Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Just wait until you have that "taste of summer" in a jar this winter. You'll be glad you invested the time and trouble.

I've been canning for years now, mostly tomatoes, tomato sauce, salsa, bread & butter pickles, chow chow and sometimes dill pickles.

Rarely have I had anything go wrong.

What scares me is pressure canning. I screwed up my courage this summer tried it with green beans and stewed tomatoes and okra. They have exploded on me yet, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Good luck and have fun!

Alton and Tyler
Either can take over my kitchen.

I was making a chocolate pound cake for my brother's birthday this spring. It was a cake recipe I've made many, many times with great success.

The batter was beautiful. Thick and creamy but once in the oven it started to rise and rise and rise. Then it collapsed. So I trashed it and started over.

The second cake did the same thing. Into the trash it went. I was beside myself.

Was it bad eggs, bad flour, bad butter or what? So I had a cocktail and went to bed.

Woke up in the middle of the night with the revelation that maybe, just maybe it WAS the flour.

Sure enough, the bag of plain flour I'd grabbed at the grocery store the day before, wasn't plain at all and I'd made two cakes with self-rising flour.

Off to store at 7 a.m. for more eggs, butter and PLAIN flour for cake number 3 and it was the perfect pound cake like the ones I'd always baked.

Canning season's already begun for me. I put up strawberry preserves last weekend.
Tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and okra are growing in the garden waiting their turn in the summer.

Ribeye

Porterhouse

Classic. Consider the meat grinding attachment, too.

Today, I'm thinking ham in Coca-Cola

Meat Loaf 101 from her magazine many years ago. It's the only meat loaf I'll bother to eat.

Crockpot Mac and cheese

Thought some might like to read the story in our local newspaper on Petrozza's viewing party:
http://www.heraldonline.com/129/story/672049.html

Tomato sandwiches; fried okra, creamed corn and tomatoes; damson pie; fried green tomatoes and peach ice cream.