’t find a whole lot, but they look to be from the 1950’s and from various descriptions, these are in good shape.

We did it! One more thing to cross off my list of things I’ve always wanted to try, but were too intimidated to do so! Wow, was it ever sweet though. I may have to experiment with the Low Sugar varieties of Pectin.

My Grandparents used to make a small batch of jam each summer and I was sorry that I never got to learn at their feet. But our Oldest Pearl and I tackled the task today and it really was not as difficult or as time consuming as I’d expected. I think it took about an hour and a half from start to finish. Not bad for our first time. We ended up with 7 jars of peach-goodness to share. I found a great blog that had a ton of ideas for using your peach jam, Chickens In The Road I want to make her “Grandmother Bread”.
Here are a few of the tools that made our job alot easier:
They say this Blue book is the Canning Bible.It is beautifully illustrated with great recipes and was only $6 at Target.

This Ball 4 piece Utensil Set for Preserving was terrific. $7 at Target and we had all we needed to make the job alot easier and safer.

It took some searching, but here is the Official Ball website. There is some terrific content on there to learn so much more.

Oops, I completely forgot to update the Watkins August Monthly Sales page at the beginning of the month! Here is the direct link to the Specials page There are a great deal of Personal Care products on sale. I just ordered the New Naturals Body Oil in Green Tea & Aloe and am anxious to try it out.

And have you had a chance to check out WatkinsOnline.com and it’s newly redesigned site? It’s got a nice, clean look with easy to navigate menus.

These turned out beautifully, although they sure shrink up to nothing! I can’t wait to try these in some recipes. I went ahead and froze a small bag of them and shared the rest with my sister.

Humor us while we try this little experiment! I found this clever idea at a great website called, Pick Your Own. Every time I have Googled lately about gardening, preserving or canning, this site comes up in my search and looks to be a wealth of information. We’ve had some pretty little Romas ripen this week and we wanted to make good use out of these early babies! With a few, we roasted them in the oven with a breadcrumb & parmesan mix then drizzled with olive oil. They were so delicious.

Then I read that sun dried tomatoes are best made with paste tomatoes like the Roma or Plum. Unfortunately, our weather took a turn for the cooler this week, so it’s not as roasty in the car as it’s been. It may take several days for them to completely dry out. We’ll update soon with the results.

Tomatoes
Cauliflower, Peppers, Herbs
Beans
Squash

It’s been awhile since we posted a garden update and pictures. The Pearls have yet to tire of running out to the garden each morning to catch the first sight of a red tomato! We’ve harvested only a small amount of veggies so far. I think we’ve picked one yellow squash, one zuchhini, one green pepper, and a handful of tomatoes and edamame. The only thing really producing well right now is our green beans, we’ve picked about a handful a day. We are sure going to have a bounty when they all ripen at once, I’m sure. We’ve pledged to either eat that same day, freeze, or give away everything that we pick instead of letting it languish in the fridge or on the counter like some of our store bought produce ends up doing. The green beans have been so delicious just lightly steamed and we have a big bag in the freezer we’ve been adding to as well. I figure those will be a perfect addition to fall soup recipes ahead. Stay tuned for the next installment.