What are you canning now?

[flowerbug]

Whoa!

If a 3# tomato was on one of my plants,

.. it would probably scare me!

Steve

this is from a different year, but some of them do look like this...

 

[Beekissed]

I've had those and yes, huge and heavy. Beefsteak tomatoes are a lot like a box of chocolates....never know what yer gonna get.

 

[flowerbug]

i had them piled high on the counter yesterday. for the past two days of picking/canning i did 38 quarts with help from Mom. she cut them and peeled them some, i had them washed and dunked to get the peels to come off easy for her, then i did quality control scanning what she did and cutting it up further and getting the stuff out that didn't belong in there. i hate seeing dark seeds so if i have time i like to get those out before i have it on the stove warming up before it goes in the jars.

so far picked 6 buckets, a bit more waste than normal so two buckets went back out to the gardens to be buried.

 

[Crazy Gardner]

Got some free apples at a school about 20 minutes from home. Got a call from my son asking for a ride, so I grabbed a couple of half bushel baskets, and figured I'd check it out. On Facebook, I had an ad out looking for free fruit, and a teacher had replied that he goes every August to clean them up as they attract wasps. I never figured the apples would be this big or nice.
I used honey as a sweetener, and topped it off with about a cup of white sugar. Made 18 pints altogether, and we only used half a bushel, with about 2/3 of a basket left. Going back this week with a ladder and a lot more buckets.

The helpers!

I should show my setup as well, my Dad split the cost of this with me which was $400 Canadian(about $50 US), and I don't regret it one bit after spending 16 hours spinning the handle on a fruit press, pretty sure I could feel the arthritis developing at the time lol.
The amount of pulp left over is really incredible. I run the apples through, and then run the pulp through an additional 4 or 5 times, it gets every bit of apple out, with very little waste.

This is all that's left of a half bushel of apples. I only cut them in quarters to remove the seeds, as last year I did them whole and found the machine was grinding up the seeds and they were in the sauce.

 

[Beekissed]

Great score!!! Those apples are beautiful! Our apples and other apples we can forage for free all are pretty small and with plenty of worm holes.

Love your helpers...they seem to be happy to help.

 

[flowerbug]

more tomatoes last night. Mom says 20 more quarts she'll be happy... i think we'll clear that amount in the next one or two pickings.

a friend gave us her canning jars as she is now old enough and said she was not going to do it any more. mostly jars and some rings. will come in handy eventually...

 

[flowerbug]

when i went to make tartar sauce yesterday with some dill pickles from last season i found out that that batch was a failure. Mom had been saying that she didn't want so much vinegar in the pickles so i backed off on that, well, it was backed off too much. the pickles were not spoiled but they were flavorless mushy and ick.

so i dumped those out and raided some i'd made the past few months that we'd had in the fridge for a while. these newer ones were prepped and then taken to a brother, but somehow they got knocked off a filing cabinet when she was there so she brought them back. none of the jars broke, but all the lids were dented so i redid the lids and put them in the fridge until we can eat them - my brother doesn't have enough room in his fridge for them - looks like he may lose out on this batch... sorry bro... *evil grin* that's ok, he's got plenty more here in storage until he wants them.

 

[Zeedman]

My big project this year is pickling. DW & I have been pickling okra, bitter melon, and yardlong beans.

The yardlong beans are Chinese Red Noodle. It occurred to me that if they keep most of their color when cooked, and turn bright red when the cooked beans are mixed with vinegar... then aren't they a perfect candidate for eye-catching dilly beans??? That, and you can cut them down to fit perfectly into whatever jar you choose. The first test batch looks really beautiful; no telling how they will taste though, won't know until they have cured for several weeks. Should be time yet for at least two more batches, to experiment with different seasonings.

Pickling bitter melon is another experiment. The variety we are growing this year is fairly mild & 10-12" long, so after cleaning, we cut the melon lengthwise into spears. Like the yardlong beans, those long spears can be cut to fit the jars perfectly. Recipes are, as you can imagine, hard to find... we settled on one that uses vinegar, salt, sugar, and ginger. I've been trying to get DW to eat more bitter melon to help with her diabetes, and she liked some pickled bitter melon given to her by a friend; so I hope she finds this recipe to be palatable. It wouldn't hurt me to eat more of it either. Bitter melon is really healthy, but it epitomizes the axiom that anything good for you must taste bad.

This is the first year for pickling okra too, so we are experimenting to find the best method. So far we have tried raw cold pack with hot brine, and pods pierced & lightly blanched prior to hot brine. We will be trying a recipe used for pickling peppers next, which uses a cold brine soak prior to canning.

We won't be able to taste the results for any of these until the growing season is over... I'm preparing for the possibility that at least one of the test batches will be truly horrible. Trial & error, heavy on the error - for the first year. Hopefully at least a few of the test batches turn out well, our initial results with dilly beans & gherkins give us cause for hope.

 

[flowerbug]

My big project this year is pickling. DW & I have been pickling okra, bitter melon, and yardlong beans.

The yardlong beans are Chinese Red Noodle. It occurred to me that if they keep most of their color when cooked, and turn bright red when the cooked beans are mixed with vinegar... then aren't they a perfect candidate for eye-catching dilly beans??? That, and you can cut them down to fit perfectly into whatever jar you choose. The first test batch looks really beautiful; no telling how they will taste though, won't know until they have cured for several weeks. Should be time yet for at least two more batches, to experiment with different seasonings.

Pickling bitter melon is another experiment. The variety we are growing this year is fairly mild & 10-12" long, so after cleaning, we cut the melon lengthwise into spears. Like the yardlong beans, those long spears can be cut to fit the jars perfectly. Recipes are, as you can imagine, hard to find... we settled on one that uses vinegar, salt, sugar, and ginger. I've been trying to get DW to eat more bitter melon to help with her diabetes, and she liked some pickled bitter melon given to her by a friend; so I hope she finds this recipe to be palatable. It wouldn't hurt me to eat more of it either. Bitter melon is really healthy, but it epitomizes the axiom that anything good for you must taste bad.

This is the first year for pickling okra too, so we are experimenting to find the best method. So far we have tried raw cold pack with hot brine, and pods pierced & lightly blanched prior to hot brine. We will be trying a recipe used for pickling peppers next, which uses a cold brine soak prior to canning.

We won't be able to taste the results for any of these until the growing season is over... I'm preparing for the possibility that at least one of the test batches will be truly horrible. Trial & error, heavy on the error - for the first year. Hopefully at least a few of the test batches turn out well, our initial results with dilly beans & gherkins give us cause for hope.

a picture of the beans would be interesting! and yes, when experimenting there can be failtures, but that is how you learn...

 

[pjn]

Let us know how the yard long beans are. I grew those this year. They are really good.