Breaking in our "New Kitchen"!!

Last Sunday night our refrigerator sounded like an airplane making a crash landing.  Mark unplugged it and ordered a new one the next day.  We got a significant discount for purchasing its oven counterpart, so here they are installed on Thursday afternoon!  Aren't they beautiful?

 I don't deserve a kitchen like this.  I really don't.
I love baking and cooking if I have the right ingredients, but for the most part I am not a domestic goddess who deserves and fully utilizes her kitchen.  But some days I try. 

For the past few weeks I've been harvesting Mark's garden (remember, we can't call the weed patch I planted a "garden"), and the tomatoes are really coming into abundance.  I froze 26 quarts of them and have run out of freezer space, so it was time to try..gasp...canning.

 I bought a dozen jars at Walmart and scoured the internet for easy canning recipes.  Thought I would try this recipe for salsa using our Romas and green peppers.  I had to ask some ladies at the grocery store how in the heck you cut garlic--that's how ignorant I am--and they pointed me in the direction of jarred garlic.  I bought one and threw them in the chopper, along with a few jalapenos.  The jalapenos are something I would definitely leave out next time.  Too spicy.  I threw half of this mixture into another pot and added a few cans of crushed pineapple to sweeten it up a bit. 

 So here we have half salsa and half pineapple salsa.  (Three jars on the left are not showing.)  Only one jar didn't seal properly, so I guess that isn't too bad of a percentage.  Not sure why they call it canning when you're using glass jars, but I'm sure there's a logical history behind it.  These twelve little jars took me eight hours to do.  (granted, there were 2 meals, garbage collecting, stove cleaning, and dish washing in the middle of that, but still a full day of work)  I couldn't help but feel a oneness with my mother and all women who've put up a little summer for the winter.  Actually, there are plenty of men who "can" as well...my brother just did tomatoes a few days ago, and the Walmart clerk's husband did, too ;)

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. --Genesis 9:3