Yesterday was 7 pints of pickled golden beets.

The onslaught is about 3 weeks off......

We only got a couple gallons of pie cherries this year. Last year we pitted and froze 13 gallons. Was able to make cherry syrup and black forest zucchini muffins all winter.

The Hilda beans are coming on, so we have french cut and froze several gallons, so far.

David is so right, it is time to pickle the beets...bonnie

Arg! I wrote a whole post and it disappeared. *cries* Well, here's the condensed version:

5 halfpints sweet cherry jam
6 halfpints blueberry jam
9 12oz jars each seedless raspberry & blackberry jab
18 qtz pickles-UMinn quickpack recipe
12 pts sweet corn
14 pts green beans

Whew! This is my first canning season. I'm going to have to get a better stove if I intend to keep this up. lol

Twelve qts of dill pickles today, and I'm off this afternoon to pick the plums before the raccoons do and and make jam, and I'm about ready to start in on the tomato sauce.

Saturday we peeled, cored, sliced (those machines are a life saver) and froze a couple bushels of these "Almata" apples. They're supposed to ripen in late Sept, but they ripen in mid-August. Anywho, they make fabulous pies.

Finally had enough cukes to make a batch (7 pints) of Bread & Butter Pickles. Some of them were really too big, but I had out of town company the last few days, and just couldn't get to them before today.

Still waiting for tomatoes ...

We had a few Black Krims ready at the same time, so I made 4 half pints of crushed tomatoes out of them. Not much, but this is my first attempt at it so probably a good start to see how they turn out! I mixed a few of our yellow pear tomatoes in with them, so will be interesting to see how it tastes!

I've blanched bunches of broccoli and froze them in gallon baggies. I also did some green beans this way, but found some of them taste a bit tough so think I picked them when they were too old. Have to do a bit better at the harvesting next time (think they are about done for this year).

Has anyone tried blanching/freezing Swiss Chard? Or canned it? Never even had eaten it before this year, and we have a LOT of it. I've been giving a lot of it away to friends and neighbors, and have cooked it up for ourselves as well. But the husband's not real crazy about it and since there is only the two of us at home now, may not grow it next year (or at least, cut way back on the number of plants).

We grow the heck out of swiss chard, and I've found the best way to save some for the winter is to pick a bunch, dump it in the sink (we use a laundry sink), fill it with water and let it soak off the dirt and what not, then pick the wet leaves and stuff a stock pot. Put the stock pot on burner on low, and wilt / steam the leaves. Dump into a colander, let drain and cool, then slice the big lump of green stuff into what ever size portions, plastic bag, and freeze.

Later, thaw and chop finely, add onion, and use for anything you'd use spinach for. We use it as a burrito filling with cheese and onion, or just fry chopped bacon, add onion, then chop this up and add it in.

Also, the plants will over-winter very well, and in late March, give them a shot of nitrogen, and you'll have wonderful fresh greens until June, when they bolt.

Thanks for the great tips, David!! I will definitely try that. I love the idea for a burrito filling as well. A co-worker of mine gave me a recipe she uses for Chard - it's sort of an asian style sauce with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and a pinch of this asian seasoning (can't remember the name). You wilt the chard separately and then briefly saute with the sauce. It's really good!

Great to know the plants will survive the winter, too!

raspberry jelly, strawberry jam, flathead cherry jelly and ketchup Saveur magazines recipe as a start). pickles soon and ....

So far, I've canned:
16 pts. strawberry jam
12 pts cherry jam
8 pts. blackberry/raspberry jam

I was given a large bag of chokecherries from a friend yesterday and found recipes to make jam and sauce (this weekend).

I will also be making and freezing apple sauce as well as pear sauce this weekend.
We've discovered that pear sauce is particularly good for binding our homemade granola bars.

Beans and a tomato mix so far. More toms coming and BH is doing a freezer thing with the million cukes that we haven't tried yet.

We've discovered that pear sauce is particularly good for binding our homemade granola bars.

Yu-um! and chokecherries - yum!

Dan

You can freeze cukes? I freeze plenty of shredded zucchini, but it's used for baking breads, muffins, etc. Are you freezing them whole, or sliced, and how are they used once thawed?

I'm considering making a batch of Lemon Basil Jelly next ...

Bonnie

No canning but did freeze lots of cherries!!
BTW if anyone needs canning jars we have a lot to sell.
Shoot me an email. It in my profile. We have several sizes.
they belonged to DH Mom and she doesn't use them anymore.

Scratch my last post. We sold all the jars.

