Up to my ears....

Feeling like I haven't laid a finger on the blog in a couple weeks doesn't really surprise me when I think about all the stuff that's been going on around here.  Mainly going on outside.  We are inundated with weeds again this year and the garden has been a project as usual.  See the pic above of my hubby surveying the situation with the dogs?  Those giant bushes to the left are our tomato plants, or should I say trees.  It took me two days alone to get them out of an untangled mess after a big growth spurt.

Besides that our corn has been ravaged by neighborhood squirrels, cucumbers took a big hit in the heat and I think I killed my squash plants.  It's not all bad news though.  The peppers are doing great (I have more banana peppers than I know what to do with), harvested broccoli three times already, along with beets, onions, and some squash and cantaloupe that matured before the vines died.  We still have potatoes to look forward to and I'm thinking about planting some fall crops this year.

So now what to do with all this produce.  I can't eat it fast enough so I finally broke out my canning equipment last week.

A few jars of salsa later and the canning sessions around our house have begun.  I even grew my own hot peppers this year so I don't have to buy anything but garlic from the store.  Maybe that will be on the list for next year.

Sadie is just getting over a bad case of nausea and diarrhea brought on by her mommy being irresponsible and letting her eat a pig's ear.  ($250 at the vet later I will not be making that same mistake twice.)  So she has been spending alot of time by my side and supervising as usual.

The last week and a half has had amazing weather so working outside has been a joy.  I'm hoping to have a few more big harvests before the end of the season.  How's things in your garden?

Weed on!
Anita

Canning Marathon

I'm not kidding.  This was a marathon.  I started at 9 in the morning and ended at about 12 at night.  A couple puppy play session breaks and one for lunch but that was it.  First came the salsa, salsa, and more salsa.  I made a roasted tomato garlic salsa last year and the jars did NOT last long at all.  I remember thinking I should plant more tomatoes for this year.  Well that's how we ended up with this harvest.  

Among the other veggies we ended up with over 25 pounds of tomatoes and plenty of jalapenos to accommodate all the batches I was destined to make.  So I started roasting tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic and onions.  Enough to make 7 batches of salsa.  I even had to break out the largest stockpot in my kitchen.  

When all the steam from my water bath had cleared I was left with 11 pints of roasted garlic salsa.  I'm hoping it will be enough to last us through football season.  GO BEARS!

So after a brief puppy play session up next on the canning schedule was a recipe I've been wanting to try since I found it last year for Strawberry Jalapeno jam.  I have so many jalapenos I needed something to do with them and the recipe said I could use frozen berries.  Plus after all those hours making salsa what's one more to make some jam.  I was already set up and everything. 

So a little more mashing and boiling and we came up with 11 half pints  of jam.  I have yet to try one but its supposed to be like strawberry jam with a kick.  Where were the dogs this whole time?  Well Mr. Biscuit was alternating from laying on the kitchen floor

to harassing Sadie in the bedroom.  

I still can't believe I did all that in one day.  Here's what our shelves look like now.

Have you been squirreling away anything from the summer harvest?  

Can on!

Anita

Millions of peaches....

PEACHES FOR ME!

I had half a bushel of peaches to can, courtesy of mom's recent trip to MI, but no time to process them.  Enter my super hubby who helped me peal and pit all these peaches so I could get them put up before they got even more ripe.  A few were sacrificed to appeaze the canning gods, aka snacks, along the way but we still ended up with 10 QUARTS!  Here's my simple method for canning peaches.

1. Sanitize your jars.  Lots of people do this in their dishwasher but I just use my how water bath and boil the glass for about 10 minutes.  (Don't boil the lids though as you will ruin the seal you need for later.)

2. Get your water bath started.  You'll need a large kettle big enough to put your jars in, with some space in between them, and room to fill it with enough water to cover your closed jars by a few inches.  Put it over high heat.

3.  Start the syrup for your peaches.  I use a one to five ratio so basically you want one cup of sugar to 5 cups of water.  Put both ingredients into a sauce pan and heat until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally.  If you want a sweeter syrup add more sugar.  I prefer this lighter one so you can really taste the peaches. 

4. Skin and quarter your peaches.  They should be ripe enough to just peal the skin off without having to cut it.  Cut any bruises out and drop your peach chunks into the sterile jars, filling them all the way to the top with about 1/2 inch to spare.  You can quarter or halve your peaches for this step.  We had quite large peaches so ours were cut in quarters.

5.  Pour your hot syrup into your jars, covering your peaches and filling it all the way to 1/4 inch from the top. 

6.  Screw on your new canning lids finger tight and place them in your boiling water bath.  Bring the water back up to a rolling boil and leave your jars in 20 minutes for pints and 30 for quarts.

7.  When times up turn off the heat under your water bath and let the jars sit a good five minutes before taking them out. 

TADA!  You just canned peaches.  Now you can enjoy their delectable flavor for months to come.  Of course it always helps if you have 2 supervisors watching quality control.  Ours took up position on the couch to watch the goings on in the kitchen.

Can on!
Anita

Time to make the Pickles!

Pickling season is upon us folks.  Unfortunately I didn't have as much luck with my cucumbers this year as last year but a perfect solution is to do refrigerator pickles.  I like doing refrigerator pickles for smaller batches so I don't have to break out my hot water bath kettle for 2 jars.  The recipe below is one I've had in my recipe folder for a while so I'm not sure where or who it came from.

Bread and Butter Refrigerator Pickles
3c Sugar
3c White Vinegar
1/3c Canning salt
1 Tbsp Tumeric
1 Tbsp Celery Seed
1 Tbsp Mustard Seed
Cucumbers (I used 6 medium sized pickling cucumbers.)
Canning jars (I got 4 full quart jars from the recipe.)

Heat up the sugar, vinegar, salt, tumeric, celery seed, and mustard seed in a sauce pot to dissolve the sugar and turn off the heat to let it start to cool.

While you're waiting for the pickling juice to cool slice your cucumbers about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thin.

Fill your jars with the cucumbers to about 1/2 inch below the rim.

Pour your pickling juice into the cucumber filled jars until it gets about 1/4 inch from the rim.

Put your lids on and let the jars cool before putting them in the fridge.  Let them stand a good day before opening.

Tada!  Refrigerator pickles.  Nice a quick.  A great canning method for people like me who don't have alot of time.  Thankfully my hubby was able to keep Mr. Biscuit occupied while I was in the kitchen.  This is what they were up to when I came in the other room.

Pickle on!
Anita