Canning Tomatoes

I've never canned tomatoes before. My mom has a fear of pressure canners and I've always been under the impression that tomatoes have to be canned in a pressure canner and therefore are difficult and dangerous. But last year during canning season, like many years during canning season, I went on a search for a tomato sauce that could be water bath canned. And I found one! But I ran out of time and never got tomatoes to give it a try.

This year, I was determined.

Let me give you a brief history to tell you where my determination came from. Many years ago Mr. Wiedz was going on and on about his mom's spaghetti sauce. How delicious it was, that it was homemade, how awesome it was! So...obviously when tomatoes came into season I asked her to help me can spaghetti sauce. Only to find out that my lovely mother in law got her spaghetti sauce from a huge can at the canned food warehouse then processed it into jars at home. My husband and his step-father just gave her all the credit for homemade spaghetti sauce.

Well, I really wanted to make spaghetti sauce. Really.

So I bought a box of tomatoes and pulled out my recipe from last year (sorry, can't find the link). Then had to turn back to the internet to find out how to turn my box of lovely tomatoes into tomato puree.

The website I found told me to slice them and boil them until reduced and put them through a food mill to get puree. So I did that. I filled the pan with just over half of my tomatoes and let them cook. And cook. And cook. Then I spent f.o.r.e.v.e.r. putting them through the mill until I managed to get 1 quart of puree.

My recipe calls for 10 quarts.

I almost gave up. But I was determined. I figured it would work to blanch, peel, cut, seed and blend the tomatoes. In one phone conversation with my friend I had 5 quarts of puree. Using far less tomatoes!

So I purchased another box, spent quite a few naptimes peeling and blending tomatoes until I had all the puree I needed. After a couple batches in my crockpot and canner I had 10 quarts of beautiful spaghetti sauce!

While I had tomatoes I pulled up Soulemama's recipe for carrot-tomato soup (I can't get a separate link for just the post about the soup. Go to her tutorial page from the tap at the top and her tomato soup is a button there) and gave that a whirl.

Roasted tomatoes. Yum!

Bubbling away onions, said roasted tomatoes, carrots, garlic, etc... Yum!

Lots of sips and ohhhing and ahhhing and two quarts of soup base in the freezer! Yum!

Canning Pears {and best friends}

Quite a few weeks ago my cousin and I went to the orchard to pick pears. I only got one picture that day because I held her adorable littlest man while she and the other 6 children picked pears. And it was 98 degrees out. And we chose to go when it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

But Scary and the children were able to pick 140 pounds of pears which Scary and I split between us. They were still quite green so I put them in the garage with another box on top (so #5 wouldn't take one bite out of each of them) to let them ripen. And I canned peaches. And tomato sauce. And kept up with school. And got really tired.

So we started smelling the pears, but I didn't care. No day worked out as a good pear canning day. And Mr. Wiedz would come in and tell me how ripe the pears were getting..."you need to do something with those pears." Yes. Yes, I know. I don't want to.

Enter September 30th. One day until my #2's birthday and the birthday party two hours away to celebrate with family and #4 whose birthday is the next day. I was thinking about those pears in the back of my mind, they weren't going to last another weekend but I wasn't going to be home and I had a friend coming to visit that day and so many other things that I could be doing. So in a little way I was resigning myself to giving those pears to the chickens.

But that friend arrived and during the course of normal conversation the pears came up. She'd already gotten her pears up and I mentioned that I just wasn't going to be able to get mine done when she said the most AMAZING thing. "I'll help you."

Even though I couldn't ask her to do that that was exactly what she did. And she didn't really just help me, she canned all 70 pounds of my pears with a tiny bit of help from me. She got 17 quarts of pears done before she left.

AMAZING!

On another AMAZING, and I'm blessed beyond belief matter, my mother came last week and folded all of the socks in my home. All of them. 2 baskets full (I hate folding socks).

Pears and socks...does it get any better than that?

Peaches

That season is here again. Time to put up peaches.

This year my cousin and I went picking pears. I asked before we left for the orchard if she was going to do peaches too. She said she'd called ahead to the orchard and this years Elberta's were small and hard to find.

Oh.

After all the children were loaded I ran into my sewing/canned food pantry/catch-all-room to check my supply of peaches. Maybe I could get away with doing none this year.

One jar stood looking at me, telling me that I needed to get peaches.

So after picking (my cousin picked while I held her precious baby) 150 pounds of pears to share. She had the "help" of her 2 year old, my 3 year old, 7 year old and our 2 10 year old girls. And did I mention it was 98 degrees? Not the greatest mixture but we made it work. Anyway, after the picking was done and we were wondering around the farm stand I decided to go ahead and pick up a box of peaches. I'm still not sure how it's sitting with me not to have pictures of peach picking this year...

They were small. And not all that ripe.

I sat them out like a good canner.

After a couple of days they made the garage smell good and looked ready...here we go!

#1 asked if she could help this year...really help.

We brought them in.

Canned them up.

