Yes, please don't do this again - you make me jealous! I haven't the ambition to learn canning and this year I'm swamped with cukes.

Of Course it's OK to post your canned goods, they look very yummy by the way. It's nice to see some are still doing this. Probably more healthy for you too as you know exactly what's in the jars.
I haven't done much canning lately just freezer jam, some jellies and chutney. If our tomato plants yield the way I think they're going to I might have to dig out the jars I have stored away and get busy. I did a lot of canning when my kids were home but haven't done much since then, I'll never get rid of my jars though I have them store and ready for action :o).

Cottage is more than just gardening to me it's also about returning to a simpler style of living where we are more self sufficient or at least have the know how in case the time comes when 'knowing how' will be a must.

What else do you put up? How about freezing, I freeze rhubarb and blackberries for pies. I love the aroma of home baked bread filling the air, it takes me back to my childhood when most women baked their own. I can remember running home from school looking forward to a piece of bread not long out of the oven slavered with peanut butter.

Annette

Annette, I freeze sweet corn and green beans from the garden, usually buy apples and peaches and freeze those too.

Normally, I have blackberries to freeze but this year the Japanese Beetles confiscated them!

I have strawberries and freeze them and also make regular cooked jam.

Once every blue moon, the apricot tree misses a freeze and I do jam exclusively with them since it is my favorite.

Each year I do peach, strawberry, and blackberry jam and apple jelly. Last year I did the real old pioneer way with the apple jelly and just cooked down the peelings and cores from freezing the sliced apples. It was the best tasting jelly....I am going to do it again this year.

I can't grow rhubarb for the life of me, so my sis brings me a few bags from her freezer each year. I love rhubarb pie with just a touch of orange peel.

I just did pickled peppers, both hot and sweet banana peppers.

My tomatoes are so sorry this year, I will be lucky to get another batch of salsa. Normally I can several quarts. If I have enough late tomatoes, I always do home-made catsup too.

I bake all our bread and hamburger and hot dog buns. I would make butter, if my cow gave rich enough milk, but she doesn't. Maybe when she has her calf next month, she will do better. Her breed isn't known for high butterfat.

I do love not having anything artificial in our foods...no mixes or boxes of things if I can help it.

Call me crazy, it is just what I love to do. I have always said the 1860's were my time.

We used to come home from school to hot chocolate cake and a cold glass of milk! I will be 70 in September and I can still remember it as if it was yesterday!

I think it's wonderful! I love displays of jewel-like canned goods, almost as much as I love eating them. I don't can, but I appreciate those who do.

Everything here goes into the freezer, even cooked tomatoes, if they aren't eaten first.

Nell

Oh Wow!! Those are beautiful! and I bet they're delicious!! Would you share recipes or instructions for pickling sweet banana peppers?
I so wish I'd paid more attention when my Grandmother canned.

Glenda,
I can home-grown stuff and bake too.
It is absolutely part of Cottage Gardening!

Although I can a lot of peaches, I also freeze peaches and apples for pies, too. I make pear butter, apple butter and applesauce. I make my own mincemeat for my winter pies if I have pears. Pear mincemeat is way better than apple, IMHO.

I love canned apricots. Lattice-top Apricot pie is among my favorites. They are slightly tart and sweet at the same time. Mmmm. Same here about apricot crops - they do really well here with our long hot summers if you can get them through spring without those blasted late freezes spoiling the crop.

Blackberry jam (seeded and seedless for my Papa)
Tomato preserves, tomato sauce (almost a paste), and gobs of canned tomatoes. I make salsa - green and red types and peach salsa. Just made Peach Salsa this past week. I had to buy my peaches since the late freezes also took out my peach crop, but boy are they good. I will freeze some for pies and to put on ice cream or whatever.

Didn't get any strawberries this year. The drought and heat ruined having a good crop, but what I did get the chickens beat me to them. Oh, well.

