I am SUCH a crunchy granola aging hippy!  I tell ya.

I recently wrote a post called “Abbondanza” where I wrote about how excited I was at the incredible bounty of fresh foods at my farmer’s market.  I was thinking about the fact that pretty soon it will be the dead of winter, and we’ll be reduced to eating canned tomatoes and frozen peas.  Yechhh.

So this morning I woke up and thought to myself, “I’m an Earth Mother type!  I should buy and can a whole bunch of tomatoes!”  I was overcome by the image of my healthy woman self whipping up a delicious lasagna in February, using those vibrantly delicious tomatoes, onions, basil, garlic and oregano from the summer.  Mmmmmmm, good!  I could just picture my grandmothers, great-grandmothers and great-great grandmothers nodding in approval.

I was psyched!

I headed off to the local farm stand.  I was about to grab a whole bunch of fresh, perfect tomatoes.  I smiled at the farmer, and announced “I’m going to can tomatoes!”  She looked at me like I was insane.  “You can’t use THOSE!  You’ll go BROKE!”  She hustled out the door of the stand and grabbed a huge box of slightly imperfect tomatoes.  “You want THESE.”, she announced.

Oh.  OK.  I quickly chose a bunch of other ingredients and grabbed the big box of “canning tomatoes”.  I was so impressed with myself!  Heading home to “put up” vegetables for the long winter!

“Bring back my box!”, the farmer called as I pulled out of her driveway.  I waved in response.  She’s a little scary.  I’ll be bringing that box back tomorrow.

I got home, and spread out all of my treasures.

Holy healthiness! Look at this!   I was so excited.

I breathed in deeply, smelling the golden late summer air.  I felt just exactly like “Ma” in “Little House on the Prairie.”  I thought about putting my hair into a long braid, or a nice little bun at the back of my neck, but I had just had a hair cut, and it was only about an inch long.  Still, I felt pretty wholesome as I wrapped myself in my organic, sustainably raised cotton apron.  From “The Kitchen Store”.

I began by chopping up huge piles of veggies.  I’ve done this before! I hummed to myself, thinking of the millions and millions of women who have come before me, seeing the incredible richness of summer as a time to prepare for the long, cold winter.

I decided to get myself fully into the mood by listening to some old folk songs.  Just like all of those women in those healthy olden days, I thought that music would ease the burden of all the hard work ahead of me. Feeling one with my ancestors, I popped my iPhone onto the dock and booted up Pandora.  Bluegrass music enveloped me as I dropped the chopped veggies into my Cuisinart and hit “high”.

I pureed the entire box of tomatoes, plus two fresh onions and ten cloves of garlic.  I added in the organic basil and my own garden fresh oregano.  I let it all simmer on my electric stove, thinking of all the women before me, forging a new life in a new land, facing untold obstacles.

Even though I was pretty sure that I knew how to do this safely, I decided to be extra cautious.  After all, I am a Mother! This food will no doubt be used to sustain my family in the harsh winter!

I googled “canning tomatoes” and watched three You Tube Videos to make sure I was getting it right. Yup. Just like a Pioneer Woman. I knew what to do!

So here I am, five hours after I started.  A real, honest-to-God, back to the earth, all natural hippy granny woman. All I had were my hands, my local farmer, Michael’s Crafts for the mason jars, the internet, YouTube, an electric stove, a thermometer, a set of oven mitts, some “can grabber” tongs and my internal drive and innate knowledge.

I. Am. Amazing.

What a self-reliant, simple, back to nature woman I am!  I can’t wait to google some awesome recipes for all this deliciousness!