Cooking and Canning Like it's 1920

It's the best time of the year to fish (more on that later in the week), but I've been spending a LOT of time in the kitchen.  We have canned about 60 quarts of tomatoes, made 40 pounds of ketchup, and I've been experimenting in bread making.  We laugh at ourselves--ten years ago neither of us would have ever thought that gardening and canning would be such an important part of our lives.  We wonder what year it is sometimes, but ten we turn on our cooking music (rap) to remind ourselves.

We made ketchup twice this year.  It's a two-day, dirty, hot process, but the results are spectacular.  My sister and some of my friends have been begging for more ketchup since we gave some out at Christmas last year. 

Ketchup mise en place still life.

The start of the two-day ketchup process.

Lithium Sunset tomatoes.

Testing out my new ketchup spoon.

Paddy, of Crazy Guy Tomatoes, had a great garden this year.  We think we had about 1500 pounds of food, which in Idaho, in a yard, is pretty impressive.  His watermelon crop was definitely the most impressive crop--our living room is exploding with watermelon right now!

500 pounds of delicious watermelon!

Paddy's 41 pound watermelon!

 My experiments in bread making have varied quite a bit, but the sourdough I made yesterday was restaurant quality--I'm making some progress.  Of course, this means, unfortunately, that I'm eating more bread.  I may have to stop this new hobby.

Heirloom cherry tomato, roasted garlic, rosemary, and sea salt foccacia.

Rosemary sourdough boule.

The cooking is over for now.  We are heading to West Texas (unfortunately no redfishing this fall) this weekend and are ready to soak up some sun a desert.  Nothing clears my head and my soul like exploring in the desert.