I will be canning Hot Banana Pepper rings this week, like the kind they have in salad bars. Yummy. I can pikled Jalapeno peppers, but they make a delicious medium-hot jam - my Son I.L. is from India and he LOVES it as much as I do, so I send him a few jars every year. He likes it with eggs or on egg sandwiches. It's kind of sweet and sour but a little hot, similar to the Sweet and Sour sauce you eat with Chinese foods.

I make Chow Chow & Piccalilli. Chow Chow is made with cabbage and Piccalilli is made with green tomatoes. Both are a relish. I like it with pinto beans. And sourkraut (ten times better than the stuff in cans) and really easy to make.

I save watermelon rinds to make Watermelon Rind Hotdog Relish. It's kind of hot. Great with sourkraut on a hotdog.

I have to use bottled water to make pickles if I make them because our well water is rather hard - has a lot of minerals in it, so it spoils the batches - pickles shrivel and do not get crispy. They can even spoil after proper canning. They just don't come out good. I used to make gobs of pickles when I lived in the country in another area with softer water. This water tastes good, but has a lot of calcium deposits in it. I had to really battle it when I had the above ground swimming pool set up every summer. Always a lot of white stuff settling to the bottom. That same stuff is in my canning water too. When I get done canning, I have to wash all the white deposit off the jars. Ruins all the pipes and anything connected to the water, like dishwashers, washers and etc. Terrible.

I love Sand Plum Jam. It is my favorite. Didn't get any fruit this year, although the trees were laden with fruit early on. The heat and drought combined caused them to all fall off, so none for jam this year. Bummer. Makes it all the more precious and delicious when I have it in the good years though. Right?

They had pie lemons on sale at WalMart this week, so I bought a big bag of them. Will squeeze and freeze for pies this fall - family favorite pies are Lemon Meringue & Chocolate Meringue pies during the Holidays. So I stock up when I catch good sales on stuff that I know I will need later when the prices may go higher and the quality goes down. I hope to get a Meyer's Lemon tree and someday grow my own lemons.

If the power goes off, I can do a lot of baking in my kitchen wood stove if need be. It heats the whole house and bakes wonderfully. You've never tasted better roast turkey like one cooked in a wood stove oven. It ain't just nostalgic honey - it's part of my survival gear!

Your goods look beautiful and delicious!
Nothing says "home" to me more that seeing colorful rows of beautiful home-canned goods on shelves in the kitchen, fresh-baked bread goods on a floured cutting board. There's nothing like a thick slice of bread fresh from the oven with hot homemade jam and real creamy butter slathered on it. YUM! Home to me is having big glass jars filled with large, sparkling Sugar Cookies or homemade crinkle-top Ginger Snaps.

I share your love for growing and putting up everything I grow and baking homemade goods.

Thanks for sharing.
~Annie

Annie, I have never successfully made sauerkraut. You will have to tell me how you do it. I have tried both the jar method and the crock method....zip.

Never heard the term pie lemons before. Lemon pie is one of my all-time favorites but I don't do them often. Will have to check out our W-M.

I did an extensive search last year on home made mincemeat and found a few that sounded like Mom's. Could you share yours. That is another memory from days at home. My Mom was a great country cook!

The boot heel peaches are here. I still have some in the freezer but plan to get more soon. No one in this area raises them commercially anymore because of the spring freezes.

I was raised with a wood stove in the kitchen sitting right next to Mom's gas range. In the winter she cooked on it a lot.

I used to make a lot of Grandma's piccalilli but haven't for years since I am the only one who eats it. I love it with beans too. I also love the pickled peppers with them.

My tomato crop is a failure this year for many reasons...one being something has stolen almost all of the ripe ones. Still haven't caught anything in the trap. Then the cold, wet early then too hot too soon kept them from setting fruit. There is always next year.

Lost the blackberries to the blasted Japanese Beetle,but still have some in the freezer.

When I pickled my banana peppers, I did a batch separately of just hots..........bad mistake. They are way too hot for me. Hope my son can eat them ;he is the one who requested them.

