Our Pantry

A vegetable garden is truly amazing. In the winter, we pour over seed brochures , imagining all those succulent tastes. Next comes the greenhouse, truly an act of faith that each seed will indeed grow into tasty veggie. The time between setting the vegetables out and the first taste seems interminable . Finally, we bite into a still warm tomato the wonderful taste just exploding in our mouths.
Then comes the canning, drying, salsa making and freezing. Really, the glory of the garden is in the pantry. I stand in the door of the pantry and marvel over our hard and seemingly endless work. The rows of canned whole tomatoes, tomato puree, fire roasted salsa, dried tomatoes. The jams we made from our own strawberries and raspberries. The jars of peaches.. not our own, but canned fresh. And the freezer full of frozen corn, and peas. Bags of swiss chard, and eggplant parm.
All beckoning us to keep enjoying our garden with wonderful winter meals.