I Can Vacation

I've been on real vacation for a total of seven days now, and already I don't know what to do with myself.  Fortunately (I guess), I only have seven more days left.  Vacation often gives me that nagging sense that I should be doing something amazing all the time when, honestly, I would rather just do nothing.  Then, when I inevitably wind up doing nothing, I worry Future Kristin will be kicking herself five weeks from now for not having done anything.  Realistically, Future Kristin will probably just want the opportunity to do nothing.  So I guess, in that sense, I'm doing something right.

Now, when I say "nothing", I mean I am doing things.  My biggest task this summer has simply been to keep up with our farm share.  For example, I spent seven hours yesterday making 8 pints (really, that's it?!) of salsa.  In those seven hours, I prepared and finely cut 11 regular tomatoes, 80 paste tomatoes, 3 green bell peppers, 2 red bell peppers, 10 jalapenos, 3 Hungarian wax peppers, 2 onions, and 7 scallions.  One day, when I start getting paychecks again, I'll buy a food processor and it hopefully won't take as long.  But, again, it's not like I had anything better to do.

We're gunna need a bigger pan!

Come November, this salsa better taste amazing.

I should also note that this canning experience lent a wonderful opportunity for me to use my pH meter for a real purpose.  I wanted to use lime juice instead of vinegar but the acidity of the lime juice wasn't printed anywhere on the bottle.  BAM!  pH METER!  It certainly helped to give the impression that I had somewhat of an idea of what was going on, which is really all that I'm going for.

Next in the canning queue: pickled beets.