Remember the name of my blog? Yeah.

I guess I won't go as far as to say that I HATE cooking.  Hate is a pretty strong word.  But I will say that right now, I strongly dislike it.

In case you hadn't noticed, I've been on a canning spree lately.  I can't stop.  I do love this time of year for all the garden yumminess that is everywhere you look., and I love being able to pop a jar open in January and enjoy what you preserved the previous summer.

I made blueberry jam and pickled green beans.  Both turned out great.  Nate and I had really gotten our canning system down, and we really started to bust through them.  So I decided to go a little crazy and try salsa.  We were getting a ton of tomatoes from our CSA (more than we could eat) and I didn't want to get too crazy and make something like spaghetti sauce with them.  PSsssh.  When we were at the softball tournament about a month ago, one of Nate's cousins brought out a jar of home-made salsa that she had made and so graciously shared the recipe with me.  I knew it would be pretty tedious, since the only food processor that I have holds approximately 1 Cup at a time (bet you didn't think I had one at all, did you???), and pretty much only turns things the consistancy of tomato juice.  But I decided to give it a go anyways since we had a Sunday afternoon free, and a crap load of ripe tomatoes.

(sorry for lack of pictures.  I wasn't going to blog about the salsa at all because I was sure it would turn out awesome and I didn't want to talk about all of its awesomeness because after all, this is NOT a cooking blog.)

So all went well with the salsa.  Actually, it did turn out pretty awesome, but I was a little disappointed because although I had followed the recipe, it was a bit spicier than what I had tasted before.  I got over it though, and realized that I probably didn't really want it to turn out too awesome because of this weight I'm trying to lose.

Well then yesterday afternoon I got a text from my sis-in-law asking if I still wanted tomatoes that I had asked for previously.  She had a bunch ripe and ready for me if I did.  Aww heck, why not?  I'll make another batch that's more mild this time!  Plus, I had most of the ingredients on hand now since I hadn't used them all up the night before.  I would just use less jalapenos, less cherry peppers, and less red pepper flakes.  Awesome.

So I spent a good chunk of last night chopping and chopping and chopping again.  Cherry peppers, green peppers, red peppers, jalapeno peppers, chili peppers, and all the rest of the stuff.  Oh, and then NATE told me I should cut up the two peppers that we had sitting in the fridge.  I had forgotten about them.  They came in our CSA share last week.  Since I hate to let stuff go bad in my fridge, I chopped them up and added them to the pot.  Cooked it up, canned it all, and put the leftovers that wouldn't fit into the jars into a small kitchen bowl for us to try out.

This GD salsa is hotter than the first batch.  I am furious.  I even wrote "hot" on the lids of the first batch.  Now I will have to write "super hot" on the second batch. 

I guess those dang CSA peppers were a little hotter than we had planned on!  Good lord I about jumped through the ceiling at the first taste of it.  It is being saved now for those in the family that don't have such a Minnesota mouth as I do.  Grrrrrrrrrrr.

On a happier note, after the kitchen was cleaned up, I took out my frustrations on Jillian last night, and KICKED HER BUTT.  Yesssss.  See?  Hot.  Sweaty. Burned calories.

Hate.  Cooking.

XOXOX

NH