Don't forget: Sauerkraut, mincemeat, and peach salsa recipes, please.

Glenda

Annie, I enjoyed reading your post, everything sounded soooo yummy. When I got to the part about your wood stove it brought back fond memories of sitting in my grandmothers kitchen, she too cooked on a wood stove and I agree the food cooked on wood stoves tastes entirely different, so much more flavorful.
Cooking on a wood stove is also becoming a lost art, my gran knew exactly which pieces of wood to use to get the oven up to the temperature she wanted.
They say your taste buds change as you get older, I don't know if that's true or not, gran's swiss steak casserole was so good, I did make it once almost as good as hers, I swear if it had been cooked on a wood stove it would have been equal to hers.

Saturday mornings were always spent baking cakes, pastries and cookies for the following week. She had special tins she kept it all in which helped keep it fresh, she didn't have a fridge those years just a built in cooler.
She didn't hold with modern appliances, or did she buy sliced bread when the time came making bread was a bit too much for her, to thick she'd say. Gran always buttered her bread before she cut it off the loaf this way she got very thin slices.
I remember the first time she bought a can of pork and beans, she was really disappointed when she opened the can, it wasn't a piece of pork surround with baked beans but the other way around, a can of beans with a tiny bit of salt pork. It's even worse today I can't even find that bit of salt pork and yes the label does say beans with pork in tomato sauce.

I did make your strawberry marmalade though and I have to say it is delicious. Thanks for bringing back some very fond memories, it's got me thinking I really must get those jars out of storage and at least put up some peaches and make some old fashioned pickled onions.

Glenda, thank you for starting this thread it has brought back some very fond memories.

Annette

It brought them back so strongly, when I began thinking about the hot chocolate cake and cold milk that Mom had waiting for us after school, I got off the computer and baked one. Darned if it didn't taste as good as I remembered! That isn't always the case.

I did 7 quarts of Dill pickles this morning.

For me the secret to thin slices is I finally bought a really long, serrated edge bread knife and just love it.

Glenda,

The term "Pie Lemons" is a family thing I guess. No one else has ever heard them called that either. I don't know what variety they may be, but they are very big lemons. Instead of two lemons, you only need one to make a 9-inch pie. I hope these are as potent. They weren't labeled anything except lemons at WM. They were bagged. But, they look like my Grannie's Pie Lemons - as big as a navel orange.

Growing up in Southern California, we had all kinds of citrus/tropical fruit (oranges, lemons, limes, tangerines and Loquats, plus apricots, peaches, nectarines, figs, Pomegranites, grapes, Persimmons, and apples. We also had a small grove of Carpathian Walnuts. Mama had a banana tree by the back door. It grew the cooking type of bananas. Talk about good fritters! We had a two acre field of strawberries too.

With a goat, a couple of beef calves, a milk cow, chickens, rabbits and guineas, we pretty much raised most of our own food. Grannie kept geese for a number of years. It was Grampa's idea. Their job was to keep the citrus groves cleaned of bugs. They loved the snails. They were the meanest things. Grannie was sure glad when they were gone.

My Grampa was a professional hunter and trapper, so we also had venison. He made jerky - our special snack. We had big Bar-B-Ques at our place when Grampa got a deer. He bow hunted mostly. My brother and I would hunt for rabbits. Grampa paid us to keep the birds out of the fruit crops. I couldn't do that now - and that is why the birds get all my cherries. I can't kill birds anymore.

The neighbors had avocados groves, planted in contours on the little hills above, so we had all the avocados we wanted, too.

We had olive trees (mission olives) and Grannie canned olives. It is a long process. Some of the olives were taken to the Olive press. They pressed them for the oil. We kept part and they took part in payment for the pressing. The olive press no longer exists, but the hill where the press was located still carries the name - Olive Hill Rd.

Of course, Grampa was a Master Bee Keeper, so we also had honey. Grannie's two older brothers both had vineyards and made wine.