I have much respect for those of you that can. I don't.
Except for a few pickles, my only storage is in the freezer.
I just broke down and order a food mill/salsa machine/tomato strainer-what ever they call it. The one that has a crank and the peels come out the end. Has several screens for juice or salsa. I hate peeling tomatoes and eat a lot of salsa. Also have a friend with an apple tree that goes to waste unless I make apple sauce. Can't wait to try it out.
Kenny

Made 4 half pints of Lemon Basil Jelly today. If you like the old fashioned lemon drop candies, you'll love this jelly! It has a very mild lemon flavor, and is a very pretty pale yellow color.

I got the recipe from the Harvest Forum (see link below), but processed it like I normally do, since the original poster was Canadian, where they omit the boiling water bath.

The recipe is also in The Best of Thymes by Marge Clark, except hers calls for adding food coloring, which I find unnecessary.

Bonnie

Here is a link that might be useful: Lemon Basil Jelly recipe thread

Did the first batch of the tomato/onion/pepper/garlic/paprika/tomato-paste-to-thicken mix today, the stuff we later season for chili, pasta sauce, soup, or what ever. Ten quarts.

I use Contadina tomato paste, and the 12 ounce can is now $1.98, which is ridiculous. I found that buying a case (6) of number 10 cans and having them shipped here was less than half the price. And that should last a couple of years.

Sounds yummy, David! I still don't have a single ripe tomato yet!!!

I did get a second batch of jelly made tonight - Purple Basil and Orange Jelly. Started to make it last year, but just wasn't sure if it would be any good. Decided to take a chance today, since I had plenty of gorgeous looking Red Rubin basil. The taste is an interesting combination of citrus and spice. The recipe suggests using it for glazing meats, but I think it would be great over some cream cheese with a cracker. It would definitely appeal to the gourmet lover. The color ends up being more of a clear ruby color, instead of the purple I expected. I'll try and get a picture later.

Found a place online selling a similar recipe for $7.00 per 6 ounce jar!

Still can't decide if I'm sold on the flavor of the Purple Basil and Orange Jelly, but I did make a second batch of the Lemon Basil Jelly. Actually, it was Lemon-Lime, 'cause I didn't have enough Mrs. Burn's left, and had to use mostly Lime Basil. Since the recipe has a little lemon juice in it, it still tastes like lemon to me though.

Also made a batch of Candy Apple Jelly since my last post, and a second batch of Cranberry Jalapeno Jelly. Still not as hot as I expected, but somewhat addictive nonetheless.

Was given a bag of small, not quite ripe homegrown pears the other day, and am waiting until they soften up a bit to make jam out of them. Trying to decide between two different recipes. One is called Spiced Caramel Pear Jam, and the other is from the Ball Complete Book, called Autumn Cranberry Pear Jam. Anyone else have an awesome pear jam recipe?

Had so many ripe peppers this week, and no tomatoes (until yesterday) that I finally had to do something with them. Ended up just slicing and freezing most of them. Roasted a few in the oven, and then froze them too. Anyone have a canning recipe that uses peppers, but DOESN'T require tomatoes?

Looks like salsa time is still a couple weeks out yet, assuming we don't get a hard freeze before then ...

What's everyone else processing now?

Bonnie

Bumping this up, since this thread, along with my post was misplaced for a couple of days, along with all the pages of old threads : (

Glad they're back for now ...

We've done a total of 50 qts of dill cucumber pickles, and 30 qts of dilly beans - the tiny French Fillet and the Kings Banquet pole beans. Both beans did produce fruit when planted in mid-July, but it was close. There is something about a pickle made with tarragon, several tablespoons of dill, and a mix of raw and store-bought cider vinegar that just can't be topped. It doesn't matter how many quarts I make, we always run out in May - June.

Did another 25 qts of the tomato mix, I'll do another 30 or so qts over the next two weeks for my grad-student fans, eventually dehydrate it all and send it in the mail. It hasn't been much of a fruit year. My deal with a friend who has a wild plum stand in his back yard did work, so I made some 20 pints of wild plum / cranberry jelly, which is some good. I may go for some apple / cinnamon jelly, but thats going to depend if the apples develop some better flavor, they haven't so far. It hasn't been much of a canning year, overall volume is down considerably. Not that I'm complaining. My tolerance level for staying inside by the stove on beautiful fall days is hitting a limit.

Our apple trees have a total of 2 apples on them, so I guess I'm going to have to break down and buy a bushel at the farmer's market later this month, if we are going to have any homemade applesauce over the winter this year.

Decided to go with the Spiced Caramel Pear Jam recipe, but it only made 5 half pints, instead of 6 or 7, as the recipe stated. Ended up with small pieces, rather than big chunks of pears. Almost a cross between a chunky pearsauce, and a thick caramel sauce. Not bad!

