We Be Jammin' - Part One

I planted my first garden this year. Some of it didn't work out too well; the squash and I weren't friends. But peppers, tomatoes and I have been pals since May. I'm not sure why, but I had great success with thw tomatoes and peppers; good soil, good light, super easy plant, not totally sure. But I've had a blast this summer and the plants are still going strong. Except for the cherry tomato plant that was trampled by 5 different dogs this past week. But until recently, I've had tons of cherry tomatoes.

I've had a blast cooking with everything. We done a couple pasta salads with the cherry tomatoes but our favorite has been the roasted garlic and tomatoes on flat bread (or ultimately, thin pizza dough.) We've done fajitas with the garden peppers., both tomato and watermelon salsa with the jalapenos, tomato pie, jalapeno-cheese bread, BLT's, and lots of garden salads. But I still had a lot of peppers and tomatoes left.

When my mom came down for a week after Lily's birthday, I told her I wanted to make jalapeno jelly. I said jelly, but what I really wanted was Harry and David's Pepper and Onion Relish. But we (and by we, I mean my mom) found a recipe for Sure Jell Hot Pepper Relish. It may not be Harry and David, or $6.95 a jar, but I think it is wonderful! I took my first jar to a party last night, spread that bad boy over some low-fat cream cheese and served with wheat crackers. Today I ate the leftovers for lunch. It was so good! I really was surprised at how flavorful it was.

It's not as spicy as I would have liked it so I am excited to try a new batch. I am also nervous to do the jam alone. Having mom here with me, and two in the kitchen allowed for us to get the batch done during second nap!

I was also trying to come up with ways to use up all the tomatoes I had. I already had a bunch of spaghetti sauce in the freezer so we ended up simply canning crushed tomatoes.

It really wasn't hard, but is a little time consuming as the tomatoes needed a boiling water bath for 35 minutes. However, the jars of crushed tomatoes will be perfect this winter with my favorite crock pot recipes!