Canning & Processing Tally

I'm feeling pretty good about my harvesting, processing, and canning this year. We entered summer almost completely out of home-canned fruit and now our shelves are overflowing!

 

I didn't do so hot taking pictures of garden harvest or what I canned this year. I want to do better on that next year.

The oregano and vegetables were all from our garden.

We had 3 different friends offer free cherry picking in July, and I took them all up on the offers!

2 had sweet cherries, and 1 had a pie cherry tree.

Peaches, pears, and apples were purchased.

 

We ended up with:

 

1 1/2 quarts dried oregano

 

23 quarts sweet cherries

2 quart bags chopped frozen sweet cherries

15 cups pie filling (frozen)

12 pints? a bunch of cherry-berry syrup (jam that didn't set--oops!)

 

5 cups raspberry freezer jam--home-picked fruit

 

8 quarts sliced carrots, frozen

 

39 quarts peaches

 

5 quarts green beans, frozen

 

9 pints plum jam

Free plums from behind the elementary school!

 

33 quarts pears

 

41 quarts applesauce

 

6 pints pickled beets

 

I think that will do it for this year, unless I decide to make some more jam--which is tempting.

I want to make some more lemon-ginger marmalade.

 

My care for the vegetable garden and flowers really dropped off in September...along with my blogging. This list is helping me realize why--I was canning everything in sight! Everything from the carrots on down has been done since the last week of August.

(Not to mention school starting, soccer practice, etc., etc.)

 

Let me just say it again.

It's a good feeling to have all that done for the year.

A Bit More Canning

Cinnamon Applesauce

40 quarts 

 

 

I realized about a month ago that we were down to our last 3 jars of applesauce, from the batch I made and canned 2 years ago.

So, it was time.

Unfortunately, we had missed all the u-pick weekends.

So we went up and purchased fruit from the university orchard instead.

We got one box of the "juice apples" mix, and one box of Golden Delicious, Rome Beauty, and McIntosh mixed.

 

The juice apples were quite a bit more sour than the other.

They were also a third of the price.

Even so, I think it would be worth it next time to get all of my own mix.

 

My husband has been the canning partner extraordinaire this year.

I am so thankful to have had his help!

My 5 year old was also a very diligent helper with this project, and the other two helped by playing nicely together and taking naps. :)

 

My husband was also in charge of adding the cinnamon and sugar to the applesauce. More of an art than a science, but we ended up with a final product we all thought was quite tasty.

Not to mention, the house smelled amazing the entire day.

Yum. Homemade applesauce is all kinds of work, but it so so good!

Pears

7 1/2 quarts

We got these at the same time as the apples.

It was my first time doing pears and first doing hot-pack.

For all the complaining I've heard about pears, especially because you have to peel them first, they weren't so bad. Then again, I was coming off applesauce day, so maybe that's why.

I'm actually tempted to do a few more of these, just so they last a bit longer.

 

Lemon-Ginger Marmalade

1 pint

7 half-pints

8 quarter pints (I guess that's the size...)

So, my neighbor brought me a jar of lemon-ginger marmalade last month.

It was gone in a couple of days.

Wow, it was delicious!

Especially on pumpkin pancakes....yeah, that's a happy food memory!

 

So, I decided I needed to make some to have on hand.

With the help of my mother-in-law this week, who was visiting, we got 'er done.

I try not to can every time she comes, but we're at about 50/50 right now.

She's very gracious to jump in and help (and she even keeps coming back!)

 

I'm thinking the smaller jars would be perfect size for neighbor gifts this Christmas, maybe with a basket of pumpking muffins to go along with it.

If I can stand to give it away!

 

I think this may be the last of the canning this year.

Unless I decide to do a few more pears.

Although, I'm not sure where we're going to put anything else, at the moment.

Guess we'd better get eating!

 

Canning Done So Far

These were all actually canned last month.

 

10 quarts red 'Dapple Dandy' plums

Sweet when fresh.

Mouth-puckering, canker-inducing sour when canned in light syrup.

[sigh]

Maybe I'll make some plum sauce with them, or something.

Anything that requires a whole lot more sugar.

34 pints Damson plum jam

We heard from a friend that there were FREE plums to pick at the elementary school.

We were all over that.

I came home and looked at my jam recipe:

2 lbs plums, chopped = 1 x the recipe

I had something like 25 lbs of plums.

Yeah.

So I was making jam and canning it until 10pm that night.

But hey, it's delicious, and it even set up without pectin added.

I'm calling it a win.

18 quarts peaches

(We had 22 quarts left from last year.)

Tried extra-light syrup for them.

We'll see if we like it.

 

I still need to do applesauce this year--we're down to our last 3 quarts from the batch 2 years ago. I guess that means it's about time.  Maybe this week or next.

Carrots, carrots, carrots

We decided to process the carrots a few weeks earlier this year.

The kiddos were more than happy to pull up every single one they could find.

