We’re off to a good start, with about eight jars of dill pickles in the fridge (cukes from our garden); I can never get over how much better they are than what is found in stores. Today, we canned some blueberry jam. And later this month comes the real work: tomatoes, peaches and Asian pears (from our own tree). I think I’m going to mill the tomatoes and just make sauce instead of canning whole tomatoes. Anybody had experience doing this? It will take out the peels and seeds, of course, which is fine with me, and saves all that boil-and-peel tedium. We may try some mustard pickles for a change-up.
Yes. Only I freeze my tomatoes, at least until I have enough for a batch of sauce. I don’t do anything special to them. I just cut them in half/quarters, and drop 'em into gallon sized Ziploc freezer bags.
When I have enough, I drop 'em all into my bigarse pot, and cook them awhile, simmering in their own juices.
Then, I run it all through the food mill, put it all back into the pot, and add whatever herbs and spices we like. I barely simmer this until it’s as thick as we like it. This will take all day, and sometimes, into the night. We like a very thick sauce.
From there, it goes into canning jars to be processed, or freezer bags, if I’m feeling particularly lazy that day.
I have 2 quarts of sauerkraut fermenting at the moment, experimenting with quart jar fermentation. If they turn out, I’ll try to do a dozen quarts or so.
My big success last year was “V-12” juice, my own version of V-8, but waaaaay better. I made about 16 quarts last year, looking to double that this year! I don’t really have a recipe, but it’s mostly tomatoes with whatever else looks good from the garden all cooked in giant pot until soft, then mashed up and sent through a chinois.
Pickles will be in the next few weeks, I’m debating whether to try fermented pickles again. I’ll also need to do Dilly Beans soon.
I’ve stopped canning tomato sauce and started freezing it. I like the flavor more. But I do still can what I call “Chili Starter”. It’s tomato sauce with all of the chili seasoning, onions, and garlic already included.
I talked with my grandmother last week and she had just finished canning *54 quarts *of peaches over 2 days. I hope I’ve still got that much energy when I’m 83!
So far I’ve done 8 pints each of beets and sweet pickles. This weekend I plan to do bread and butters and maybe sweet relish if I have enough cucumbers.
My tomato crop looks really bad this year so I don’t know if I’ll have any to can.
I tried freezing fresh tomatoes and they had an odd chemical smell – reminded me of nail polish remover. Should I have added salt or lemon juice or something? And is there a trick to NOT getting frost inside the container?
We’ll do some freezer pickles, and in a couple weeks, tomatoes. All I do is wash and core, simmer in a large pot, then sieve. Juice is just easier.
The freezer pickles surprised me – they’re crisp and crunchy. Whodathunkit?
In a saucepan, stir 1 cup sugar, 1 cup white vinegar and 2 tablespoons water. Cook and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Let cool, then pour over the cukes. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for a couple days, then freeze in whatever containers you prefer. I use baggies.
Already did a few jars of white peach salsa, and may put up some tomato-based salsa this weekend as well. Other projects will depend on what comes in my weekly CSA boxes.
I just don’t have room in the freezer for more than what’s already in there. We don’t have room to grow enough full-sized tomatoes for canning, so we buy a crate or two of over-ripes from a local grower. Killer price and better taste. I have a tomato mill that turns raw tomatoes into pulp and juice, separating out the skin and pulp: it’s magic, I tells ya. We usually put up about 16 quarts of whole, skinned tomatoes, but they always end up getting chopped into pulp and cooked until they’re sauce anyway, so why not just make the sauce in the first place? Maybe add some herbs and garlic, onion, etc.
Earlier this year, I did a batch of strawberry jam, and so far, I’ve done 2 batches of peach jam - one sugarless (not so good) and one low-sugar (better.) Just yesterday, I bought a basket of peaches from a local Amish market, and part will be sliced and frozen, and the rest will go into another batch of peach jam because we really really like it!
My mom makes bread-and-butter pickles, but I don’t much like them. One year, I made my own tomato sauce, but it was just too much like work. Plus I quit trying to grow tomatoes since the damned squirrels eat them.
This is just the 3rd year I’ve canned anything - hence sticking to jams.
I’v already jarred spiced mulberry preseves. They’re yummy. My veggie garden isn’t producing so much this year so I’m taki.g Au.tiePam’s lead and freezing the scant tomatos until there is enough for sauce. The peppers have yet to show their faces. They’re usually no-shows until August. Well, it’s August! Where are.they? I need to jar a peck of pickled peppers!
I usually do a couple of cases of cherry jam each year but we missed the one weekend when they are ripe - good thing we have some left over from last year.
I’ll do a batch of sweet pickles and a couple of batches of pepper jelly at some point. It’s too hot to stand over a stove all weekend.
They’re just called ‘pickling cucumbers’. You have to be careful that they don’t get too large, or the skin gets too tough. Also, they really should be canned within a day or two after picking. Gherkins work really well, but they won’t be available until September.
I’ve used several kinds of pickling cukes, and some work better than others here in the South. I want to plant a variety that is good for cornichons next year.
I’ve only done strawberry & redcurrant jam so far, but there’s a bumper blackberry crop this year, just getting ripe, so something Must Be Done with them… Probably some form of blackberry and apple jam.
I didn’t get enough tomatoes this year to be worth preserving, but I’ll keep an eye out in the supermarket for a big bag of past-their-prime tomatoes… I want to make a batch of kasundi, an amazing Indian chutney which is SO GOOD on cheese sandwiches.
I still have a big jar of lemon marmalade from last summer. TOO big, it just seems a bit daunting.
I’ll make jam next week from blackberries, picked in the wild. I’m making a party of it, I invite about three families with little kids from the neighbourhood. We drive to the blackberry patch, pick, go to my place, everybody sits around while jam is made, and we eat icebream with hot jam poured over it. Then everybody goes home with a few jars of jam. So far, everybody I invited came over, so I think the set-up is a big hit
It’s this one, which I think I may have purchased overseas, but is available on Amazon. The reviews on it are good; most have a codicil of passing the fruit through several times to get all the pulp. Not sure it’s any good for making juice, unless you like your juice with pulp.
That looks like an interesting recipe. I’m a little leery of the instructions, which call for adding salt to taste. Normally, canning requires a finite amount of salt/sugar for preserving the product.
