A "Canned/Soup" kind of weekend

"I think of canning as fast food, paid for in time up front.  That price isn't the drugery that many people think.  In high season I give over a few Saturdays to canning with friends.  A steamy canning kitchen full of women discussing our stuff is not so different from your average book group, except that we end up with jars of future meals [or parts thereof]." - Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

This weekend was all about tomatoes and chickens.  Saturday afternoon had us once again joining forces with Mark and Jen, affectionately known to us as the Meritt-Norris project (Mark's last name is Meritt, Jen's is Norris).  Over the course of a few hours, we made short work of the 10 lbs of tomatoes that had been taking over our kitchen counter for the past week.  It's probably more pepper than tomato-based this year (we used all of our jalapenos from the garden, but had to purchase some poblanos from the store), but I think it turned out pretty good.  It's also got a very interesting color, reminiscent of the "Christmas" answer to the "red or green" chile question in New Mexico.

We still have our grape tomatoes, but we've been snacking on them so much that I just don't have the quantities to do much with them.  If we ever do get in a large amount, I'm planning on making "sun-dried" tomatoes.  Apparently it's an incredibly easy recipe that involves slicing the tomatoes in half, putting them on a cookie sheet, and sticking them in your oven at the lowest setting for about 4-5 hours.

Soup noodles drying quite nicely

On Sunday I woke up at 7:30 and couldn't get back to sleep.  I've decided there's something so peaceful about being in the kitchen early in the morning, while the rest of the household is sleeping.  I found a very easy recipe for making homemade noodles, and finally got around to using the chicken stock that I had made earlier in the week.  Based on the comments for the recipe I hung them on hangers to dry.  Every so often I would look over and see that the noodles were stretching as they dried, making for some mighty long noodles that I looped over the hanger a second time. 

Finally - made-from-scratch chicken noodle soup & whole wheat bread

Once the noodles were drying I started some bread in the bread machine.  I might as well get some use out of this thing.  The final result - when my beautiful friend Kristin and her family came over for lunch, we had made from scratch chicken noodle soup with homemade bread and butter.  There's nothing better than sharing good food with friends.