Green Tomato Salsa, Mac and Cheese- It's All Good

Today I'm linking up with Jessica at Keeping up with the Johnson's for her PinterTest party. The idea is to pin less, do more. If you're on Pinterest, you know what I mean. 

Here are two things I made recently.

Green Tomato Salsa

source: Food.com via Mindy Ward via Pinterest

My garden from earlier this year did okay for our first real attempt at gardening. I got enough tomatoes to eat, share, freeze and lastly preserve. I was left with quite a few green ones and decided that besides lining them up on the window sill and hoping they turn ripe, I'd make some salsa with them. Turned out to be a great idea!

Gather your ingredients, including the tomatoes.

Chop 'til you can chop no more.

Realize you are not going to be able to finish the job that night and prep all the rest of the ingredients into other containers. Then discover that to fit that big stockpot in the fridge, you are going to possibly have to rearrange shelves. Then do a little dance because you didn't have to!
Go on a hot date the next night!

 How pretty!

Finally, cook it down. Heat up a water bath canner you borrowed from your friend. Fill jars. Wipe rims. Apply lids and rings. Cross fingers that you are canning correctly. Cross fingers that it will actually taste good.

I had a little leftover in the bottom of the pan and left it out for Bill to try. Verdict? Great! WooHoo!

After fifteen minutes I pulled the jars from the canner and started hearing that little tell-tale pop of the jars sealing. Yippee!!

I would definitely make this again next year.

Mac and Cheese Bites in Mason Jars

via Annie's Eats via Mindy Ward via Pinterest

The next recipe involves adorable little 4 ounce mason jars!

I saw this recipe and thought it would be fun to make it for school lunches. Sure I could have just used muffin tins like the original recipe did, but aren't these sweet? And heatable for Bill. (For the boys', I heat them in the morning and send them in their lunch bag.)

For this recipe I had to hunt down a cheese product called Boursin. Never had Boursin before. Tried it on a cracker. Shared it with Bill. Ruined our tummys before supper because we were devouring it! 

Ahem... 

I was concerned that the garlic flavoring would overwhelm the regular mac and cheese flavor, which would be a no-no for the fam. It didn't. 

No step by step pics for this, just a good 'ol IG photo.

Verdict? Pretty darn good! To do it again, I would leave out the cracker crust and just stuff the jars full of mac and cheese. That was the boys' least favorite part. And as much as Boursin is awesome, Boursin is a wee bit expensive, so I'd try to substitute something else. Maybe cream cheese? (Thoughts anyone?)