My Daily Dollars

Good morning!  Hard to believe it’s Monday already.  We had a great weekend.  Saturday morning, my favorite farmer at the market sold me two bushels of tomatoes for sixteen dollars.  For those of you who don’t think in bushels, I came home with four large cardboard boxes chock-full of amazing, juicy tomatoes.  I was tempted to weigh them all, but I had to get to canning!  By 9:00 o’clock last night, I had frozen two quarts of pasta sauce and canned 33 pints of tomatoes.  Plus, I still have one large box left.  I think that I’ll probably end up with two more quarts of sauce and another dozen pints of tomatoes.  I know that I’ll have more jars than I did last year when I canned throughout the summer.  All told, I only spent $24 (I had to buy more lids).  That means the pints come out at about 43 cents each, plus the pasta sauce.  Even better, I had the satisfaction of shaking hands with the man who grew them and know exactly what is in each can.  Yesterday, we had tomato sandwiches, omelets with tomatoes, and pasta with fresh tomatoes.  Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!  It was like a final burst of summer before we head into fall produce.  I loved it!

Last week, I participated in three great carnivals, so take a look this morning if you’ve got time: