At 8 a.m. this morning, to beat the heat, I went to our larger woodlands with my husband. While Scott worked on a project there, I began picking black raspberries, and he helped after he finished. At home, I combined what we picked with the ones we had been picking on the terrace (and Scott added a few more). That gave me enough to make and can four (8 oz.) and one (4 oz) jars of jam. I did the canning in the Annex kitchen to keep the heat out of the house, and also because that kitchen allows for a better set-up, which I can leave in place until I finish with the black raspberries and the blackberries that will be ripening soon afterwards. It also has air-conditioning that I ran while I worked out there. Canning equipment will be put away after berry season, as we will have guests in early September, but it will come out again for apple butter, and perhaps applesauce, which I have not yet tried to can.

Dinner tonight was easy: the rest of the farro stir-fry!

I made pork tenderloin on the BBQ Sunday. Had it with sugar snap peas and carrots, and pasta.

Have enough pork left for the next couple of days, the only question is how to have it. Due to today's heat, meal prep will be minimal.

Three of my jam jars did not seal correctly, so I re-canned them on Monday morning and will check them tomorrow. I think that it might not be a good idea to have the air conditioner on when I'm doing the actual canning over in the Annex, so I will turn it off when I get to that stage.

I had bought a lovely little head of cauliflower at the farmers market a week ago, and we had some store-bought broccoli in the refrigerator, so I decided to use my broccoli salad recipe and put in the cauliflower as well. That works well. I did not, however, have any turkey bacon to put in the salad, and had no desire to go to the local store, which would be unlikely to carry it. I thought that I remembered reading about a vegan alternative to bacon crumbs in salads, and I found it at the Love and Lemons blog. It called for ½ cup almonds and ½ cup pepitas, which are tossed in 1 Tbs. tamari (I used soy sauce), ½ tsp. maple syrup, which I doubled to 1 tsp., and ¼ tsp. smokey paprika (I used Penzey's Smoked Spanish Style). I think the recipe used whole almonds. The combination gets toasted at 350 F on a parchment lined baking sheet. While the recipe said 10-14 minutes, I did just 8. I would probably extend it to 10 minutes next time. I did not add it to the salad but put it in a separate dish, so that we could sprinkle it over our individual servings. While it does not replace bacon, it gives a satisfactory taste. I may tweak the recipe a little more, as it is nice to be able to make an acceptable substitute with ingredients that I usually have available. We had our broccoli salad with boneless pork ribs that Scott de-fatted and cooked on the stove top.

On these hot days, I like the idea of a hearty salad and some meat without a starchy food.

Speaking of salad spinners..........

I made a salad for dinner; lettuce, carrot, pepper, tomato, pecans and sliced pork tenderloin.