And shared our "bounty".

The chickens really LOVE canning season.

We got 7 jars full when the peaches were nearly gone, and whatever was left was not ripe yet. So we loaded up the canner and immediately lost one jar to breaking in the water - dang it!

So after a pleasant day spent with my #1 girl I got 6 jars to add to the shelf in the catch-all-room. We've got one jar for Christmas morning and the others will be special treats reserved for just the right times.

And today we got a peach crisp from the rest of the peaches.

Here's to a better season next year, we'll need it!

Strawberries

Quite a few weeks ago it was time to pick strawberries! I love strawberry time. I've gotten the rotary buckets before but there is just nothing like going out to the field and picking them. My mother-in-law joined me this year and we both spent much of the time remembering back to our childhoods and picking for pay.

#1 and #4 came with us while #5 stayed home sleeping with Grammie Mo watching over him and #2 and #3 were fishing with Mr. Wiedz and Grandpa D. #3 turned out to be a sorry picker - many berries in his mouth, not a single berry in the bucket. But #1 was a champion picker, filling her buckets all with a smiling face!

After picking and running a couple errands to obtain the necessary supplies we headed home to a bright and happy #5 and Grammie Mo. We spent the rest of the afternoon processing freezer jam and flash freezing whole berries for later use in milkshakes, smoothies and whatever else I can think of.

The floor was sticky. There was hardly no food prepared all day. But we had a fabulous time.

And got 38 and a half pint jars of freezer jam put up...I'm not running out this year!

Living Next to a Florist Has Advantages

Our next door neighbors/landlords are the owners of a great florist shop in town (3 locations actually). This has been very advantageous for me, flowers for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, just because, our anniversary AND the neighbors themselves just send some over every so often. I've never had so many flowers displayed through my house.

The other day, in an attempt to DO something with the boys on a long afternoon we went on a walk through the farm.

It's been a least 3 months since I've walked through the farm and so much has grown, been planted, weeded, worked and tended. It was beautiful. So much is blooming right now and they do such a great job of taking care of everything. I found a bunch of places I'd love to take kids and snap some portrait type photos...great background out there!

As a bonus the boys and I found a jackpot of blackberries to pick! At our old house we had a whole road lined with blackberries. A great lesson in plant life (blooms turning to berries and waiting for them to be sweet enough to eat) and the children could go out whenever they wanted and pick. I was worried we would have to go without our berry eating and berry pie this summer so I was relieved as they were to see the fabulous berries!

What should we do today?

Sunday evening I thought of it...Monday morning I was wavering...while the children ate breaky I saw this post and decided.

It was time to pick blueberries!

In preparation for berry season I called around/found farms on the internet that were in my new area. They all charged WAY too much for u-pick. My old MOPS friend, Alyson, picked berries at the farm we used to go to near Corvallis and reported that the berries were $1.25/pound. Over half what they wanted down here in new town.

Mr. Wiedz' mom, Grammie D, was here for a sleepover Sunday night so when she came out looking for coffee as the kids finished breaky I said lets get going, we'll get you coffee at Dari Mart on the way.

We took a beautiful country drive from new town to Corvallis. Got to the berry farm, found out what rows were being picked and got our containers weighed.

The kids turned out to be awesome berry pickers. By the time I got everyone out, took some pictures and started picking myself #1 already had a full bucket. It took us under half an hour to have all the berries we wanted!

25 and a half pounds, a walk, some nursing time, a stop at the dollar store for gallon-size ziploc bags, and 7-11 for another cup of coffee later we were on the road back home.

The Garden

We got our garden in a couple of weeks ago.

Before all this rain!

In our lease agreement our landlord will till the garden area for us. One evening one of the landlord’s workers came over with the tractor/tiller and got the garden ready for planting! While Mr. Wiedz’s Dad B was here Mr. Wiedz and I went to nursery next door while he took the big 4 to lunch.

The kids and I (with Mr. Wiedz’s assistance when we needed it) spent the rest of the day getting everything in the ground. I’m pretty excited about the garden this year. Our staples are in there; lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, and pumpkins. We’re trying out some new stuff too; peppers for the landlord’s workers, carrots, and eggplant.

All the rain has totally bummed me out and put puddles in the corn patch. Hopefully some days of sun will make everything triple in size and we’ll be enjoying a homegrown salad any day!

cannin: done...well, I think

I finished all the fruit I have picked. I got 37 quarts of pears, 26 quarts of peaches, 7 quarts of pickles, 5 quarts and 5 pints of applesauce. I did not really enjoy canning season this year. I'm grateful for the fruit in the basement. (We moved it all downstairs so we could have the dining room table back.) I am grateful that this winter I'll be able to pull up a jar or two and have fruit with our meals. It was a lot of work this year and I'm mostly grateful that it is over.