Grampa did some ocean fishing with tackle I couldn't even lift- it was so big and heavy. We got fresh ocean fish, like perch, halibut and sometimes tuna. We also freshwater fished.

Grannie and Mama had their big vegetable gardens. We had just about everything you can grow and raise. I learned how to do just about everything like they did from an early age, canning, baking and all the old-time things people used to do. I loved it. My sister hated it. Not her cup of tea, you might say. That hasn't changed. Isn't it funny how people in the same family react to their childhood experiences so differently?

And of course, we had masses of flowers of all kinds in Mama's garden. Grannie and all of her family in the canyon area did too. The ladies' auxiliaries in town, like the Rebecca's Lodge and Farm Bureau and even the school council often came out to our home to buy flowers from my mother.
We didn't have much...but we had land and in a farming community, that was everything, if you know what I mean.
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I will dig out my recipes and post them for you two ladies.

~Annie

I know the term pie lemons. My grandmother used that term.
My favorite pies is coconut.
Until they were old enough to read, my grandkids did not know that jam could be bought in a store. I don't do canning, but I do jams if I get free or cheap fruit. I melt the last jam in a jar with white corn syrup for my cottage cheese pan cakes. Yummy!

My Lord! All these foods sound so good. I guess we should move this over to the conversations side.

I love making jams and jellies most of all..........wonder why? Could be I love eating them on biscuits!

Our oldest granddaughter wouldn't eat jam out of a store for a long time. I try to make both kids a box of homemade jam for Christmas and just did a mid-spring one for our KC girl because she likes strawberry jam best!

Cottage cheese pancakes...please share recipe. My cow will freshen in a few weeks and I will be making cottage cheese again. Great tip about the last of the jam. I would never have thought of that.

Annie, sounds like your family was living in paradise! Why did you all move or did all of you? You don't have to answer, if you would rather not. It just sounds so perfect to an old pioneer-type like me.

For dinner last night we had small filet mignons, stir fried squash, onions, peppers and tomatoes, cole salw and new potatoes (run through the ricer and seasoned) and milk.
I told my husband if the cow was in milk every bite we ate came from the farm....somehow I just love that. Oh, I forgot, we finished off the chocolate cake that Annette made me do!

You guys are making me hungry, LOL! Glenda, I absolutely love making jams and jellies and bake, so yes, this absolutely means cottage to me too!

So far this Summer I have made greengage jam and sour cherry jam - both firm favorites with us. This week I ordered a batch of locally grown damsons and plan to make damson and apple jam, another staple of my jam cabinet. I usually do tomato jam around Summer time too, but haven't done any yet, due to absolute lack of time, as I've been swamped with work. Come October, if my quince tree continues the way it's going right now, I will have quince to make our "marmelada" (not to be confused with the citrus marmalades done by the Brits) and quince jelly - oh, so divine with roasted meat during the Winter months! Some years I do chutney as well. Pumpkin jam is something I do in small batches year round - delectable over "requeij", with a sprinkling of walnuts on top, as a dessert.

So, please, yes, keep posting your canning efforts, I think nothing speaks higher of a cottage lifestyle than those sweet occupations of the past.

Eduarda

Normally when I say cottage cheese it turns some people off. But these are the best you will ever eat!!!!! If you don't tell about the cottage cheese they will never know.

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

1 cup small curd cottage cheese
4 eggs
1/2 cup flour
6 tablespoons melted butter.

use mixer to whip cottage cheese, add eggs, flour and drizzle the butter as the mixer is going.

Ooohhh Eduarda damson plum jam, I haven't had that in years. If only I could get my hands on some of those plums I'd be making it too. Gran had a tree so always made a couple of batches. She made pickled walnuts every year too but I never acquired a taste for them. If I'm lucky enough to get my hands on some quince this fall I'll be making another batch of paradise jelly we're almost out, along with the quince it has apples and cranberries in it.