I know what you mean about the outdoors calling to you, but since it's obnoxiously windy here today, I didn't mind being inside too much.

David, I posted before I finished my thoughts ... brain's moving a little slow today : )

Your post made me realize that I didn't can ANY dill pickles this year. When I started canning a couple of years ago, that was the first thing I made. Have yet to get a batch to turn out crisp as I would like though ...

Last year, I made a batch of dills, and a batch of bread & butter pickles, and decided the bread & butters were more to my liking. Canned a batch of zucchini relish recently, which I haven't tasted yet. Recipe said to wait a month to let the flavors meld, so don't know yet if I'll even like it.

Oh, I should mention a trick I discovered this summer. When the dill heads start to turn brown with fully formed seeds, bend the stem over about 6" down, which cuts off the moisture and they all dry out at once. Come back a couple days later with a clean bucket and knock all the seeds off. Collected the things by the quart.

No canning yet. Mostly freezing. Will make a batch of pickles tonight.

Yesterday I chopped, blanched, and froze a ton of squash, zuchinni, and green beans. I froze them on trays first so they would freeze separately. I also made family size bags of frozen veggies for stir frys with green beans, zuchinni, onion and garlic. I'll just add meat and stir fry sauce.

I have a ton of grapes but they won't be ready for canning until the first hard frost.

Starting to get lots of tomatoes and will do a batch of oven dried cherry tomatoes in the next few days. Those are my very favorite in the middle of winter.

Will pick basil this week to make frozen pesto.

We are so busy right now with sports, school, concerts, etc. that I actually had a babysitter come over and play with the kids so I could get all that freezing done!

35 quarts of salsa - red tomatoes (16 hours of prepping - UGH)
10 pints of tomatilla salsa
10 pints of hot pepper sauce

The red tomato salsa required me to dip into the "antique" quart jars, so I could be done canning salsa - unless I buy more jars. My elders did not appreciate using the blue glass jars. I figure, why are these boxes of jars just taking up space in my basement?? I heard, "those are antiques and worth money". To whom?? They are more of a PIA, in a basement, with two active kids. Just waiting for a basketball or golf club or tennis ball to come crashing into the boxes.

I have two Peppadew pepper plants and will pickle those as well.

Perhaps I have to make raspberry jam as well - we are having a bumper crop this year

Happy Gardening -

Hey Deb, what recipe did you use for the Hot Sauce? I want to make a batch of Tomatillo Salsa, but only have a handful of ripe ones so far. At least I did get 7 pints of Annie's Salsa in the canner today. Would like to make another batch, but it will depend on when we get that first hard frost. It still wasn't as hot as I would like though, even though I used a couple of Anaheims and a few Jalapenos. Maybe I need to completely eliminate the sweet peppers?

I didn't use any sweet peppers.

Here's the recipe I used:

5 cloves of roasted garlic

1/2 cup of carrots, chopped
1/2 cup of white onion, chopped
5 ounces of peppers, chopped (mine were roasted)
1 cup of apple cider vinegar
1 cup of water

2 teaspoons of salt
1/4 teaspoon of sugar

Simmer the carrots -> water until the carrots are tender. Then blend with garlic until smooth.
Season and can.

I used pH paper to insure the pH was below 4. It was closer to 3 then 4, so well below the necessary acidity level.

Were you referring to your Hot Sauce, or Salsa, when you said you didn't use any sweet peppers?

I may have to try that Hot Sauce recipe since it doesn't require tomatoes, and I have plenty of peppers, onions, and carrots. 5 oz. doesn't sound like very many peppers though. What is the yield on that recipe?

Thanks for sharing the recipe, Deb!

I don't use sweet peppers in either - Hot Sauce nor Salsa. I may use mild peppers in salsa though - like poblanos or anaheims. I found HUGE Italian Roasters at a farmer's market and dang if I can find them online. One pepper filled a measuring cup (1 cup). I am guessing they are hybrids and since I am a swapping fool, no hybrids in my garden;)

Last night I canned 12 half pints of raspberry jam. Bumper crop of raspberries this year in my yard.

Thanks, Deb!

I got 5 half pints of Ground Cherry Jam done today. The recipe said to leave the seeds in, but I don't like raspberry jam with the seeds in, so now I'm wondering if I should have strained it. Probably wouldn't have had enough volume to make the jam then though ...

Still a newbie with the jam making.

I had one 1/2 full half pint and processed it, only to find that it did not set.

I am guessing the contents of that jar became overheated in the processing??

Hmmm ... I thought too much headspace affected the sealing of the jar, but didn't know it would affect the set.

