Goodies

I love the summertime - the fresh vegetables, the berries. I'm enjoying finding new ways to use up our summer produce. Last week I managed to save enough blackberries for a pie, and Saturday I put up 8 jars of pickles with garden cucumbers (is that what you say, "put up"?).

This is the pie (I still miss it; it was amazing and I'm kind of sad when I see this picture). It was a particularly productive morning; I managed 2 loaves of bread and a batch of pinto beans as well. These beans are smashed and refried, then frozen in small portions. This particular batch, however, was only half frozen - we had a huge meal of them with sourdough bread before I got around to refrying them. They were delicious.

On pie day, while the kids were napping:

Here are my pickles. All 8 jars sealed! This was my first attempt at pickles. We cracked open our first jar today, and they are great. The kids ate three or four each.

Next up: what about all this zucchini?