Marinara and Pickles are Done

The day has been very full. I've been processing food since 9:30a, with only a 45 minute break to bike to the grocery. It's now 8:15p and the last pickles are just coming out of the canner. The rest of the kitchen clean-up can wait until tomorrow. It's so much easier when I don't have to clean around all of the cooling jars anyway (so I tell myself).

I cut up about 30 Romas, 1 large white onion, and 3 medium cloves of garlic; place them in a pan; and drizzle them with olive oil. They roast at 350 degrees, stirring as needed, with the oven door cracked (with the help of a cookie sheet) to let steam escape.

After they're done roasting most of the moisture is gone. This seems to take about 1 1/2 hours.
At this point, I just run it through the food processor and put it in a pot on the stove to keep hot until there's enough for a canner load.

I did 10 pans of tomatoes today, roughly 50 pounds. I even got to include about 20 of the tomatoes from the garden. :) I ended up with 18 1/2 qts. of marinara. All 14 that I pressure canned actually sealed! I must be getting the hang of this. (Notice the beautiful bouquet that Q got me before he left.)

The uncanned quarts of marinara are in the fridge. I got all the stuff that we needed for making 3 lasagnas for the freezer from the grocery and I'll probably just freeze the last full quart of marinara and have the 1/2 quart for dinner tomorrow. I'm hoping my oomph will be reborn tomorrow morning. If not, I'll definitely make lasagna Sunday. I just keep the vision of how tired I often am after school dancing before my head as I try to pack the freezer full.

After I finished the marinara, I moved on to pickles, which is a new endeavor for me. Q had picked up 10 lbs. from Thistledown and my recipe said about 1 lb/qt. but I ended up with 13 quarts. I seemed to get about 12-14 oz./ qt. instead of a full pound. There was lots of brine but one can only pack cucumbers so efficiently. It was fun getting to use all the dill we grew. I hope they're good - but we won't know until the beginning of November. Pickles are a patient food.

I can't believe how orange this pumpkin's getting.

The ever growing Jumbo Pink Banana Squash.