Went by the local organic farm/nursery near here on Friday to pick up some garlic for another batch of salsa. While I was there, they had some beautiful Italian plums, so of course I bought a 5 lb box and made jam yesterday. I would have had enough for a second batch, but my middle child scarfed down at least half a dozen of them yesterday, and was begging for more. Hey, if one of my kids is begging for a fruit or vegetable, far be it from me to deny them, LOL!

Just pulled another batch of paprika peppers out of the dehydrator. Very excited about having homemade paprika again!

Homemade paprika must be wonderful!!

We have two plum trees and my family loves them!! Two trees produce more then we, read them, and the critters can eat.

It is true that you cannot deny the healthy requests!!

My son asked if I grow grapes. YEAH!! We do have three kinds but no fruit yet.

My edible landscape is coming together nicely - if I must say so myself;)

I never thought paprika had any taste at all, until I made my own. It really is awesome. The only problem is, I made the mistake of sharing with family, now I have to grow three times as many paprika peppers, just to have some left over for myself!

We put in a couple Reliance grapevines last year, and they actually produce three tiny bundles of grapes this year. Well, four really, but a neighbor's child picked one bunch before they were ripe : (

My edible landscape includes two apple trees, a peach tree, a perennial herb bed, rhubarb, grapevines, and a currant bush, but I wish I had space for more fruit trees, an asparagus bed, a raspberry patch, and a ...

This week, I canned 8 more pints of salsa, still not quite hot enough. Will grow hotter peppers next year.

Today, I canned 8 pints of seasoned tomato sauce, and 4 pints of salsa verde (tomatillo).

I have tons of green tomatoes tomatoes left, so not quite done yet.

Anyone else still canning?

I made 12 pints of Italian-style tomato sauce the weekend before last, and have 8 more in the canner right now. I'm actually getting kind of tired of canning, but had to throw out a few tomatoes yesterday, because I didn't have time to deal with them before they went south on me. I was too busy baking, pureeing, and freezing pumpkins and winter squash. Already have over a gallons worth in the deep freeze, and there are still close to 30 more waiting in the garage, and on the porch. There just doesn't seem to be enough time to get it all done with all the school activities this time of year.

How are the rest of you with kids finding time to process your harvest?

I have nine jars of jam in the canner right now. That will make 48 jars of grape jam (from our grape vines) that I've processed in the last two days. My fingers are dry and burnt!

I'm planning to make jalapeno peach jelly tomorrow and process the last of the tomatoes.

I've dried so many herbs and it's taken me forever to pull all the leaves off! I'm going to buy pretty spice jars and guess what people are getting for Christmas? That's right jam and spices! Maybe I'll make some cookies or candy too.

It's work but worth it!

I'm still freezing peppers and last batch of pesto spun up yesterday. Nothing left to can, only freezing, unless the fam wants some jalapeño butter.

I don't know if you have a Sprouts Market near you, Charlene, but they had some nice jars on sale at the store near me, would have picked some up if I weren't fully stocked already.

Dan

Charlene, I'm too cheap to go buy spice jars. I just peel the label off the empty store bought ones, and make my own label.

I just pulled 8 half-pints of Cranberry Jalapeno Jelly out of the canner. I'm working on roasting, peeling and freezing the rest of the peppers. Sure wish I would have remembered to put the rubber gloves on this time ... and not touch my face!

Does your recipe call for leaving pieces of pepper in the jelly, or straining them out? I'd be interested in the recipe. I kind of want to try the Habanero Gold recipe in the Ball canning book, but I'm a little scared of how hot it might turn out. Jalapeno peach sounds a little less intimidating : )

Finally starting to see the kitchen countertop again. Progress has been made!

Bonnie

Bonnie, I plan on making some pepper jelly tomorrow. The recipe I have says to leave pieces of pepper in, along with some cayenne pepper flakes. I'm curious about whether you make yours with pieces left in. I've never made this before and would like your feedback on the jelly in general. I want mine to be spicy.

Connie

Connie, my recipe calls for the peppers to be put in a blender with the cranberry juice and then strained out. I've found if you let it sit for a bit before straining, it makes it a little hotter, but it is still not too spicy.

Leaving the pieces in, and adding cayenne pepper flakes ought to do the trick though...

I'm into the opening jars and enjoying phase. Well, except for the trial golden beet pickle recipe - that one is lumps of vinegar tasting lump, with a slight hint of beet earthiness.

Next time, instead of boiling the beets and flavor all away before even starting as per recipes, I'm going to wander out on the teetering edge of mad-science-fog-rising-from-beakers-wild hair canning, and dice the beets up, add the vinegar and spices, and cook them in the canning jar. Call me reckless, avant guarde, whatever, but you only live once.

Of to search the garden for some golden beets, which will survive the winter until the deer find them........