Food Preserving {Sweet & Spicy Tomato Jam}

I have been following Marisa's blog over at Food in Jars for a while now, and the funny thing is that I wasn't even a canner!!

Her pictures, recipes, and instructions are all fantastic. I knew canning was something I wanted to get into this year, in case our garden produced a ton of goodies, I surely wouldn't want to waste any. 

I actually took a canning class from her back in July in CT with my mother in law. It was a great class. We learned how to make a rhubarb chutney and it was fantastic. 

I also got a signed copy of her new book Food in Jars. 

The one crop of our that did very well in the garden was our tomatoes. We planed a variety called Gold Medal, which are extremely meaty yellow/fire red heirloom variety as well as a rockstar of a cherry tomato. 

Marisa's tomato jam recipe just sounded so good. I decided to go for it and make it.

After her class, her whole attitude and demeanor about canning put my mind at ease a little bit. I was so stressed about it because every recipe made me panic that I was going to kill someone. Seriously, take one of her classes if you can.

I followed her recipe pretty spot on, but my tomato variety was probably very different from hers. 

 

It was amazing. So far, I've had on both grilled cheese and brie. They were both phenomenal. Do it. You will not be sorry. The end product is a sweet and spicy autumn flavored jam. I can't praise it enough.

HOLLER.

A little fall decor

 Woo hoo!

As part of our upcoming one year wedding anniversary, hubby and I decided to throw ourselves a housewarming party. We just had it this past weekend and it was WONDERFUL!

In anticipation of the party, we got a ton of things done around the house. It was nice because we had a goal, get the house looking proper before the party. Which meant, that box of crap couldn't sit in the middle of the floor for long. Put away that box of crap.

Anyway. This was the first weekend that our house really felt like home. My sister came to town with her boyfriend to help get the place in party mode. We had a fire going in the living room from Friday @ 5:00 through Sunday (and actually still going right now). Everything was finally put into place, no tripping over boxes and bags and stuff. We were almost desperate for this party to get our house together.

In anticipation of the party, I did some flower shopping! I LOVE LOVE LOVE fresh flowers. Now that we have a house, I am going to buy fresh flowers whenever I want because they will have a nice pretty place to sit. Maybe I'll even put some in the laundry room, that might make it a happier place to be. lol. It was funny, because not only did we (my sister and I) make 6 pretty bouquets, but a few people actually brought us flowers as gifts. How lovely! The picture below is a collection of all flowers after the party.

Here are our favorite bouquets. They are just soooo pretty. Don't they kind of resemble the Garden Party quilt that I blogged about before? Hmm... I must be attracted to these jewel tones.

 

 In my daily attempt to be Martha, I bought tons of gourds and tiny little pumpkins to decorate the house with. The big gourds seen below held the french doors open that  connect the dining room and the screened-in-porch. It really looked fantastic. I tried to decorate our mantle with all of the gourds after the party was over. Here is my attempt.

Look at that gorgeous fire!

Hubby has literally been planted in front of the fireplace since we started all of these fires. He refuses to even sit on the couch.

Is anyone else getting their houses into fall-mode? Are you LOVING it? I should have taken pictures of the cutest little ornamental pepper plants that we put on our front steps. So cute.


Holler!