Hello from Steamy MI! I have sought out recipes & hints without being a member for awhile. We planted a rather large garden this Spring after getting our thumbs a little green last year with salsa veggies. Before that it had been close to 15 years since we last had a garden! With last years growing pains we learned we didn’t plant enough big tomatoes. I managed to brew a few jars of salsa & tomato sauce. We were able to freeze peppers & green beans. Of course, the zucchini was more than abundant from June until frost! We have grown raspberries for 20 years. Last year, I tried to get more creative than just freezing them and made jam & sauce. I learned an old lesson to NOT DOUBLE the recipe, as it does not gel well.
I have read how people have ‘lost’ favorite recipes from years gone by. We lost a tried & true salsa recipe that was thick & loaded with veggies. It had just enough zest for a ‘medium’ & very flavorful taste. I searched the web endlessly trying to match the one that I could have done from memory years earlier. Needless to say, our batch last year was LESS than desirable.
When I was a young girl I canned pickles with my mom & dad. My aunt always had batches of crock pickles brewing. Fast forward many years & the favorite pickle of choice for my family is a refrigerated Claussen Kosher Dill. Knowing our cukes would be ready for picking this week, I read blogs & recipe forums for a week searching for that tried & true recipe. I may have found it here from a 2009 post 
If you have a ‘proven’ recipe please send it my way!
We are a baking family that loves to try new recipes & tweak favorites of others. Myself & 2 college age daughters love creating something unique & fun with a flavorful surprise! Since we have a bountiful garden filled with a variety veggies & fruits including grapes, figs, Arctic Kiwi, & blackberries, along with our raspberries, I will be watching what everyone else is creating!
My goal is to include some gluten-free recipes into our life this year.
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Vicki McMillan Bramer | Facebook