Summer In A Jar
Life without the internet (and television for that matter ;o)) really frees up a lot of free time! I am hoping to have a few posts up on auto-publish this afternoon to give my poor blog a little life despite my absence.
This past week has been spent picking, harvesting, dehydrating, and putting up oodles of food for this fall and winter. The symphony of sealing jars has been the music flowing through the air of my home and the delicious smells of sugar, spice, and everything nice has been our home's perfume. Peapod and I managed to pick three gallons of blueberries in the humid southern heat and had a blast doing so. As she said, it was "wike Sal" from Blueberries For Sal.
Hopefully this work will be "summer in a jar" for my handsome husband who is missing this year's farmers market season. Not as great as enjoying the culinary pleasures of summer fresh off the farm or plant, but as close as I can give him. :o) As has been the case every year before, this year has been my biggest canning season ever, as I add to my garden and orders straight from the farm, mastering more and more with every passing season.
So far this year, the following items have made their way into my pantry:
*strawberry lemonade concentrate, jam, pie filling (with rhubarb), and marmalade
*blueberry jam & pie filling
*raspberry jam & pie filling
*blackberry jam, pie filling, sauce, and preserves
*various herb jellies: basil, herbs de provence, lavender, rosemary, savory, tarragon, parsley, mint
*spiced local honey
*various kinds of mustard: lemon-sage wine, ginger garlic
There are also some vinegars prepping in my pantry, waiting to be bottled later this month:
*blueberry basil
*tarragon
*raspberry
*mulled blackberry
I use these vinegars in salad dressing recipes and as finishing condiments for a variety of meals. They are especially tasty lightly drizzled over vegetables, adding a bit of flavor to an otherwise bland and boring side dish.
Next up will be canning up a bunch of peaches and heirloom tomatoes, ordered from a favorite local farmer, and all of the veggies starting to abound in my garden. My grandparents' fig tree will also soon be ready to be picked, so fig preserves for cheese trays will be in my canner very soon, too. I can hardly wait to try all the new pickles, relishes, and chutneys I will get to try this year!
What has everybody else been harvesting, picking, and preserving? Has anybody tried canning for the first time this year?
Picture Credit
8 comments:
Seriously, Amy, when are you going to move next door so that we can do these things together? {so you can teach me more}.
We have picked and dehydrated strawberries and picked and dehydrated shelling peas. Blueberries are next and if our 40+ tomato plants work out we're hoping to can lots of tomatoes.
Are you doing any lacto-fermenting? I have been wanting to concentrate more on that as well as dehydrating to avoid canning as much as possible with the heat and humidity.
I just came inside from my herb garden where I thinned out some sage and may dehydrate some of that.
Looking forward to more posts on these matters :).
So far, I've only managed our yearly ritual of strawberry jam. We're planning on doing raspberry and apricot later, too, as well as canning peaches. But, since we do hot water canning (don't have a pressure canner) and I've got a toddler and a newborn to juggle, I'm thinking this is all I'll be able to manage this year! I'm itching to can some veggies, but I just don't think I'll have the time.
~Bethany
Shannon- Tell the Army they need to build a base by you and then we can be neighbors. We can can, can, can and make v-blogs of ourselves doing so. We'll need super pretty aprons and dresses for our e-domestic show. LOL
I (tentatively) have 56# each of tomatoes and peaches coming from the farm, in addition to the tomatoes in my garden. I'm so excited and hyper and everything else! It's July!!!!!!! :D
/crazy babble before I scare Sean into staying "over there" ;o)
This has turned out to not be a picking/canning year for us...We were completely rained out for blueberry season, strawberry season we couldn't find a reasonably priced farm and our strawberries are still coming in here and there and tiny, we haven't been able to find any peaches this year, and our tomatoes are slooowly growing.
We almost thought we'd have to miss blackberry season, too, because by the time we got out to the farm the other day, they were all picked out! And they had just opened for the season, too. Fortunately, their bushes are on rotation and they'll have more to pick by Saturday. Unfortunately, we'll need to be there by 7am to get in line and get a pound or two before they're picked out again. :)
How much of each did you can? Like, how many jars of blueberry jam, etc.? Just trying to get an idea. I'm still very very new to this. Does Shannon live near me? Because I could sure use you as a neighbor. I'll sew your aprons for the two of you, for your show, in exchange for your next-door-neighborliness! :)
Amy! It's July!
Oh my goodness!! Might you be posting tutorials in the future? I would love to learn more about canning and preserving!
eL
Proud Navy Wife! :o)
Annie- Oh no! I am so sorry to hear about your rotten canning season thus far. :o( I hope the rest of summer will be good to you!
For the jams, I have twelve half pints of each fruit I've done and six half pints of each herbal jelly. There are eight pints of each pie filling.
We need to found the cooperative community we discussed on FB. You can sew and Shannon & I can can. LOL. Any gardening experts care to join? ;o)
We need to all relocate to "Clotheslinealleytown" so we can all be your next-door neighbors and learn from your example!
I am waiting for my canner to depressurize so I can remove three quarts of beef and pork stock (with meat included - leftover pork, freezer-burned steak, and some bones I'd saved). I've been canning meat more than anything else, because my garden isn't taking off and what we buy at the farmers market, we generally eat that day. I've been doing chicken I find on sale (because if it's frozen, I'll never get around to thawing it) and meat that's been in the freezer a bit long, so that it's not wasted.
This is my second year canning and I'm trying all sorts of new things. As I type this, lovely little jars of Red Currant Jam are boiling away on the stove. They are the results of picking forever on Tuesday at the farm up the road.
It's a lot of work, but totally worth it!
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