Salsa, and sauce and pickles oh my!

Canning is probably not normally a church sanctioned activity for the sabbath. However, John and I went to the Amish market yesterday to pick up some produce for consumption and canning. Our garden is beginning to produce nicely, but hasn't yet reached the point where we don't need to supplement our vegetables with other yummy local goodies. We picked up cucumber and tomatoes with the intent to can them yesterday, but realized too late that there wouldn't be time to do it before the ward activity.
So, with tomatoes that needed processed and cucumbers that were getting dry, we decided the ox was in the mire, and provident living is a good sabbath activity anyways ( :
I started early this morning, took a break for church, and enjoyed a productive day, along with some of the fruits of my labors alongside dinner ( : Something about preserving food is just so viscerally pleasing. It feels good to make a product, see it go from a beautiful, fresh food, to a rich and tasty finished product that will brighten the dark winter days. The colors and aromas and textures are a little bit of heaven, although the unavoidable mess isn't. But, the mess cleans up, and then there are little rows of glistening jars. We picked the cherry tomatoes *yes, they are supposed to be yellow and green for the recipe* from our own garden bed, which is gearing up for a wonderful yield! Yeah! Theodore was so cute, he helped through the whole process. I love that little sous chef!