Goals to get ready for Canning Season

Last year I didn't do much canning and no gardening. Instead we took our kids on a month long cross country trip.

Great memories to hold with us always.

So this year I'm very excited about gardening and canning.

So here are my goal to get ready for canning season.

1. Clean out and re-organize my pantry  Done

It took me two whole days to clean everything out of my pantry and put it back organized. I have come up with a different arrangement for my pantry. One I hope will make it easier to get empty jars out and put them away. When my daughter empties the dishwasher, if she can't easily find where the jar goes she just puts it anywhere in the pantry. So needless to say I found empty canning jars in all kinds of strange places.

2. Take Inventory of Pantry  Done

As I cleaned out and re-organized my pantry I sorted, counted and wrote down every empty and filled canning jar I had in the pantry.  I have pretty much every size Mason Jars come in. Because I have never count my jars, I was very shocked when I add them all up. Empty jars 329. Filled jars 255. That's a total of 584 jars! 

I didn't just inventory my home canned items, I also inventoried the store bought items, too.

3.Use up what I still have

I need to think of different recipes or ways to use what I have left.

Last year before we went on our cross-country trip I found recipes for canning soups, stews and chili. We took several jar with us. What I found was they weren't flavorful enough for us. So this year I will go back to canning the ingredient separately. It will still be easy to make soup/ stew and I can season it the way my family likes. 

4.List to Can

(I'm sure I will think of more as the season goes on.)

-Carrots

-Potatoes

-Veggie Mix                                                    

-Pumpkin

-Salsa

-Stewed tomatoes

-Salsa Verda (tomatillas)

-Dill pickles relish

-Dill pickles (need to find a good recipe)

-Pickled veggie mix

-Chili Beans

-Stew meat

-Chicken breast meat

-Tuna

-Strawberry jam

-Raspberry jelly

-Blueberry jam

-Blueberry pie filling

-Salmonberry jelly (try something new)

-Thimbleberry jelly(also new)

-Spiced Apples

How much vegetables and fruit I can of each, will depend on how much my garden produces. Hopefully I will have a bumper crop.


Linked to:
Country-fair-blog-party June-16

Our Simple Homestead blog hop #54

A Week of Preserving

Canned 12 half pints and 6 pints of dill pickle relish.

 

Froze 16 serving of corn.

 

Still working on tomato sauce.

Surprise Potatoes Plant

I always seem to unknowingly leave one or two potatoes in the garden each year. So in the spring up pops a surprise potato plant or two.  I rotate my crops each year and this very big potato plant was in the way of other crops, so I pulled it.

I was happy to see so many potatoes. I have a hard time keeping reds from going bad. I decided to can these but I didn't want to peel them.  Some are very tiny and I couldn't just throw out the little ones. So I did some web surfing and found a couple of people who can their red potatoes peel on. Step one scrub potatoes until they shine.

I used my dollar store scrub brush and scrubbed until they were shiny. As I scrubbed a very thin skin came off the potatoes. Then I cut the bigger ones into smaller chunks and stuffed into hot quart jars with a teaspoon of salt.

Notice some of the potatoes have a reddish centers. I added boiling water to each jar and put on the warmed lids and rings. Then processed them for 40 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.

Ok all done and the potatoes are all white. Hmm, I didn't expect that. Seven quarts from a surprise potato plant, not bad.

Linked to:
inthemomentwith.com-Words(less) wednesday
homegrownonthehill-homeacre-hop-32
theviewfromrighthere- rurality blog hop

Fall is Definitely in the Air

It seems the animals are putting themselves to bed earlier and earlier each night. I can't walk anywhere now without going through at least one or two spider webs. Good thing I'm not afraid of spiders and we only have one poisonous spiders here. They are rare and hide in wood piles.

In the garden the sunflowers a looking beautiful. Some of them are over nine feet tall. I planted several varieties. I love the many different shades of yellow they produced.

My pumpkins are finally growing. I hope by the end of October they will be ready to be made into jack-o-lanterns.

I harvested the rest of my potatoes. They are mostly red potatoes. One is big enough to feed the four of us. I dug up small, medium, large and extra large potatoes.

It feels like my canner is going nonstop. I'm canning tomato sauce and pasta sauces with roasted vegetables.

Although my first clue fall was in the air was school started and I had to go back to work. No more playtime with the garden and animals. It's work from sunup to sundown until winter comes.

                                

What I did over the Labor Day Weekend.

I learned to make bread. Who knew making homemade bread could be so easy? I made three loaves of bread.

