Just in case I want to write a book or enter a canning contest someday, I think I will archive my canning adventures. As discussed in a previous article, Year One (2013) was spent learning in and making a mess of my Aunt Joan’s farm kitchen. I spent Year Two (2014) in my friend Christy’s kitchen making a mess along with tomato soup. Year Three (2015) I did some “brief visit” experimentation in my new lake house kitchen with Aunt Joan as my tomato coach and Aunt Phyllis & Uncle Mick assisting with apples. My favorite product from that year was a pickled vegetable medley the Italians call Giardiniera. Yum! Years Four (2016) and Five (2017) were my first years of real production with my husband, Paul and our annual yields have been approximately 200 jars.
The first question we are asked is: Why do you do so much? First off we, or maybe just I, love it. Both the process and outcome give me a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Secondly, I love eating such good healthy food. Thirdly, I love the feeling that comes from gifting it to others. Finally, there seems to be no end to available produce to feed my obsessive-compulsive nature. Some year I must learn to” just say no” but I am not there yet.
The next question we are asked is: What are you going to do with it all? Well rest assured it all gets used. We gift half of it to family and friends out west who anxiously await their preserved seasonal bounty. Half of the remaining product we take to Flagstaff to be used during our cold snowy winter in Arizona and the rest stays at the lake house for next summer’s cooking adventures.
Our 2017 output included: 60 quarts of tomato sauce (Italian spiced & chili/goulash spiced), 40 some jars of various types of sweet and sour pickles (beet, bean, carrot, cucumber, zucchini & summer squash), three dozen jars of applesauce, apple butter and sliced cinnamon apples along with numerous jars of various fruit chutney’s, syrups, jams & jellies. I am especially proud of my apple jelly that, after numerous attempts, finally set! What’s ahead for the 2018 season? I want to experiment with compotes which include nuts, try some alcohol enhanced jams/jellies and join my cousin Carol in making sauerkraut. Can’t wait!
Lessons learned over the past several seasons or things we are still pondering include the following:
- When scalding tomatoes, first core the top, score the bottom and cool before peeling.
- Tomato seed extraction is difficult even with the best of gadgets.
- Inventory your gadgets or you will forget what you have. We forgot to use our food strainer for tomato sauce this year leaving us with lots of seeded sauce.
- Spices that are not ground require use of a spice bag for non-pickled products.
- Jar tempering cuts down on breakage and we finally settled on oven tempering our jars in a water bath.
- Non pectin based apple jellies require the use of specific apple varieties, ripeness levels or something else I haven’t figured out yet, thus, my many syrups on the shelf. Advice anyone?
- Our friends, Tom & Barb, suggested we use a propane cook stove in the garage which speeds up the processing and keeps the house cooler.
- I discovered that I really don’t like the flavor of cardamom and a few chili flakes go a long way in flavoring pickling liquid.
- Purchase of a large braising pan that covers three of our stove’s burners cooked down the tomatoes much faster, albeit still a 3-4 hour simmer to get the desired consistency.
- The height of the standard water boiling method pot is too small for quart size jars placed in a rack. It doesn’t leave enough room for an inch of water above the jars without causing the pot to boil over during processing. Maybe we are doing something wrong?
In closing, I must say I was a little sad putting away the kettles and paraphernalia for the season. My husband says it’s a good thing we are leaving the country this week or I might still be searching for more ripe tomatoes and loaded apple trees. I am exhausted so much concede but do wonder if any produce will still need canning when we “come home” in November? 2017