Canning

2011 Canning Wrap-Up

by Cate on September 21, 2011 · 11 comments

Barring any unforeseen deluges of produce, I think I’m pretty much done canning for the year. There are a bunch of green tomatoes in the garden right now, and they may find their way into canning jars…but they also might go directly into dinner.

Anyway, here’s what I made this year, with commentary on how they turned out. I used my all-time favorite Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving for every single recipe except the apple pie filling.

May:

15 Pints Vanilla-Strawberry Jam. This was our favorite jam from last year, so I made a ton of it. Jason claims it’s the best jam he’s ever eaten, and it is pretty darn good.

June:

4 1/2 Pints Blueberry Jam. I made blueberry jam last year and it was delicious, so of course I made some more this year after we went blueberry picking.

July:

3 Pints Diced Tomatoes. This was my first time canning tomatoes. I haven’t opened a jar yet, but they look nice. These tomatoes were from our garden, hence the small yield.

August:

2 Pints Diced Tomatoes. These tomatoes were also from our garden.

1/2 Pint Pickled Cayenne Peppers. Our cayenne pepper plant absolutely flourished this year. We gave a bunch of the peppers away, but I was still left with a big pile and decided to make pickled peppers. Amazingly, that huge pile only yielded a half-pint. We haven’t opened the jar yet, but it smelled fabulous when I was filling the jar. If it’s good, we’ll be planting an extra cayenne pepper plant next year for sure.

September:

6 Quarts Apple Pie Filling. When we went apple picking the two things I really wanted to make were apple pie filling and apple butter. I’ve already made a pie with one of the quarts, and YUM! I made apple pie filling last year (from my usually-never-lets-me-down canning cookbook) and it was perfectly edible, but a little gluey. I’ve never had much luck with apple pie before, but this filling recipe is a winner.

6 Half-Pints Apple Butter. This was my favorite thing to make this year. There’s nothing like slowly stirring fragrant apple butter over the course of a rainy day. We opened our first jar yesterday and oh my goodness, this stuff is fabulous! Next year I’m totally making double.

We also still have several jars each of salsa, corn relish, peach jam, and apple jam left over from last year.

Here are some photos of where we keep our home-canned goodies…

This cabinet over the sink is home to various sweet spreads, plus our alcohol:

This is the top shelf of one of our “pantry” cabinets. It hold savory canned goods (salsas, tomatoes, relishes, etc) and the apple pie filling:

I won’t pretend it doesn’t drive my organizing-happy self a little crazy to have the sweet apple pie filling next to the savory stuff, but the alcohol will only fit in that tall cabinet…and I know I’m being ridiculous, so I’m choosing to ignore this particular hang-up.

Did you can anything this year? What did you make?

{ 11 comments }

We Went Apple-Picking…

by Cate on September 7, 2011 · 5 comments

in Canning,Family,Frugal Fun,Simone

On Monday, after several blistering 100-degree+ days, a cold front moved in. The day dawned chilly and grey, and we were thrilled. We had plans to go apple-picking, and it finally felt like fall.

We drove out to our favorite apple orchard as soon as it opened (right after purchasing Simone’s fall wardrobe, because she would have been miserable in her thin summer outfits). When Jason stopped the car so I could open the red metal gate at the end of the driveway, I breathed in the smell of wet leaves and wood smoke before climbing back into my seat. And when we reached the apple trees, we were thrilled to see the orchard’s lovely owner sitting at a little table, wearing a smile and surrounded by a couple enormous cats.

We spent about two hours picking apples and departed with a couple of bulging bags (for $10 total!) Of course we sampled a few along the way, and before we left we made sure to feed carrots to the horses.

I had intended to take photos, but our camera completely died over the weekend. Instead, I took a little bit of video. Here’s one of them. Be wary if you’re nausea-prone…my Blair Witch Project-esque skills with the video camera might make you sick. I should work on that.

When we got home we warmed up with a big “lunch” of breakfast burritos and coffee, and then I got to work. I canned apple pie filling, started a batch of apple butter (which I didn’t finish until yesterday morning), and made dinner, while keeping up with laundry. It was one of those days where you’re aching and exhausted by nightfall, but you’ve accomplished so much that the tiredness is worth it.

Here’s another video of what I ended up canning (6 quarts of apple pie filling and 6 half-pints of apple butter). It’s 4 seconds long and only barely counts as a video, but hey. Our camera broke. What else could I do?

Apple-picking always signals the start of fall for me. I’ve been enjoying the rainy days, the smells of fall (is there anything better than the smell of apple butter + sweet potato casserole?), and having the windows open. Not to mention all of the hot chocolate and caramel apple cider.

{ 5 comments }

An Update On Our First Garden

by Cate on August 17, 2011 · 12 comments

in Canning,Gardening

In June I posted photos and details of our beginner’s garden, so I thought it might be nice to post an update!

Since all-day pregnancy nausea hit me in early July, I haven’t worked in the garden at all. I’ve gathered vegetables, but that’s about it. Jason’s worked in the garden as much as possible, but neither of us have had the wherewithal to devote serious amounts of time to it other than keeping it watered.

This is the bed that held our cherry tomato, zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumber plants:

As you can see, everything except the cherry tomatoes is totally dead. Jason’s dad (who is actually a Master Gardener, which is super helpful!) thinks everything else got hit by a squash borer. One day they were alive and a couple days later…totally dead. We did manage to get a couple tiny yellow squash and a small cucumber before they died, but that’s all. The cherry tomatoes have done pretty well but we definitely intend to plant more next year.

