I Love Tomatillos

I think tomatillos are my new favorite thing to grow. (Thank you, Sarah.) I love the smell and the taste. Yesterday, I canned up eight pints of salsa verde:

So pretty. That was the first batch; the tomatillos are just coming on, so I expect to do a few more batches before the end of the season.

I used the recipe from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which is my guide when I haven’t made something before. My only quibble about that book—and other people in the homesteading chat group said they have had the same experience—is that the yields given are wildly inaccurate. This recipe said it yielded two pints. I carefully doubled the recipe, because I don’t freelance when it comes to canning, and ended up with eight pints. Someone’s math is off.

I’ve become a fermented pickle evangelist, mostly due to a lack of space in our fridge. My friend, Anna, bought some cukes from me the other day for her catering business. As she was leaving, I handed her a quart jar of pickles for her husband. Yesterday, I gave four jars to our employees. I might make dill relish today.

I only wish that everything didn’t ripen all at once. Oh, well, the chickens are happy to get a daily ration of cukes to munch on.

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I made a black ponte sheath dress yesterday afternoon. I am using the Pamela’s Patterns Classic T-shirt dress pattern, slightly modified. The fit in the bodice is just about perfect—hooray! I need to take in the dress at the hips, though. That dress was drafted for more apple-like figures—which is noted in the pattern—and I should have graded down at least one size from the waistline down to the hem. That issue is easily fixed. When it came time to understitch the neckline facing, I did as Pamela suggests in one of her videos and used a triple-stitch zig-zag there. That worked beautifully.

Once hemmed, I’ll have a basic black dress in the wardrobe. I’ve got some Robert Kaufman bright pink sparkle ponte in the stash, too, and that may end up being my Christmas dress this year. Why not?

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I am hoping we get the promised cool-down this week. Right now, the forecast indicates temps in the 70s with some rain. That would be wonderful. Michael Snyder, who does the Pacific Northwest Weather Watch channel on YouTube, says that models are showing that after this system moves through, a ridge will build that will bring us (and Seattle) hot weather again—possibly hotter than what we’ve already have. Ugh.