The Sweetest Applesauce!

We eagerly look forward to canning applesauce as soon as we turn the page of the calendar to the month of September.  Our main motivation for canning is so that we can have those wonderful tastes of summer and autumn deep into the winter.  We also want to save money by growing fruits and vegetables or by looking for the best value.

We have an old apple tree in our back yard that does not produce well, and the apples aren't so great for applesauce. So we do our legwork each year looking for the best tasting apples at the best price. It's fun, especially when we find it!  We strive to make the sweetest applesauce .... without adding sugar!

Home Canning for Beginners

2013 Canning Season: Applesauce, Apple Pie Filling, Peaches, Pickles,
Tomatoes, Spaghetti Sauce, Salsa, Red Pepper Relish, Pumpkin Cake

If you've never done any canning before but you've been thinking about giving it a try, I'm here to tell you that it's easier than you might think.  I always wanted to try canning, but for one reason or another, I never did. I had never even watched anyone can before, so it was a bit of a mystery for me.  I felt a little intimated by it, thinking that I wouldn't do it right, that the jars wouldn't seal, that it wouldn't turn out good, or worst of all that I'd give my family and friends food poisoning.  Finally, last year, I canned for the first time. Last year I was a beginner, but this year I am an experienced canner. (That's how it is.  If you've never done it, you're a beginner.  If you have, you're experienced.)

Canning Spaghetti Sauce

I love homemade spaghetti sauce made with fresh vegetables and herbs from my garden.  I really believe using fresh herbs makes a big difference in the sauce compared to using dried or frozen herbs. I  like to can some of this goodness at the end of summer, and then we can enjoy it during the winter months too. I use my own spaghetti sauce recipe, taking a short-cut on the tomato sauce. I've made my own tomato sauce before; it is very time consuming for a small yield, so I buy the canned tomato sauce and add my fresh ingredients to it.

❇ Snowmen in a Jar ❆

If you're the type of person who goes around singing "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow" all winter, now you can preserve your snowmen until the spring thaw.  And even if you don't like snow, you can't help but love these snowmen in a jar for winter decorating. In keeping with the "Canning Jar Week" on Farm Chick Chit Chat this week, I offer this decorating idea.  After all, like it or not, winter is just around the corner.

Pumpkin Cake in a Jar

We canned fruits and vegetables, relishes and sauces, and now we've really done it.  We canned cake!! This was truly as easy as baking a cake, and it tastes delicious. Imagine canning cakes to have on your shelf to open when a last-minute guest arrives.  Or picture tying ribbons around the lids and giving these jar cakes as appreciation or thank you gifts.

All That Mint!

If you grow mint, you probably know it will take over your garden in short order.  I have an herb garden right outside my kitchen door.  I grow mint and herbs in pots to keep them from getting out of control.  In our area, temperatures frequently drop below freezing in the winter months.  The potted herbs grow dormant in the winter but will come back in the spring.

Apple Mint (also known as wooly mint), Spearmint, and 

Peppermint.

We enjoy having lots of fresh mint during the summer months for cooking and adding to brewed iced tea and other refreshing summer drinks.  But what do you do with all that mint in the garden at the end of summer?  Before the first frost hits, harvest all your mint and herbs and preserve them to enjoy those subtle flavors all winter.

Flaunt it if you can

The 2012 Canning Season at Maple Grove has come to its close.  The past two months have been full of the sweet smells, fresh tastes, and inviting feels of farm-fresh fruits and vegetables. The work seems long, but the season is so short! 
These photos reflect the sights and colors of the late summer days of canning, and I say if you work this hard, if you aim to please, if you CAN, then go ahead and flaunt it!

Salsa Canning Recipe

 What do you see here?  A table covered with fresh raw vegetables?  I see Salsa!

How about now?  

Beginning to look more like Salsa?

  

Salsa (Spanish): a spicy sauce of tomatoes, onions, and hot peppers.

(It's hard to believe that huge pile of vegetables was reduced to half a saucepot.)

