addicted

to canning, that is. I can't help myself -- I found apples for a fabulous price last week and bought 20 pounds. Today, I made 15 pints of apples for crisps or pies or cake this winter. I have a cake I love (Jewish apple cake, maybe Joan Nathan?) but have not made in a while, so perhaps it's just around the corner now.

And somehow, there I found myself with all those peels and cores and reading about apple peel jelly...and now I have 20 half-pints of beautiful pink jelly on my counter. I tasted it, and it's not like strawberry jam by any stretch, more like pink sweetness and something that would be good on a roast or something. Have you made apple jelly? Ideas for it?

Then there's the enchilada sauce. which I'd actually never even bought before, but a friend made the best quesadillas for us yesterday, and turns out the secret yum was taco sauce. So there I was, looking up recipes; I used the one for taco sauce in the Ball book, but this really tastes more like an enchilada sauce, so that's what I'm calling it. Plus, there are the 10 jars of tomato jam I have to re-can with some more sugar.

Meanwhile, thank goodness the girls have more than one parent, so they could have a delicious pepper-cheese omelet while I was busy with steaming pots and hot glass.

Meanwhile, I have 12 more sessions of radiation, and then other than the five years of hormones, I am on a break from cancer treatment until the summer! (more surgery) Although I'll still be in radiation during Sukkot, we decided to have a thank-you party for our friends who've taken such good care of our family this year, and because it is good motivation to get that Sukkah built and decorated with the pomegranate lights!