Ahhhh! The Harvest

If you've been wondering why I have not put many posts on here lately, it's because it's Harvest Time.  At Harvest Time, my house becomes a wreck.  The floors are sometimes sticky.  The trash is always full.  The compost pile and the worm bed gets fed really well and I get stuff on the shelves in the basement and freezer for next year.

This year with the bad drought, I was starting to wonder, but I think Harvest has exploded and it's my favorite time of year.  The weather is wonderful.  You can sleep with the windows open - if you can stand the tree frogs around here, and you even get a surprise shower once in awhile.  We just got one that lasted about 5 minutes.  The drops were so big they looked like huge snowflakes.

Friday night our son and daughter-in-law came over with their tomatoes.  We combined them with some I had and made tomato soup.  Gramma's recipe.  This is it...
1 peck of tomatoes - 16 lbs. We weighed it AFTER we juiced them
6 small or 3 large onions - We used two large
16 cloves - these get put in a muslin bag and taken out after it's "soup".
1 hot and 1 sweet pepper - We have anti green pepper people so used one hot pepper
1 small bunch celery
We added basil too
Cook all together.  Run through food mill.  Return to stove and add some of hot soup mixture to mixture below (rue)

1 small cup sugar
1 c. flower
1/8 c. salt - 1/3 cup was just way too much.
1/2 c. butter.
Rub together.  Cook soup til creamy.  Pack in jars and process.

First let me tell you that I had added more words to this than there were.  It was basically notes of Gramma's to herself I think and I worked with it a lot to get it right.  My experience in making it with too much salt, too much sugar etc. and my son's modern ideas and a lot of "tasters" made the very best soup ever.
 I wish I had a beautiful picture of all the jars of soup sitting on the counter, but I was efficient this time and they are in the basement on the shelf already.  Here's the proof.  And anyone who uses the recipe takes their chances.  :)