Processed, canned, and ready to eat!

 

 

 

 

 

  Read on for the recipe . . .

Sweet Red Pepper Relish for Canning

One of my favorite appetizers to serve during the holidays is a very simple one.  You place an 8 oz. bar of cream cheese on a plate to soften.  Then right before your guests arrive, you open a jar of sweet red pepper relish and pour it over top of the cream cheese.  Then you set it out with a small serving knife and a bowl of crackers.

What could be easier?  But those little jars of red pepper relish are sometimes hard to find and a little pricey.  So I make my own. It's a simple recipe, and easy for canning.

I Can Can

Canning is something that I've always wanted to do.  Married for 36 years now, I somehow never found the time to give it a try.  I did a lot of sewing, cooking and baking, and I did do some freezing of fresh foods, but I never did any gardening or canning.  Now that I am retired, I am finally finding the time to do some things I've always wanted to do.  Canning, for one. I decided I wanted to start with tomato sauce and canned tomatoes.

We don't have a vegetable garden yet.  I hope that is in the future.  But, we are so blessed to live only a few miles from a super vegetable farm and market.  My husband asks me, "Why would you want to have a garden when you have Ambrose Farm Market right down the road?

Ambrose Farm Market, Cabot, Pennsylvania

On our canning day, we were the first to arrive at the Farm Market at its opening, 9:00 a.m.  Moments later, the parking lot was full, and people filled the market, selecting their fresh produce grown on location:  melons, peppers, cukes, zukes, tomatoes, corn, onions, garlic, herbs, and on and on and on. Look at all these colorful, ripe vegetables waiting for eager hands to guide them into some succulent recipes.

Ambrose Farm Market - Photos courtesy of Becky DeSantis

Having no experience at canning, I had some trouble making my selection.  But the owner was so kind and helpful and steered me to mix Roma (for their meaty flesh) with canning tomatoes (for their sweet flavor).  We bought a bushel and a half!  As we were leaving, my husband helped another customer load her car with her purchases.  She had two shopping carts full of vegetables and a bright smile on her face.  She said, "Ahh, August!  It's the month for canning!"  Here was an experienced canner as thrilled in anticipating her project as I was for the first time.  How encouraging!

We got our tomatoes home and washed and were ready to begin canning. When we renovated our kitchen, we kept our old appliances and moved them to the basement.  It's so convenient to have the extra refrigerator/freezer for storing foods and the extra oven for large family gatherings.  It's very nice to have a "summer kitchen" for canning. We cleaned the area and got all set up for our new experience.

We're really serious about this canning thing.  A friend gave us a hot water canner, and we went out and bought some jars, a canning accessory kit, and our big splurge was buying a vegetable strainer.  (We bought a Cucino Pro 400 at Trader Horn.)  It is really slick.  It quickly and easily separates the juices from the skin and seeds.  Several times I thought about how much more time it would take to do this by hand.

 We ended up with a 21-qt. stock pot full almost to the brim with sweet smelling, robust tomato juices.  The recipe we were following said to boil the juices until the volume was reduced by half.  I did not realize how long this would take.

Four hours later, the sauce was ready, and so were the jars that I had sterilized in the hot water bath. I added 1 T. of lemon juice to each quart of tomato sauce.  I chose not to add salt (optional).  We got 10 qts. of sauce and then 7 qts. of diced tomatoes out of that bushel and a half.  I was giddy as I was cleaning up and heard the ping, ping, ping, of the jars sealing.  I felt like we had succeeded in our first attempt at canning!

Naturally, we were anxious to taste some right away, so the next day I used some of the tomato sauce to make some spaghetti sauce with meat balls.  I clipped some of the fresh basil and oregano that I have growing in my herb garden and added garlic, onion, and red pepper flakes. (No preservatives, and no added sugars or salt.)  My, oh my, if I say so myself, this was the best spaghetti sauce I ever had.  What a difference super-fresh, just-picked ingredients make in food preparation.  I am hooked!