What are you canning now?

[ducks4you]

I am home healing from my knee replacement surgery, which took place Halloween.
Family has been Wonderful!! With ripening tomatoes on the kitchen table eldest DD stepped in to can them. She will probably need to start a new batch tomorrow.
I broke the job down to 2 days:
1) boil and deskin and start cooking in the crock pot on Low
2) finish hot water bath canning next day
DD prefers pints so she canned in 6 pints. She was making stuffed peppers for dinner last night, used a pint's worth of tomatoes from the crock pot

to finish the meal, so it only took one batch. She did a STELLAR JOB!! All 6 sealed, screw tops loose and produce looking perfect, as you can see.

 

[ducks4you]

This canning was a family affair. DD did the food prep and canning, I transported finished jars with my flexible red gardning bucket.
I labelled the first jar, DH labeled the rest of the jars

and DD will be cooking with ALL of the 6 jars, now back in the 6 pint jar cardboard container and packaged in an ALDI bag (w/the handle) ready to take home.

 

[SPedigrees]

I am home healing from my knee replacement surgery, which took place Halloween.
Family has been Wonderful!! With ripening tomatoes on the kitchen table eldest DD stepped in to can them. She will probably need to start a new batch tomorrow.
I broke the job down to 2 days:
1) boil and deskin and start cooking in the crock pot on Low
2) finish hot water bath canning next day
DD prefers pints so she canned in 6 pints. She was making stuffed peppers for dinner last night, used a pint's worth of tomatoes from the crock pot View attachment 70247to finish the meal, so it only took one batch. She did a STELLAR JOB!! All 6 sealed, screw tops loose and produce looking perfect, as you can see.

Wonderful that you have such a helpful daughter. Speedy healing and happy eating to you!

 

[ducks4you]

MORE Tomatoes Dehydrated

DD wanted to can the last batch, but she and her sister had their other sister over this weekend. Between filming the Christmas video And sister playtime, the tomatoes didn't get the memo. I had to deal with them or lose them.
I chose to dehydrate them, 3 more quarts worth, FINAL total, 4 1/2 quarts, surprisingly.
I gave one quart to DD who lives a few hours away, to take home and experiment with. She also wanted some dehydrated jalepanoes. I discovered that none of the peppers that I dehydrated were dried out enough, so I pulled the tomatoes (without cleaning the shelves) and put the mostly dehydrated peppers on the trays to spend another full day drying out. I gave DD the plastic netting from my lemons in the fridge, with instructions to pour the contents of the 1/2 pint into the webbing, tie to an out of the way cupboard pull for a good month to really let them dry down.

I am interested in how the Excalibur would work dehydrating onions. Every time I tried to do this with my cheapo dehydrators, the onions burned.
I may even get a chance to make banana chips, which I Love, but have never made.
There are about 15 tomatoes left, none very big. They probably will end up being fertilizer bc between my knee healing and other stuff I am DONE with them.

 

[ducks4you]

Got the sweet peppers and the jalepanoes back in the dehydrator to totally dry down.
It's all a learning curve. You sure can smell the hot peppers baking!

 

[Dahlia]

MORE Tomatoes DehydratedView attachment 70393
DD wanted to can the last batch, but she and her sister had their other sister over this weekend. Between filming the Christmas video And sister playtime, the tomatoes didn't get the memo. I had to deal with them or lose them.
I chose to dehydrate them, 3 more quarts worth, FINAL total, 4 1/2 quarts, surprisingly.
I gave one quart to DD who lives a few hours away, to take home and experiment with. She also wanted some dehydrated jalepanoes. I discovered that none of the peppers that I dehydrated were dried out enough, so I pulled the tomatoes (without cleaning the shelves) and put the mostly dehydrated peppers on the trays to spend another full day drying out. I gave DD the plastic netting from my lemons in the fridge, with instructions to pour the contents of the 1/2 pint into the webbing, tie to an out of the way cupboard pull for a good month to really let them dry down.

I am interested in how the Excalibur would work dehydrating onions. Every time I tried to do this with my cheapo dehydrators, the onions burned.
I may even get a chance to make banana chips, which I Love, but have never made.
There are about 15 tomatoes left, none very big. They probably will end up being fertilizer bc between my knee healing and other stuff I am DONE with them.

My mom used to make the best banana chips and dried apricot halves! Now around Christmas time I dehydrate kiwis, apples, mangos, and sometimes candied salmon.

 

[ducks4you]

I was shocked to see "Now up to 18 months" on the packaging. I have NEVER seen an expiration date on lids.
Is is just ME, or has the quality of canning lids gone down?!?!?
Ball used to be the Gold Standard on canning lids.

 

[Dahlia]

I was shocked to see "Now up to 18 months" on the packaging. I have NEVER seen an expiration date on lids.
Is is just ME, or has the quality of canning lids gone down?!?!?
Ball used to be the Gold Standard on canning lids.

View attachment 70715

The quality has definitely gone down! The kids always rust now!

 

[ducks4you]

When they are dehydrated, I will be storing the cloves from the 5 garlic bulbs that didn't get planted.
I can thank @Zeedman , who inspired me to dehydrate them.
GOOD move, since 7 cloves were bad or Going bad.
I have only had them for 3 months.
Should be ready to store by tomorrow.
Neat and tidy, JUST LIKE @ninnymary has taught us All to do.

 

[Dahlia]

The quality has definitely gone down! The kids always rust now!

I mean lids!