Warm Tomato Salad

We can always count on our cherry tomatoes to produce, so I am constantly looking for ways to use them up. This salad was inspired by a dish James and I had in a restaurant one time; the flavors are simple, but boy is it delicious. It also doesn't hurt that it is super easy to put together and looks gorgeous on a plate!

The necessities:

-Your favorite variety of cherry tomatoes
-Fresh garlic
-Olive oil
-Salt and Pepper
-Fresh Basil

Slice your tomatoes in half, or in quarters, whatever suits your fancy, and mince your garlic.

Drizzle 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and add your garlic. Cook it for a few minutes and then add your cherry tomatoes. Cook for another 5-6 minutes.You want the tomatoes to be warm, but you also want to retain their firmness.

While your tomatoes are cooking, chop your basil into pretty ribbons.

Pour your tomato and garlic mixture into a dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and garnish with the basil. Enjoy!

Putting Up Carrots

James' favorite phrase this summer has been, " (insert vegetable) for days." So whenever we are harvesting anything from our garden, he'll say something like, "Carrie, we've got carrots for days, carrots for days." Well, he was dead on. I peeled and processed carrots. For. Days.

Our carrots did abnormally well this summer and we dug up around 50 pounds of carrots.

This is what we had left after peeling for two hours! It took me two days to get them all peeled.

All peeling aside, there's nothing quite as nice as homegrown carrots.

Ready to process.

Thank goodness for our food processor that made easy work of shredding and chopping our carrots!

This thing makes me dance. Any time you can get out of chopping 50 pounds of carrots is a moment that is worth dancing about!

I blanched and froze several bags of carrots. I like to use the shredded carrots to toss into baked goods and the chopped carrots for soups. (Recipes to come!)

If you can can green beans, then you can can carrots!

I used the hot pack method by boiling the carrots in a large stock pot with water for about five minutes. I pulled the jars I had warming in my pressure canner out, put 1/2 teaspoon of salt into each jar, and then poured my hot carrots into them. You will want to leave 1 inch of headspace and remove any air bubbles, so that your lids will seal properly and keep your food from spoiling. Carrots need to be pressure canned at 10 pounds of pressure for 25 minutes (or 30 minutes if you're using quart jars).

I'm not sure how I'll go about using all these canned carrots, but can't wait to pull them out in the dead of winter and start experimenting!