Busy life as always and my preserved tomatoes too

 We have had a very busy few days and I am looking forward to tomorrow because it is all my own. There is nowhere I have to go and nobody I have to see and no work I have to do (apart from the ever present housework). The forecast is for rain so we can't even go and rescue the allotment from the weeds. Tomorrow is going to be a good day despite the rain : )

We got blight this year and had no tomatoes to speak of really. I had been looking forward to making some more tomatoes preserved in olive oil as I had last year. So I went to the shop and bought some cherry tomatoes and preserved them in sunflower oil as I don't like the taste of olive oil. They are easy to do, especially if you have the oven on for something else. I was hoping to make these with our own tomatoes and had planted some at home and at the allotment but they all got blight. But I will still have some little treats for lunches in the winter although I will need to be sparing with them as I only have four jam jars of these little delights. I got the recipe from this website if you would like to have a look:

https://theelliotthomestead.com/2020/08/preserved-tomatoes-in-olive-oil/

More harvest and bargains

 The autumn raspberries are starting to come now. Yum! My husband decided to get rid of a lot of my prolifically fruiting bramble for this year so I have only had about 8lbs so far. Last year I had about 40lbs of blackberries. I have made blackberry and apple jam this week. My first jam of the year. Probably my only jam this year too. 

I found a couple of bags of lemons and limes with yellow stickers on so I want to make some lime and lemon marmalade. I have more limes than lemons so it will be lime and lemon and not lemon and lime. With the jam, that will be two things to put away for the Christmas stockings. I need to get my thinking cap on because making things for presents takes time. I was wondering about a little packet of homemade chocolate biscuits and sugar cookies for each of the grandchildren.  My kids used to love something like that which was theirs alone and didn't have to be shared. I need other ideas, though, and I am not coming up with any.

I was working down at church yesterday until after 6pm and nipped into the shop next door. As it was very nearly their closing time, they had reduced their reductions down to 25p to sell them quickly. I was very pleased to get my hands on three packs of meatballs and a pack of sausages and all for £1. That will last us for 8 dinner which will definitely lower the expenditure for this month : )