Smoky Paprika Tomato Jam...

Mother Nature is still serving up beautiful tomatoes for us, so I put up a beautiful batch of Smoky Paprika Tomato Jam yesterday. The result was ten jars of goodness and it only took about three hours, start to finish.

This recipe came from Marisa McClellan's cookbook, Preserving By The Pint. I purposely kept the jam slightly on the liquid side, because we use it as barbeque sauce. It's smoky, sweet, full a flavor, with just a touch of heat. Marisa's recipe calls for cherry tomatoes, but we used regular tomatoes and cooked them longer to reduce the liquid. It was perfect.

She also has a great recipe for green tomato salsa, so I know what I'll be doing with any of my tomatoes the fail to ripen before the weather turns.

If you do canning, Marisa caters to people who live in small spaces, or who don't have a lot of storage area. Sometimes you just want a pint or two, and her recipes are geared to small batch canning. HERE's a link in case you're interested in getting your own copy, (or you can click on the book title above to get to the same page).

Handsome let me know it's time to bake bread again. He's really helpful these days, lifting my big flour container so I can measure out a batch, and then helping lift the big proofing bowl in and out of the oven. He also dumps the dough onto the island so I can turn and fold, and then he puts it back into the oven until the timer signals it's ready to repeat. Once I get the dough into the bread pans, he can go on break, but I really couldn't bake bread in the usual quantities without him.

I'm also working on a new embroidery that I'll share tomorrow, and I'll debut the giveaway information on Saturday, so be sure to come back so you can enter.