Shop harvest and Home harvest

It's harvest time! Both at my craft shop and at home. Late summer/early fall is always a very busy time of year for me.

 

Turning this.........

 

into this.......

 

 

And this.........

   

 

into this..........

 

 

*And this.......

 

 

 into this.......

 

 

There's not much I can do about the timing of the garden. You plant in the spring & harvest in late summer/early fall. That's just the way it is.

 

There is certainly something I can do about the crafting harvest though. I can sew and paint pumpkins in the heat of summer. Or the harsh cold of winter.

 

But somehow, I always end up crafting pumpkins at the same time as I'm harvesting the garden. I never learn........

 

I had planned to sew some Indian Corn for the craft harvest, but when my friend and supplier Debbie beat me to it, I happily placed a wholesale order with her......

 

 

Why? Because the green beans may be pulled up, the corn may be cut down and the stalks fed to the cows, the cucumbers and cabbage are long gone...but the tomatos are still going strong. There's more juice and salsa and tomato pieces for chili etc. to can.

 

In case you're wondering what we do with all that tomato juice, I'll tell you. It's the main ingredient in the best Tomato Soup you will ever taste.

 

Sorry, no photo, but I'll tell you how we do it.

 

Stir together:

3 TBSP sugar

4 TBSP flour

 

Stir this into 1 quart tomato juice. Heat to just boiling, stirring often.

 

SOOOOO much better than condensed soup! Once you've eaten this homemade tomato soup, you'll never be able to eat condensed tomato soup from a store again. Well...that's been our experience anyway.

 

You can use store bought tomato juice, but I'll warn you, it's not the same. Years ago, we ran out of juice and bought some brand that tasted pretty good when made into soup. But I don't remember what brand it was, and we've tried again from time to time if we ran out of our own juice. We've never found a good substitute for our own juice again. It may be out there, but we haven't found it again.

 

This soup and a grilled cheese sandwich is a winter classic in our house, especially when we come home on a cold winter's day after church and want something hot in a hurry. Ahhh, good stuff.

 

*Keepin' em honest - I did not take this green bean picture. I don't have a picture of our green beans, and we have already pulled the plants up since they are done producing. Google brings up just about any picture you want, and that is where I found this one that looks like the green bean plants did in our own garden.

 

The rest of the pics are mine. All mine. Honest.