Outdoor kitchen

I used to work on a farm, and make pickles, jam, and relish most of the day. It was probably the best job ever. So, every year I make a couple of batches of pickles & jam or jelly. Our garden was pretty bountiful this week, so pickles it was. I hunted down a recipe for something - anything! - that used zucchini and summer squash, and I did a batch of these zucchini dills (they're not bad - kind of sweet & sour - and used all of the zucchini and summer squash we had!). Dilly beans and big batches of cucumber dill pickles with my trusty old recipes were a must-do. Had to go to the farmer's market to get all the pickling cukes - we didn't happen to grow 15 pounds of them!

Canning has been a bit of a challenge - our glass-top range isn't recommended for it. But - we have one of those big propane-powered burners that we can set up outside (usually for lobster), so we made a temporary outdoor kitchen for me today. The furniture was all about function (no form!) and was 2 sawhorses with a piece of plywood on top next to the 'stove'.

It worked great! We got about 40 jars of the different pickles, and cleaned out the garden a bit. No more creative zucchini dinners for a couple of days, at least!

While we were outside, our neighbor gave us a few extra tomatoes. Ours are just about to turn red, but she had loads already. We had already pawned off zucchini on her last week, so it was our turn to take the surplus. No complaints here!