What have you canned or preserved today?

[HotPepperQueen]

I did a few pints of curried green tomatoes, spicy garlic green tomatoes, dilly beans, and dill pickles. I think I got a pretty good curry facial from the brine because my nose won't stop running and my eyes wont stop watering!

 

[vfem]

Over the weekend I peeled a ton of tomatoes and bagged them in the fridge to make sauce today. Though I will start that batch shortly here's what excited me most...

When I weighed this last batch I've peeled, it puts me over 100 lbs of tomatoes I have preserved so far! That's right... almost $200 in tomatoes stored away for later, whether as whole tomatoes, salsa, sauces, ect. I did not weigh the tomatoes I gave away, ate fresh, or had bugs getting to them first (then they ended up with the chickens).

Also keep in mind, I'm still going to be collecting tomatoes for a few more weeks! I'm so darn excited! I didn't spend anywhere near $200 on the garden this year.... so it really is an amazing savings.

Just wanted to share... now off to make sauce again!

 

[ninnymary]

Wow, Vfem, that's great! And that's not counting the rest of your veggies. Can you get a general idea of how much $ your garden will produce this year?

Mary

 

[vfem]

You know, I didn't bother to keep track. I've eaten more fresh then I've canned and I surely haven't stopped myself from stealing fresh yummies all season while out in the yard. I can tell you, the berry picking place up the road charges $6 lb for raspberries, and I know I've used well over 10 lbs of raspberries by now. Mine are double producing, spring and fall and my fall berries have just started their second round!

I have a feeling I have more then $5000 worth of produce savings a year at least when I have years like this one. Not even the cost of the produce alone though, I can and freeze so much I think of what those shelve items I'm saving on too!

Anyways, I have 8 quarts of Tomato Balsamic Sauce going on the stove right now. The house smells amazing, and maybe in another hour I'll get it into jars finally.

 

[lesa]

Another 6 dozen ear of corn into the freezer, tonight! I am awfully happy to have this. Many of our local farmers lost their entire corn harvest. My friend has a wonderful organic farm, she lost one field- but this field is producing....Wow, Vfem! You are really cooking!

 

[ninnymary]

Vfem, you are AMAZING!

Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

It's fun putting that stuff up. And it will be fun this winter eating it all.

I have trouble remembering all I've done since my last post in this thread. I did the five half-pints of sweet pepper relish in the photo today.

In the last few days I filled a quart jar with dried peaches and canned 18 pints of spaghetti sauce. And put another 4 gallons of tomatoes in the freezer, waiting to get enough for another round of canning some type of tomato product.

 

[vfem]

Ridge that looks so yummy!!! I so love peppers... if only I could grow enough to make some of that too.

You should really share the recipe... hint, hint!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Vfem, I just picked a recipe off the internet.

http://southernfood.about.com/od/picklesrelishes/r/r80810i.htm

A couple of things with this one. I could not find a headspace in it, so I looked at other relish recipes and decided on 1/2".

Also, since it was a half-recipe, the simmering time was a lot less. It took mine about 35 minutes to thicken well. I did stir it a lot. I burned some corn once when I didn't stir it enough so I now overstir everything. I'm not sure this one needed that much stirring, but........

I did half-pints instead of pints but still did the 10 minutes in the hot water bath.

My sweet peppers have done really well this year. Most of the ones I used in this were yellow or orange, with a few reds. No green ones.

I did peel them. That took a lot of time, but these are mainly for Christmas baskets so I went the extra step. If you use a food processor for the chopping especially, I don't think peeling them is anywhere close to necessary. I certainly will NOT peel the next batch I do.

 

[ninnymary]

Ridgerunner, I have been curious. When you put tomatoes in the freezer, do you do anything to them? Just pop them in a freezer bag? When you get them out of the freezer, do you have to thaw first? Are they mushy when you thaw? Then what steps comes next for canning?

I have been wanting to do this since my harvest is alittle at a time due to my few plants. The only canning I will be doing is salsa. Not enough tomatoes for anything else, since I give some away to some very deserving people.

Mary