Shrimp BLT Sandwich

My son Daniel is always looking for new and unique recipes for me to make.  Recently he picked up a magazine from the grocery store and marked a few recipes to try and this one for a Shrimp BLT sandwich was at the top of his list. 

My husband Bill and I had just gotten back from visiting Historical Jamestown and Assateague Island along the coast of Virginia and enjoyed fresh seafood for 4 days straight.  Right now, anything with seafood sounds really good to me.

Black Bean, Tomato and Corn Salsa

We love salsa and pica de Galla and eat both year-round.  

I have a favorite Honey Lime Chicken Kabob recipe that's grilled and needed a new side dish to complement that recipe.

 
Salsa of course came to mind, and although I make different kinds of salsa, like strawberry and peach, I decided to try a new version. 

This is way easy and super delicious!  We ended up eating nearly half of it with tortilla chips before dinner was even ready.

Canning Tomatoes

Easy Home Canned Tomatoes
Tomatoes are one of the first things I canned well over 20 some years ago as a beginner canner.  I read it was one of the easiest things to learn as a newbie canner and they were right.

There is nothing better than a fresh tomato straight off the vine, but I think the second best thing is a jar of home canned tomatoes in the middle of winter!

I use canned tomatoes in chili, spaghetti sauce, soups and casseroles and many different recipes.  If I run out, I also make salsa or tomato juice from the tomatoes I canned. 

I can so I can preserve my garden harvest but also because I can control what's in my food.  I grew it and I grow organic. I know what's in each and every jar. 

Canning is the process in which foods are placed in jars and heated to a temperature that destroys microorganisms and inactivates enzymes. This heating and later cooling forms a vacuum seal. The vacuum seal prevents other microorganisms from recontaminating the food within the jar.

Summer Tomato Sandwich

These are wonderful summer sandwiches,  extremely easy to throw together and oh so delicious.

My husband's friend Roger gave us this recipe. 
During the autumn months Bill and Roger sometimes watch a few football games together on Saturdays,  but during the summer months they sit outside at Roger's Antique store. 

While sitting in the beautiful gardens Roger built, the two of them solve all the world problems, and work up quite an appetite. Roger usually whips them up a couple of these.

I have been hooked ever since Bill showed me how Roger makes them.

Natural Tomato Soup

A Healthier Soup Alternative
Tomatoes are ripe on the vine here in Ohio and since I plant my own, I have an abundance!  The smell and taste of a ripe tomato fresh from the garden is one of my favorite summer joys.

But what to do with all those tomatoes can quickly turn into a summer dilemma. 

A few years back,  good friend of my niece Sarah posted a recipe for homemade tomato soup on Facebook.  I changed the recipe after the first year by adding 1 less green bell pepper (over powers the tomatoes) and by adding 1 to 2 extra bay leaves.
I have been making it every summer since. 

It’s a pretty easy process and the soup is delicious, especially in the middle of the winter.

For best results use only fresh produce from your garden or organic produce from a local farm market.  Store purchased produce has no where near the flavor of fresh locally grown, but you probably already know that.

Determining how many tomatoes you need is no easy task.  I have found that I need approximately 12 to 14 pounds of tomatoes to make about 8 pints of soup.  (or one canner load) Or another way to figure it is you need approximately 2 large tomatoes per pint.
I add more tomatoes to mine, making my soup mostly tomatoes with the veggies added for flavor. Adding too many vegetables makes it tastes more like vegetable juice!