What have you canned or preserved today?

[Ridgerunner]

You can try crushing but if you have enough of them that food processor might work. Or do enough batches so you have enough? You can save those things for quite a while.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm falling a little behind so I'll try to catch up. Tuesday I bagged 3-1/2 gallons of tomatoes for the freezer. Those green ones are actually ripe. I got a bonus seed packet from Totally Tomato that was "Mystery" tomatoes. I planted five of them and one was this green tomato. I think another was Black Krim and one was a great Pink Brandywine. The other two, I'm not sure yet.

I also put up some sweet peppers. I chopped them, tray froze them, and put them in vacuum bags. Here they are before I chopped them but after they were cored and seeded.

Then yesterday I finally finished hulling out my Black Turtle Beans. They are in the drying frame here. Eventually I'll pick out the trash and put them in gallon sized freezer bags and freeze them. That should stop the weavils or any other evil thing hiding in them.

Today I added another gallon and a half of tomatoes to the freezer. Probably next Monday I'll make some spaghetti sauce to free up more freezer space.

I also put some tomatoes in the dehydrator today to start drying. No photo of those.

 

[hangin'witthepeeps]

Those black turtle beans look amazing!

 

[baymule]

All these yummy pictures makes me want to lick the computer screen!

 

[AlienChick]

FIRST TIME canner here.
I figured I'd try my hand at canning tomatoes.
I was able to can 4 qt-sized jars of tomatoes that I cut up into quarters.
I probably could have packed the tomatoes in the jars better because it seems to be a whole lotta extra room now that they're sealed.

Anyway, it was my first time and I'm still learning.
I would post pics, but I'm too embarrassed cuz they don't look as "pretty" as the pics you guys post.
I'm still please with myself for doing this.
I also have a lot of okra to figure out what to do.
And I'll keep canning tomatoes, and one day I'll be good at it.

 

[vfem]

I canned a bunch of salsa the other night. No sooner then I FINALLY had enough tomatoes to do that, now I'm swamped in them. So I've got my friend's kid and neighbors coming to help me blanch them to make sauce and can 'em in halves.

Hooray for the tomatoes rolling in, I've got BIG plans. AND I can sell off the extra!!!

 

[so lucky]

It doesn't take care if that many of them, but have you tried drying tomatoes? I use my dehydrator to dry them, but the sun would probably work too if you can get the technique right, especially if you are having the weather we are. I've never tried it using sun power. Maybe need a net or screen to keep insects off?

I store my tomatoes in the freezer until I have enough to make a full canning. I'll freeze a bunch today. When I get to five or six gallons its time to decide how I want to can them, canned tomatoes, puree, or some type of sauce. That makes a full canning and I run out of freezer space about then.

Last year, I dried tomatoes in my car. I put trays of sliced tomatoes in the back window, where the sun shined really strong all afternoon. The tomatoes were covered with cheesecloth to keep any insects out. It still took about 5 days to get them dry enough to call "dried" but I was told by someone over on SS that if they were really watery tomatoes, it would take a long time. They were. Maybe Romas would have dried faster. On the plus side, my car smelled great for quite a while after that!

 

[Jared77]

Hey AlienChick

Don't hesitate to post pics. Folks here are VERY helpful and are more than happy to offer suggestions and pics can help with that. They may see something that they've done before and learned from and are more than happy to give polite suggestions. Don't be intimidated we're all friends here.

Ive got 14 quarts of Grandma's garlic dills made. I'm going to some bread and butters since my dill heads have all gone to see and don't have any handy. I prefer the garlic dills but variety is good. Ill probably put up another 6 today when its all said and done. Tomatoes are not far behind!!!

 

[baymule]

FIRST TIME canner here.
I figured I'd try my hand at canning tomatoes.
I was able to can 4 qt-sized jars of tomatoes that I cut up into quarters.
I probably could have packed the tomatoes in the jars better because it seems to be a whole lotta extra room now that they're sealed.

Anyway, it was my first time and I'm still learning.
I would post pics, but I'm too embarrassed cuz they don't look as "pretty" as the pics you guys post.
I'm still please with myself for doing this.
I also have a lot of okra to figure out what to do.
And I'll keep canning tomatoes, and one day I'll be good at it.

Did you just cut up the tomatoes and pack in the jars? If you did, then the processing cooked the tomatoes and that's why you have settling in the jars. I always like to cook the tomatoes and pack them in jars in a hot pack. Congratulations and you can always come here and ask questions!

Okra is easy to freeze, I cut mine and spread on a cookie sheet and put in the oven at 350 degrees for 5 minutes. They should steam when you take them out. Then I season salt and garlic powder them and let cool. Once cooled, I bag them up in zip-locs and put them in the freezer. Sometimes I go ahead and roll them in cornmeal before I freeze them too.

Dehydrated, seasoned okra makes a tasty snack too!

 

[Dascountry]

First canning of the season, eight pts of beets! Doesn't sound like much but up here in Northern Michigan the veggies are just starting to come in So now it starts