My goodness this thread is bringing back all kinds of memories, melton mowbray pork pie YUM and, of all things bread sauce (cubed crustless bread cooked down in a double boiler with milk and an onion studded with cloves). I absolutely love this with roast chicken. DH, doesn't care for it but darn I think I'm going to make some just for me the next time I roast a chicken. I think I might also make a few jars of rhubarb chutney haven' made that in awhile. Does anyone have a good recipe for mango chutney, I tasted that for the first time not long ago and loved it.

Yes there really is something to be said about those years of long ago, how did we all get so far off track. In so many ways it was a much kinder and gentler time, people didn't have that much, nothing was handed to them on a silver platter but I think they were much happier times.

Annette

Eduarda, you and Annette have some foods not familiar to us in midwest USA. I always loved the sound of Damson Plum Jam....never even seen a damson plum or the jam, but sure sounds good. I have never tasted a chutney of any kind.
You totally threw me with the requeijao. Had to Google that one. I wonder if my Honduran SIL knows what it is. One side of his ancestors was Portugese. I think he can speak the language still.

Nancy, the pancakes sound super and I like the fact that they are lower in carbs than regular ones. Also another good way to use up my extra supply of eggs. I will be doing those in the morning! Will let you know how they do.

I have made sour cherry jam too, not our favorite though.

Annette, this could be a whole 'nuther thread about a simpler life style. I am doing my best....bought the cow, have chickens, beef cows.........now if I could just talk my dear mate into letting me buy a couple of pigs.........
Got a small orchard going, berry patch, three grape vines, strawberry patch and the garden.

If the honeybees keep swarming the HB feeder may have to get a hive for them!

Glenda, damson plums are really small plums with a very rich flavor, makes the very best plum jam. For a comparison, take blackberries and the little wild blackberries that crawl along the ground, the little wild crawling type has a far superior flavor.
Because they are so small gran left a lot of the pits/stones in. They were picked out when spreading them on toast or whatever else she used the jam for. You really should see if you can find a tree for you orchard. A

It isn't like that there now. Not "paradise" there anymore. Oh, they still claim it as an agricultural community, but it has attracted a lot of people in the last 30 years. The town of about 5,000 now boasts more than 80,000 people. The family lands have all been sold off and there are million dollar homes on Great-Grampa's ranch and Great-great-Grandfather's ranch land now and a golf course. Wall-to-wall houses in there now. It was two miles from our home to Grammie's home (my Great-grandmother). We walked there at least once a week to visit with her. It was the first nearest house going in that direction. Now it is house after house, although they have large lots. I Googled it on GOOGLE EARTH and sat here bawling my head off. I can hardly figure out where things are now looking at how it has changed. Makes me sick!

Home isn't my home anymore. Too much is changed and the old ways are gone - too many laws now restrict what you can do and can not do. Most of the old ways of farming are no longer allowed, for gosh sakes. Even what kind of home you build and how it is made. Even what it looks like. Has to be Spanish style with tile roofs. Too many newcomers and too rich for my blood!

If you want to see it, check out GOOGLE EARTH for "Gird Rd in Fallbrook, California". Our property was right next to Live Oak Park, where Gird Rd and Live Oak Park RD intersect. Some of Mama's family are still there, but there is only about 5 -10 acres left of the original baronage. Four of the homes are now listed with the Historical Society, so will never be torn down, I hope. Everyone who lived in the valley was related one way or another. There were a few other early pioneer families too.

It is sad. The road was built by my family. It was the first paved road in San Diego County - all payed for by Great-Grampa, and still retains the family name - Gird Rd.

I've been here now since 1981.

Very abbreviated story, but end of tale.

~Annie

I want to learn to can!! Right now I have 10lbs of green beans and probably 10 lbs of cucumbers, some tomatoes I will freeze for now because it looks like I'll have another 50-60 lbs of canning tomatoes.
I really want to learn to do this. I want to learn to pressure can too!
Annie my friend lives in Fallbrook. I highly doubt she is interested in any sort of agrarian lifestyle - she'd be in one of those expensive new homes (or condos, actually) you mention ;) I feel where you are coming from!