I've been brewing a sore throat the last couple of days and today was the worst of it but I finished the last 7 quarts of peaches then spent the rest of the day relaxing. Mr. Wiedz was perfect; cooking, keeping the kids occupied and taking care of me.#1 helped today. I had been thinking about the whole "passing it on" concept of canning with this season. I remember my mom canning when I grew up. But I did not learn canning from her. I learned when I was an adult and after I had kids. Canning isn't such a process for letting kids help with but it is something I wanted her to do with me. So today she took the skin off after I cut and pitted the peach, then she gave it back for me to slice and jar. It was a little slower but I was happy to have her with me.

*The only thing I still want to do is apple pie filling and I will probably do some more applesause but I like to think I'm done.

canning: day 4

It was one of those days I don't feel like I got much accomplished. For the canning numbers 7 quarts of peaches. The peaches still are not ripe. In my attempt to have space in my dining room I laid out all the peaches on the hot tub lid out on the back porch. Well, that's a lesson learned for me. Being outside is slowing down their ripening and being in the direct sun is making their skin turn to leather. Not good. Mr. Wiedz brought in the remaining peaches and we tried laying them out on a card table until the other reason I put them on the hot tub became apparent, #4 could reach them and we could foresee the big mess. I moved them again to a high counter. They are now out of every one's reach and hopefully they will ripen and I'll be finished with these cursed things tomorrow. I also got 2 quarts and 5 pints of applesauce done. Tomorrow I plan on doing another 7 pints and then being done with that.

When I was telling a friend about not feeling like I'd gotten much done I also told her about the blackberry pie I made for dessert. She said that was something...Mr. Wiedz agreed!
I got the recipe here. It was great and easy. I did follow the tip in the comments by adding more berries and butter dotted on top of the berries before the top crust. Mr. Wiedz and #3 and #4 picked the berries for me this morning. Mr. Wiedz was glad he did and the boys did a good job of only eating the berries they picked instead of all the berries as they were being picked...we don't usually come back from the blackberries with so many in the bowl.What a sweet end to a long but sweet week.

canning: day 3

7 quarts of peaches...they weren't ripe enough so we quit after that cannerful.

21 quarts of pears...the ones I got from my friends were awesome! Ripe, easy to peal and can...so much better than anything else I've canned.

7 quarts of pickles...my first time, it was very easy. Hopefully we like them.

No pictures.

That's all I'm saying tonight. I'm tired!

Plus I folded that mountain of laundry and mostly put it away...by that I mean the towels I put away, the little boy's I put away, #1 put her own away, #2 put his own away, and Mr. Wiedz' and mine is sitting on our bed until we move it to the floor or the top of the dresser or the chair before climbing into bed. I'll put it away tomorrow, although I have to wash, dry and fold more tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

pears are done...well almost

I canned more pears today. Some of them were perfect. Large, ripe, easy to peal and core. Like the one above. Ones like that were a rare treat. I was able to get 6 quarts ready to go before #3 woke up from his nap and all of the cans in the canner and everything cleaned up before #4 woke up. Pretty good.

The pears we have picked are canned. Now that only gave me 14 quarts. Those 14 quarts took 2 days and a lot of effort. I'm not too sure that 14 quarts will be enough but I'm waiting to see what I get for peaches before I decide to punish myself by picking more.

Before I was able to hit publish on this post a neighbor called with ripe pears ready to be canned that she can't get to. So before she gave them to the pigs she offered them to me. Well, since I don't have to pick them or wait for them to get ripe I took them. So after tomorrow's planned day of canning peaches I'll be working on pears again! I don't really like canning pears...good thing the family likes to eat them so much

The chickens love canning season! #3 and I took out today's bowlful of pear scraps. The girls love them!

What doesn't get done on a canning day:Mr. Wiedz asked me tonight while I was telling him about the picture I took of the chickens enjoying their part in the canning if I'd taken a picture of the laundry...as a matter of fact I had. 4 or 5 loads worth that needs to be folded and put away. I was busy! It takes all I've got to can and chase after these people and pick up after them so we're not tripping and to run them back and forth to school and cook and everything else.

Now I'm going to put my feet up and wait for the canner to be done processing.

Peaches tomorrow.

canning: day 1

Well, I jumped in with both feet and started to process today. Nothing like 100 pounds of fruit sitting in the sun ripening. Fruit that will just sit there and rot if I don't do anything to it to motivate me!
Fresh picked apples from the tree across the driveway from my front door. Mr. Wiedz picked apples from the ground for the pigs (he had some work to do in the pen and one does not go in there without a lot of apples to keep them busy, or they will eat you). These beautiful apples were picked in about 2 minutes, the branches are heavy with them.

#1 helped me get the apples quartered and into the water to cook. She thought it was so fun to help with the canning. I let her have a turn with the food mill to get sauce from the apples after they cooked but she wasn't into it anymore. Plus, it is a hard job.

By far my favorite canning tool. My best friends mom gave me this canning funnel many years ago and I use it every year. It is fast and easy and make clean up so quick.

It was a slow start, only 7 quarts of pears and 3 quarts of applesauce. But a start nonetheless.