Been horribly busy as of late. Mind, you, a good busy. It is canning season here in the northern part of this old world.
First batches were mild dill pickles. We have 17 jars. Up next was hamburger-hot dog relish. I believe I got eight of those. At the same time as pickling was happening, it coincided with sour cherries. Did I mention just how much I love sour cherries? Mmmmm my fav. I ended up with three jars of cherry pie filling and six jars of jam. Not too worry, I still have frozen cherries to make more homemade goodness later. That was later July and early August.
Next up, I found some nice pineapples and mangos. I made some pineapple mango salsa. No one else in excited about it. I am though and will try it one day soon with chicken or fish.
I ended up taking a break for a couple of weeks. Not because produce wasn’t ready but because someone walked off with my pressure canner. I think they sold it on me when my sister passed. Those items are a hot commodity now. I will need to keep my eyes open. I thought about dehydrating all the veggies and freezing some. First it was too hot to have the oven going. I did break down and purchase a dehydrator, but felt guilty...you know those things you want, you know they will get used, but the spirit says not now, it is a luxury item. Back it went. No frozen veggies either. Daughter has has her bathroom totally fall apart, so that has been the focus and no veggies for us. No problem, I will stock up on frozen when they go on sale.
That brings me up to September. I scored 20lbs of Roma tomatoes. I gave them spread out in categories. The ones that are ready now or will be ready in a day or two and those that will take awhile. Today I made salsa. My recipe says 17 pints. I only got ten. My dilemma is - do I use up more of the tomatoes for salsa or do I continue on with the master plan? Still not sure. I will sleep on it and decide in the morning. I also want to make bacon jam and or tomato bacon jam to freeze. I hear it is awesome. I think the men folk will enjoy it. Then the rest I wanted to toast a bunch of tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots, zucchini etc. Then blitz it to make some nice tomato sauce. I would also like to dehydrate some. I will figure it out.
Back to fruit. I managed to get a lot of peaches from BC (I hope they don’t taste Smokey). I want to can a couple of jars. I want to make a couple of jars of peach pie filling and I want to make a batch of peach jam. Thankfully, they won’t be ready for a day or two. In my travels I came across some prune plums. My first thought was I like black plums better, but the thinking cap was working and will make a batch of harvest jam i.e. plums, pears, apples, an orange and maybe a peach. It is a delicious jam. Oh and apple harvest is on the go. We don’t use very much apple sauce, but I do like to have some on hand for when stomach bugs hit. My game plan for the apples is apple pie filling, apple juice, candy apple jam and apple pie jam. Oh, if I can still get some green tomatoes I will do a mock mincemeat. It is delicious. I have been using this recipe for forty years. No fat in it, just green tomatoes, apples, spices etc.
I am on the lookout for some pie pumpkins. They will be ready soon. I certainly would like to make some pumpkin pie filling. That I can freeze.
For a bit I felt guilty about doing all this canning, finally I realized that canning is my hobby. I love preserving the bounty.
That’s life in the Senior lane today.
Jean
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