Gak, I Have Yellow Fingernails!!!

But don't worry, it's not due to some weird disease or eating too many cheesies (though the latter isn't out of the realm of possibility!) It's from all of the vegetables I chopped up over the weekend for my canning!
I've got jars of pickled carrots lined up on my counter right now, with the dill and garlic it looks lovely!  My best friend Andrea and I did the carrots (picked fresh from out garden that afternoon!) We even got adventurous and tried purple onion jelly.... it tastes MUCH better than it sounds!  The onions were also from my garden.  I planted a whole row of purple onions and I knew I was never going to go through all of them before they started to go bad (I also have a whole row of white onions that I'm trying to use up) so we thought we'd try this jelly recipe.  One batch only makes 3 250ml jars, so we made 2 batches and it's very tasty.  Definitely oniony but also, there's so much sugar in it (3 cups each batch) that it's pretty sweet too.  Kind of a savoury taste. It will be excellent on crackers with cream cheese.

The carrots we will have to let sit for a few weeks to pickle properly before we try them, but we've both made them before and they're always tasty.  Andrea and I have always enjoyed pickled foods.... pickled beans, pickled hot peppers, pickled beets, pickled cucumbers (aka pickles). So pickled carrots are a natural evolution for us!

I also got all of the zucchini, white onions, various bell peppers and jalapenos chopped up for salsa.  The recipe is used almost exclusively amongst my family.  We've done big "salsa making parties" where 3 or 4 of us get together and spend the weekend chopping and canning to make dozens of jars of the stuff.  We always have a great time but it is difficult to co-ordinate everyone.  So this year I just made myself a couple of batches... Well, it's half made. You chop everything up and let it sit for 24 hours (or 36 in my case) all mixed together with some coarse salt, which all smells delicious, by the way!  Then the next day you add the tomatoes and various spices and once it's all cooked you can it.  The whole process is a bit time consuming but the end result is totally worth it!!  Trust me, find yourself a good recipe and stop buying shitty salsa at the store, it tastes WAY better and when you're eating it you'll enjoy it that much more knowing that it was all of your hard work and effort that went into making such a tasty treat!