 

 I also experimented with pickling peppers. That is green bell, yellow bell, purple bell and jalapeno pepper. In two weeks I will try the peppers and if I like them I will post the recipe.

 Peppers, peppers and more peppers become....                               pickled peppers.

 

My son, nephew, and I picked blackberries. (big kid son, little one nephew)

 







These two buckets of blackberries became 10 1/2 cups of juice. I made 10 half-pints of blackberry jelly and froze 5 1/2 cups of juice for later use.

 



 

What did you do for the Labor Day weekend?

 

 

                                 

 



Cherry-Rhubarb Crisp

 When I canned cherry-rhubarb pie filling, there was one jar that didn't fit in the canner. So I put that one in the frig and made cherry-rhubarb crisp with it. Here's the recipe I used.

Cherry-Rhubarb Crisp

1     cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
3/4  cup  Oats
1     cup  Brown Sugar
1/2  cup Melted Butter
1     tsp  Cinnamon
1     qt jar Cherry-Rhubarb Pie Filling (recipe from Simply Canning website)

1. Preheat oven to 350*F.
2. In a medium bowl combine first five ingredients until crumbly.
3. Press half of mixture into a 8" or 9" square pan.

4. Spread pie filling evenly over bottom layer.
5. Top with remaining mixture.

6. Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes or until it is bubbling around the edges and it looks a darker    brown. It won't become crispy until it cools.

You may notice there is a little missing in the left hand corner,
 I had to try it when it cooled to make sure it was good:)


 

http://whitewolfsummitfarmgirl.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-country-homemaker-hop-34_22.html





 



http://www.twobearsfarm.com/

Raspberries, Cherries, Rhubarb Oh My!

Finally all of this seasons raspberries, cherries and rhubarb are gone. I canned until after 10 o'clock last night. Here is what I made.

Raspberry Syrup

Cherry Jam

Cherry-Rhubarb Pie Filling

Sweet Rhubarb



So far I have canned 110 jars of jams, jellies, syrups, and pie filling this summer. My garden is just now getting to the harvesting stage. And later this fall I will have an abundance of apples and pears to process. So far 2012 has been a good canning year.

Try Something New Thursday

Pickled Eggs

In a week I will see how they taste and see if this recipe is a keeper.

Roasted Pepper Salsa Verde

This recipe came about because I found tomatillos,poblano peppers , and green peppers in the reduced area at my local farm produce store. I have been wanting to try homemade salsa verde. So this is my version of several recipes I looked up.


Start off by roasting poblano pepper, green peppers, and tomatillos in oven under low broiler.

Turn peppers and tomatillos when skin is brown and blisters. Do this until every side is done. (The tomatillos I just did the top and bottom.)

When all sides are done take out and cover with a foil for 10 minutes.

Put all ingredients in a food processor and blend.



Empty into a large pot, heat until hot, stir continually.





Ladle in to hot jars, top with warmed lids and rings. Process in a boiling bath for 20 minutes.

I made a double batch and ended up with four half pints and three 12oz jars of salsa.

Roasted Pepper Salsa Verde

Ingredients

1.5lb.  tomatillos

2         green bell peppers

2         poblano peppers

1         jalapeno pepper

6-8     cloves garlic

6        large green onions

1        bunch of cilantro

1-2tsp salt

1/2      lime juice and zest

To make

1. Rinse green peppers and poblano peppers place on a foil-lined baking sheet. Husk and rinse tomatillos place on baking sheet in a single layer.

2. Place baking sheet on middle rack of oven. Turn broiler on low.(Or if you are good at watching it, you could use high) Broil until all sides are brown and blistered.

3. Remove from oven and cover with foil for 10 minutes.

4. Place tomatillos in food processor. Remove core and seeds from green and poblano peppers. Cut into about four big chunks, put into food processor.

5. Trim green onions cut into thirds, cut cilantro into thirds and add both to the food processor. Add garlic and lime juice/zest. Cut strips off jalapeno pepper and add to food processor. (Depending on how hot you want it to be, add no seeds or all seeds or somewhere in between, that is up to you.) Sprinkle in one teaspoon of salt.

6. Close and turn on food processor. Process until everything is mixed and chopped up very fine. Taste you may want to add more garlic and/or salt.

To Can

1. Have lids, jars and boiling bath canner all hot and ready.

2. Empty salsa verde into a large pot, heat on high until hot.

3. Ladle into hot jars, add lids, hand tighten rings and place in boiling bath.

4. When water reaches 200 degrees process half pints for 20 minutes.

5. Immediately remove jars  and let cool.