Jammin' Pasta!!!

 Someone turned the OVEN on.  It's not the convection oven just yet, but it might as well be.  We are up to  95-98 every single day for the next ten days.  This is definitely NOT fun, and tends to keep me locked inside the house.  How uninspiring is that?

I made the rounds of the garden once again.  Gosh, this vegetable stuff has become WORK!  I'm not sure how it's going to turn out with the Early Girls.  There are now eight tomatoes on a plant barely 18" high.  All beautiful green of course.  I'm still waiting for that first lovely sweet fresh tomato flavor.

Lucky for me, the squash came to a screeching halt, but I couldn't figure out why.  It seems that somehow the lawn sprinkler got turned around and was blasting them every morning.  How did THAT happen?  All fixed now, so maybe they will recover.  

I hung out all morning sewing the top to yet another quilt, before hearing my driveway alarm.  Hurray!  The next three boxes of jam jars have arrived.  I know you are getting tired of this JAM thing.  SO AM I.  The next time I'm offered a second box, the answer is NO.  I actually thought that crate would make ONE batch ... not two!!  So here we go on batch number THREE.  

First batch = syrup.  Second batch = jam.  Third batch came out even better and turned into jam also.  Oh my Great Aunt Janie ..... I have TWO more batches to do.  No worries, I'm taking ten jars to BINGO tonight.  Those guys are like Mikey ... they will eat anything!!

In between crushing berries and getting spit on with boiling hot jam, I tried out yet another recipe for you.  This one, an internet sensation, couldn't be easier to fix.  Frozen meatballs ... those ones that cost me $1.00 each for the $11.99 bag at Safeway.  These were the only ALL BEEF ones I could find.  Most were turkey. Maybe I should have gone with the turkey.

Dump into your crock pot (I used my small one) and cover with one can of cream of mushroom soup, mixed with the same sized can of beef broth.  Add a few tablespoons of barbecue sauce and two tablespoons of Dijon mustard.  Stir it up and set on high.  I kind of forgot it for four hours, but it was okay.  Those meatballs must have lots of glue, because they didn't disintegrate one little bit.

Then you dump in pasta.  Actually, noodles ... NOT this teeny tiny bow tie stuff ... Mexico's FAVORITA!  Why I picked these up at Walmart a month ago, I've no idea.  I probably should NOT have used almost the entire bag.  Things got gummed up pretty quickly.

So that picture up there ... that was the final product.  Remember, I try these recipes out so you don't have to!!  The first bite was okay, but by the second bite I could taste the Italian spices in the meatballs that clashed loudly with the mushroom soup.  

The bowties were a stick-to-your teeth not-quite-done gooey mess.  The sauce, that which didn't turn into glue, was delicious!!  I gave it an F .... that's a big FAIL, but most likely my fault for adding too much pasta because I really didn't have a recipe.  I just watched the video.

Unfortunately, I hate to waste food, so I will force it down over the next two days.  Maybe I'll add more broth to loosen it up a bit.  I'm thinking it might have been better if made in an Italian way instead of this Swedish Meatball way.  

That's it folks ... I'm exhausted from too much JAMM'IN, too many days in a row.  However, berries wait for no one ... and I've got one more batch of fresh ones to get done.  Not today though ... today it's rest up for Bingo day!!