Tomatoes

With the exception apple sauce later in the month and one "try it out" batch of lemon marmalade,  my canning for 2011 in done.  The kettles are back in the garage and all the jars are tucked away.  I really enjoy it, but I'm glad it's over.  We got so few peaches on the tree this year that I got one batch of jam--compared with 50 quarts (yes, off 1 tree) 3 years ago.  The apricots either went into jam or were given away this year.  I focused the bulk of my jars to tomatoes.

This is the last batch.  I think they are so beautiful in the bottles, with the onions and  peppers in them.  I use them in everything:  chili, soup, spaghetti sauce, and salsa.  Having not done a single jar last summer, we actually ran out and I missed them for a few months.

Mom and dad brought out grandma's pressure canner so this was my first year doing low-acid items.  What could be easier than green beans.  I should have done twice as many.  Next year.

Keith asked for bread and butter pickles after we found cukes at the farmer's market.  I did them and grape juice at the same time.  I don't recommend that and won't be attempting it again.

This is Grandma Rich's chili sauce--the best thing ever for Sunday Pot Roast.  It has the tomatoes, onions and peppers like the stewed tomatoes, but then you add cinnamon, cloves,  and vinegar.  It makes the whole house smell so good as you cook it for about 5 hours.

This is the blackberry jam.  Mikey and I picked wild blackberries along the levee.  He ate a few, but thought it would be really fun to come home and make Keith and Lucy jealous that they didn't go so he rubbed a couple all over his face. 

We can't go a year without strawberry jam or apricot/pineapple (right) or my peach (left)--that has to be colored with food coloring because we grow white peaches and it ends up looking like puke. 

I'm glad mom taught me how to can.  I'm glad I enjoy it.  After all,  it's good for us.  I don't understand the almost disdain of some women toward this kind of thing.  It's almost like,  "aren't we passed all that pioneer stuff?  We're so much better than that in 2011."  Oh well,  I don't love a lot of the modern technologies of today, maybe I was just born 50 years too late.