For the win/for the bin

For the win: Saturday’s tomato soup. I loaded it with dried basil, a can of fire-roasted tomatoes, and beef stock. Topped it with fresh basil and grated Parmesan before eating. Very good.

For the (compost) bin: the green tomato relish. I tried some today, and three days of pickling didn’t improve it. I could taste the mustard seed, celery seed, sugar, all classic pickle flavors. But the veggies themselves were absolutely tasteless. It’s definitely possible that the spice/vinegar proportions were a little off, but I would think that I would have at least tasted something. I blame the tomatoes. Even ripe, they weren’t any great shakes. I will be trying different varieties next year. I read warnings that blight-resistant tomatoes were less tasty than more susceptible types, and I believe it.

Oh well. Another entry in The Book of Experience.

In other news, temps hit the 70s today. Summer’s last hurrah, I think. It’s supposed to cool to the 50s for the rest of the week, and frost or a freeze may play in there somewhere. I transplanted the parsley into a smaller pot and brought it inside to join the thyme and some straggly sweet basil. Not optimistic about that basil, but we’ll see how it goes.