TOMATO TIME!

Hello dear friends!   Sorry if I've been pokey about leaving comments on your blog lately.  Just been very busy, which I know is a very poor excuse.  There is always time for friends!

One of the things we've been up to is canning spaghetti sauce.  Here's my recipe: hopeandthrift.blogspot.com/2011/08/bounty-of-earth.html
This is a great recipe because you don't have to remove the skins, and since the tomatoes are on the small side this year it really is the only way I'd be able to cope with them .   Made a couple dozen pints already.  We never can get enough of this stuff!

All the large tomatoes  go toward making tomato sandwiches.   A really thrifty meal this time of the year and nothing taste better!  Here's how:

How to Make a Tomato Sandwich

Spread  good sturdy bread (we use sourdough)  with mayonnaise. As much or as little as you want, but more is always better.  BTW, there is vegan mayo out there.  Next, thinly slice an onion and place atop the bread.  Red onions are the best, but an onion is an onion.  Next place thick slices of farm fresh tomatoes over the onions and sprinkle liberally with fresh black pepper and less so with the salt.  Grill.  Note:  we've found that heating a skillet with olive oil and then placing the bread on the skillet, turning once to coat the bread, makes the nicest toasted sandwiches.  No burnt bread from uneven butter distribution.  OH!   And mozzarella cheese is always a nice addition, if you are so inclined. There you have it, nothing finer in the world!

One thing that is keeping my mind preoccupied is this.  We are finally getting our house resided.  I feel somewhat like Mr. Blandings as we make decisions about where, what and how.   Exciting though!

I found this quote the other day.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.
~John Muir~

Here's a little corner of beauty I found this week.  Our hydrangeas have bloomed!  It was touch and go there for a while.   All the blossoms appeared and the were bitten by the frost in that strange weather we had this spring.   I'm so happy that decided to show themselves after all!

It occurred to me that I've been neglecting the thrift part of my blog lately.  So here's my tip for this week.   The cattle growers are running out of feed and have begun to sell off their herds, so for a while there will be a glut of meat on the market, forcing the prices to go down.  Now is the time to buy and freeze or even can some.   After the initial flood of the market, prices will go back up and because you can't just get livestock overnight, you have to grow it and that takes a lot of time,  prices will be much higher in the for quite a while.  Corn will also be expensive, the farm report says it's selling for an all time high of $9 a bushel.  Corn is used in a lot of foodstuff, so groceries will be much higher.  BTW, listening to the farm report is a good way to keep abreast of the economy.  Now is the time to stock up your pantry.  A  post I wrote about stocking a basic pantry can found at the right under the label category entitled The Basic Pantry Items.  In the past I wrote more about being thrifty, but have given it up lately as I feel I'm preaching to the choir.  But if you're interested there's a lot of earlier posts that have thrifty ideas.   You can always use the search engine at the top of the page if there's something specific you are interested in.

Well, here we have arrived at the middle of the week already.  If we don't chat sooner, have a lovely weekend!