They were also happy to eat all the ones that were very small and too hard to peel.

With or without washing first.

A little vitamin D(irt) never hurt anyone, right?

 

For the 2x5 garden space dedicated to them, I thought this was a respectable showing.

 

My oldest insisted on running the food processor.

He did an excellent job, once I got it all set up for him.

 

Little sister was our expert carrot scooper.

(After blanching for 3 minutes, I dumped them in cold water to cool them quicker.)

Then we put them in freezer bags.

Kudos to this little man for not choking on the carrot given to him.

It was a team effort, I tell you.

 

7 quart bags, but I'm claiming 6 for the official count.

We did 2 half full, to give us some options later.

Not bad.

I want to do about twice as much next year.



Blackberry jam & Salsa

Our new neighbors let us pick a whole bunch of their blackberries!

We had already made a blackberry pie with the first round we picked.

This time I wanted to do some seedless blackberry jam.

To remove the seeds, I washed and sorted the berries, then put them in a saucepan with 1 C. of fruit juice. (It was blueberry juice, I think--storebought). I let it simmer (not boil). Then removed from heat, and put it through the strainer attachment on our Kitchenaid--the same one we used for applesauce last year. It did a great job! The seeds pooped out one side and the rest, mostly juice, went into another bowl. Processed them according to the Ball blue book. Yum! 

Salsa--around 30 pints.

I had 2 ladies from the ward helping out, who wanted to learn how to do it.

It made everything go so much faster and easier!

I used the same recipe as last year, but cut down the sugar (only used 1/4 C. instead of 3/4 C.)

I like it much better.

This was 2 batches worth.

I used up all my frozen tomatoes from last fall on the first batch, and had enough left over for half of the second batch. Since I never got around to making tomato sauce, I was very glad to get those out of my freezer! They were coming up on the year mark, which is about how long they can be frozen for. To finish off the second batch, one of the ladies brought some tomatoes, and I went out and picked all the ripe ones I could find. We were actually 1 C. short (so 19 C. instead of 20) but we called it good with that.

We've been eating it and it's yummy!

Our salsa from 2011 lasted until the end of the summer, so I'm hoping this will do us until next year!

Peaches!

I bougth 5 boxes of peaches (seconds) from Wilson-Banner Ranch.

They brought them up to the farmer's market, which was really handy.

I paid $15/box.

51 quarts, 39 for us to keep

Our new neighbor, Aubrey H., came over to learn and to help.

For the first time we set up the hot water bath pot on the outside camp stove, along with a card table for jars. It worked out well: didn't make a huge mess on the stove, freed up stove and counter space, maybe kept the house a little cooler. I was impressed the propane lasted all day. Also, the water heated back up to boiling much quicker than it would have on the stove, so we could keep the jars going through a little quicker.

May need to borrow another hot water bath canner next time. I've decided that's about the only way to make it go faster, is to have 2 going, with maybe 3 people helping. Probably not worth buying a second canner at this point, unless I found one really cheap at a garage sale or something.

I guess a pressure cooker would also be quicker, but come with its own learning curve.

I think I would can homemade soups if I had a pressure cooker, though.

Also: a bunch of canning jars at the thrift store for $.50 each (so half price compared to new.) Tempted to buy them, but did not. You would still need to buy lids/rings for them. Although a random lady brought me hers, after she saw me coming out of Ace with a couple boxes worth. She also said I could have her sisters', who lives in Seattle and should be coming out in a month or two.

Still to can this year: salsa, maybe some blackberry jam

Cherries & Apricots

When the family was here, we went to U-Pick cherries and apricots at the university orchard.

We came home with 150 pounds of fruit!

Most of that cherries--primarily Bing, with some Rainier mixed in.

The apricots weren't very ripe, but we brought home a few buckets worth.

Plus one small bucket of pie cherries that was immediately made into a pie.

So we made a bunch of cherry jam and canned it--half is regular sugar and half is low sugar.

It was my first time making cooked jam. 

 Final tally:

42 jars of cherries

23 jars of apricots

We did light syrup for everything. I'm learning medium syrup does have its place. I think next time I would do medium for the apricot since they weren't as ripe.

They are still good with light, but a little on the tart side.



Canned fruit is so pretty.

Tomatoes, tomatoes

After such a late start to summer, it has been a blessing that fall has been so lovely.

I had already given up on tomatoes, and bought some to make salsa with. I supplemented that box with some from the garden, but it was mostly purchased.

Now look at what's coming my way!

 Tomatoes with noses. Hee hee.

More and more!

I didn't get pictures of all them. We'd eat a few here and there, and replace them with new ripe ones from the garden. I finally got a small batch blanched, skinned, chopped, and frozen. Only enough for 2 quart-size bags, but at least they didn't go to waste.

Homemade Salsa

It was time to preserve all these tomatoes!

So I made and canned some salsa.

For the whole story, see the family blog.

It's delicious!