This is the bed which holds our tomatoes, bell peppers, and hot peppers. (There was lettuce too, but obviously the lettuce season is past. We enjoyed many fresh salads!) The first thing we learned is that we planted our tomatoes and peppers too close together. They’re thriving, but it’s pretty crowded in there.

All of our tomato plants in this bed (Roma, Purple Cherokee, and something I can’t remember the name of) took off like gangbusters. The Roma produced far and away the most tomatoes, but the heirloom varieties produced a bunch, too. Unfortunately, something (we’re not sure what) started nibbling on the heirloom varieties, so we lost a few to that. I ended up canning and freezing several pints of diced tomatoes, and we sent a bunch home with my in-laws.

Our peppers were really hit or miss. We had a bell pepper plant and a giant bell pepper plant. The bell pepper plant produced a few peppers midway through the season, but we keep waiting for it to take off and it just hasn’t. The giant bell pepper plant hasn’t done anything. Our jalapeno plant was modestly successful, and as you can see our cayenne pepper plant has decided we need to eat cayenne peppers every day for the rest of our lives. Jason’s been picking them constantly but we just can’t keep up! I think I’m going to pickle a batch of them.

Here are a couple other shots of our tomato/pepper bed—you can really see how tall our tomato plants got!

Jason’s parents also gave us two starts from their blackberry bushes, which we’re excited to have. They don’t look like much now, but we’re hoping they’ll do well.

Oddly, our herb garden was also a total failure. The cilantro died outright, the chives did pretty well, the basil grew but didn’t thrive, and the mint didn’t really do anything…it didn’t die, but didn’t really grow either. I’m not sure whether to blame the soil, which is a bit dry (and we didn’t add much extra), the amount of rain they got (they’re under a slight overhang, so they get wet, but not as soaked as the big garden), or their sun exposure. Who knows! I plan to plant them with the rest of the vegetables next year, though.

Jason and I are both hoping to have a much bigger garden next year complete with more tomatoes, more peppers, more herbs, squash that won’t die, our blackberry bushes, and some strawberry plants. We’re still brainstorming how to lay out the garden in the backyard, and I think we plan to get next year’s garden set up sometime when the weather cools down.

If you planted a garden this year, how did it do?

{ 12 comments }

Blueberries for Simone

by Cate on July 6, 2011 · 10 comments

in Canning,Family,Food,Frugal Fun

Last Wednesday we went blueberry picking at a little farm near where Jason grew up.

Simone loved eating the blueberries (many of them still unripe!) straight from the bushes.

And I loved the southern Indiana scenery. If you’ve never been to Kentuckiana in the summer, you’re missing out on some serious gorgeousness.

We picked slightly over 5 pounds of blueberries and paid $11.50 or so for them. They were actually only $2/lb, but we paid a couple extra dollars to account for all of the berries Simone ate and mutilated along the way.

I used a bunch of them to make a batch of blueberry jam.

There’s nothing like blueberry jam. And I’m starting to get pretty good at canning. I don’t make enormous messes so much anymore and I’ve gotten a lot faster.

We used the rest of the blueberries for shortcake and just for eating by the handful. I’d hoped to pick more berries than we did, but a certain little girl was up for a few hours in the middle of the night and we all slept in a little. By the time we got to the farm, most of the easily-accessible berries had been picked. Oh well.

I’m hoping to go blueberry picking every year. We had a lot of fun, and $2/lb for pick-your-own berries certainly beats $8/quart at the farmers’ market. Eek!

{ 10 comments }

May Goal Review

by Cate on May 30, 2011 · 5 comments

in Canning,Decorating,Family,Gardening,Goals,Groceries,Reading

1. Plan Simone’s Second Birthday Party. I am actually really, really excited to host this birthday party. For the first time, our home is big enough to comfortably accommodate our guests and isn’t horrifically ugly. So I’ve gone a little overboard with party planning, but it’ll still be a pretty simple gathering.

2. Save $50 From Our Grocery Budget. I did not do this. We ended up spending $380 on groceries this month, which is $30 over what we usually spend—BUT we bought party food, a ton of plants for our garden, and enough strawberries for me to can over two gallons of strawberry jam. So I’m okay with that amount. I had planned to spend the saved $50 on plants anyway.

3. Start Planting Our Garden. We did this! We planted jalapeno peppers, cayenne peppers, bell peppers, giant bell peppers, four kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, 2 kinds of lettuce, basil, lavender, spearmint, and chives. Whew. I still want to put in a big bed for strawberries, and we want to get a start from Jason’s parents’ blackberry bush.

4. Start a New Compost Bin. We did not do this. I didn’t forget, we just ran out of time. Bumping it to next month again, and it will definitely get done!

5. Read 4 Books From My “To Read” Shelf. I did not do this. I read nine books last month and only two were from my “To Read” shelf. I read Butterfly Burning, which was left over from an African Lit class I took in college (I dropped out before we read it), and Things Fall Apart, which I bought in high school and had never picked up. Both were lovely, though disturbing.

6. Paint Our Family Room. We did this and it looks absolutely fantastic. I’m so glad we got this done before Simone’s party (many of the guests have never seen our house). I still plan to post After pictures, but we need to finish up one last (big) project first. Here are the not-so-beautiful Before photos. And now the only room we have left to paint is our laundry room, which barely counts.

7. Shampoo the Family Room Carpet. Done! And all I have to say is, oh my. The rinse water was completely black and our carpet is now a different color. Seriously, yuck. Carpet shampooing will now be done on a regular basis at our house.