Now We Are Canning!

Author:  Spring (Jordan)

I never knew much about canning except my grandmothers did  lots of it.  My mother/blog partner claims those skills skip a generation.  I remember seeing one of my grandmothers use her food mill as she was making tomato juice.  To this day, I still request the homemade apple butter my other grandmother makes and cans on a yearly basis.  I thought the whole thing was an interesting process.

Fast forward now to a camping trip we took with some of our friends from NYC a few weeks ago.  They joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture),and since it was just the two of them, they usually had more produce then they knew what to do with.  So, they started canning.  During our camping trip they were telling us all they were canning, and it sounded amazing.  A few days later on our door step was a canning book and canning kit from our friends who sent it to us as a thank you for arranging the week-end.  It was now our turn to start.    The book has been great, and I would recommend if you are new to canning or would like some new recipes.

(Source)

I have to say we didn’t start small.  We jumped right it!

We live close to the regional farmers market here in Syracuse.  It is one of my favorite things about the city.  The overall market is huge, and the prices are great.  Here is some of the produce we purchased at the farmers market.

We went crazy in the tomato department, but we wanted to make lots of salsas and tomato marinara.

We wanted to try something easy first so we decided to go with Dilly Beans.

We did not have the traditional canning pot, but that was not a problem.  We used a big stock pot that we own.  Since we didn’t have the canning rack that goes in the bottom, we used the rings of the jars.  This way the boiling water is able to get under the jars when we start to process them.

Here is the start of the dilly beans.  We added the beans and then put in the spices and vinegar before processing.

They are in the water cooling before we remove them and put on the counter.

Here is a picture of some of our finished product.  To date we have made tomato marina, corn relish, corn salsa, salsa, salsa verde, pickles, applesauce, charred chili bbq sauce, and roasted red pepper ketchup.

Mr. Spring is a home brewer, and he says canning is my version of home brewing.  I think he may be right.

Cheers!

I was not paid for this post. I am just a fan of the book.