More U picks!

During the week I saw an ad for Hafner Upick. The ad said tomatoes and peppers. This was different from the normal berry and apple picking you see in this area. I've noticed some people have peach u pick and I have been so jealous of that! So we go to this place, having no idea what to expect and it's not fancy by any means. Just a house, with huge fields behind it. They have the general vicinity labeled for the food. They had eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, hot peppers.

It was amazing the amounts of plants they had. I mainly loaded up on tomatoes and red peppers. I can't believe it took me so long to find out about this place. Zach was funny. He hates walking in taller plants so I would have to find an area for him to stand it. He kept wanting to throw them like he does with his baseballs. We saw a grasshopper. It's been ages since I've seen one... I could have taken a picture and zoomed in on it but I didn't think of it until after because I wanted to grab Zach so he could be sure to see it.

I actually had no idea how much this was going to cost me. When I drove back to the house, they had a scale and calculator set up. They were holding copies of the receipts down with rocks. (told you it wasn't fancy). They were generous about estimating how much your container weighs, (as they ask you to bring your own). I ended up with 6 pounds of tomatoes and 7 pounds of peppers. The price almost floored me. 60 cents/lb for tomatoes, and .75 cents/lb for peppers. I can't understand how the stores get away with charging $2.99/lb for red pepper! My grand total was $15.00! I'm going to can the tomatoes and I've cut up some red peppers and are freezing them for pasta dishes during the winter. They said they let people keep coming until the first significant frost, so I think I'm going to go back on Friday!

My next canning adventure

So, there have been some incredible deals at the supermarket. A big bin of tomatoes for $5-6.00. Now I'm not a HUGE tomato fan. I don't eat tomato and mayo sandwiches, but I do love chili and use tomatoes in soups and salsa. So in this picture you see the 3 large jars of diced tomatoes, and the small jar of diced tomatoes as well. The 2 smaller jars on the outside are some salsa that I made. I am officially addicted to canning I think. At work, some patients brought in peppers and tomatoes for us. There was about 20 tomatoes left and no one wanted them, so I took them. I'm waiting for them to ripen a little bit more. I also found a U pick tomato and pepper place that I'm going to take my little guy tomorrow. There is a chance of a frost tonight, so we'll see if that derails our plans. I used very simple instructions found on www.pickyourown.org.

Other people's gardens....

Is a great way to obtain local, probably organic produce. A patient of mine who is trying to teach me how to cook Puerto Rican foods, brought me some goodies from his garden. We have tomatoes, hot peppers and the small, green ones are sweet peppers. I gave him in return, some green and purple beans. I think I'm gonna turn all of this into a nice, hot, yummy Salsa.

Recipe for Fresh Salsa

Using my goodies from the Farmer's Market, I made some fresh salsa.
I got the basic recipe from simply recipes.com and tinkered with it a little.
Here is the recipe.

Fresh Salsa:
Ingredients:

• 4-5 medium tomatoes, finely diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1-2 hot peppers (ie jalapeno) stems, ribs, seeds removed
• 2-3 garlic cloves, diced
• 1 tsp each of salt and pepper (or to taste)
• 1 tsp each of oregano and cumin (or to taste)
• juice from 1 lime
• 1/4 c fresh cilantro (and basil if desired)

Save the seeds from the jalapenos. These can be used to adjust the "hotness" of your salsa. Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Allow to sit for several hours to let the flavors blend. The best thing is you can omit any of the ingredients or add others as you like. I fried some corn tortillas in some canola oil and sprinkled with seasoned salt to flavor.