GGG,
When you buy a Pressure Canner, the instructions that come with it are very good and very clear. Just do as they instruct and you will be fine. Recipes and time tables are also included, or should be. I always buy Presto. I like the kind with pressure rings rather than the kind with gauges. I have both kinds.
You can do it, girl!

~Annie

Annette, we used to pick those blackberries that crawled on the ground. We called them dewberries. Did I tell you DH found a patch of wild blackberries on the back of the farm. He has been picking a handful almost daily and eating them on his oatmeal. They are very good, and taste slightly different from my tame ones, just not as large. Who knows could be from seeds from my patch dropped by birds.

I am ordering a few more trees next spring. I will see if they have the plums.

Glenda, yes they are tiny but soooo good. I spent summer vacations with an aunt who had them growing on their property, look for dry gravelly ground and there they'd be. We'd go out with little cans with wire handles picking, it would take all morning but we'd get enough for a pie YUM. We have two more types of wild blackberries growing here, bigger berries but have different leaves. DH picks enough to make a batch of jelly every year.
He likes Ana's raspberry vinegar so much he's asked if I would make a batch of blackberry vinegar for him to try.

Annette

My wild Dewberries are large when I have them. It all depends upon the amount of rainfall. They are much better tasting than the tame ones IMHO. I trained mine up on wires held by t-posts. Mean things, but great berries.

My patch died out in the drought a few years ago. Going to go dig up some more vines in February (the month to dig them) and get another patch going.

~Annie

Everyone told me I wouldn't like tame blackberries, but I do and so does everyone else who eats them. I did not get the thornless which I had been warned against. I got mine from Miller Nurseries in Canandaigua, NY, a variety called Illini. Very thorny, but delicious and large.

I just need to get the patch under better control!

Why not the thornless?

I was told that they are much more tart or sour and not as flavorful. I don't know that is true, but it put me off.

I tasted these while on a garden tour up island some years back, they were fairly new on the market then, all I can say is YUMMY!!! Anyone thinking of adding a blackberry to their garden should definitely give Marionberries some thought. I don't know how they'll do in really hot climates but around here they do very well. In the link if you scroll down you will see how it was developed. The person who was growing and testing this berry at the time grew them on wires much like you grow loganberries.

Annette

Here is a link that might be useful: Marionberries

I had Navaho thornless at the other house and they were pretty good. They were one of the TX A&M univ. recommendations for this area.
I was questioning if I should not plant them here for some reason.

I like the tame ones just fine, but I like the "wild" taste of Dewberries better.

When I went to California to see my brothers and sister, we stayed with my older brother at his house way up in the mountains. We went on an explore all over the mountains. We found acres and acres of blackberries under the tall sugar cone pines and decided to brave the black bears to get some of the big blackberries. They were so thick on the bushes that they weighted the bushes down from the weight. It was kind of dark back in there and creepy. My children were toddlers, so I kept them close to me. The berries were covered in a rust colored dust from the ground - years of rotting pine needles. As we walked, it would poof up into the air. Very dusty. We got coated in the dust as we waded through the thickets for the big juicy berries. The berries were also coated with this dust - we ate them anyway. They were scrumptious. Very sweet and melted in your mouth. My children were streaked with purple juice, even their blonde hair had purple streaks. We ate them as we picked - two for the bucket, one for my mouth; three in the bucket, one in my mouth. I rather liked the piney taste myself. Yum Yum! :)

We saw no bears, lucky for us, but there were signs they had been there. When we got back to my brother's cabin, I rinsed them and baked pies. We feasted that night and ate those pies. I wish I could have brought gallons of them home in the form of jam, but he didn't have the equipment for making jam.
Best blackberries I ever et!
Now I compost pine needles and add them around my blackberry vines to add that taste to mine. They love the acidity and I love the flavor.

~Annie