Canning 2010

If you know my family or at least the women in my family, we are into canning! Some may consider canning old fashioned, but I love it! Being raised on a farm, we had the perfect set up for canning. My Dad raised majority of the produce we canned and so the cost was minimal. I love having the skill, I love the resulting products, and most of all, I love being able to spend time with my Mom and sisters while we can.

August: Jam

This is my first year doing jam on my own. My husband was a great help also. I like strawberry the best, but I know there are so many versions and flavors! I didn't have to make too much this year, because I still had some left over from last year.

September: Pears

I went ALL OUT on pears this year. We LOVE canned pears and I ran out waaaaay too fast and so we were super excited when pear season came around. I also went over board because I knew I had another baby on the way and canning food is perfect for when babies start eating solid food. I actually wish I would have done more, but after almost a week of pears, I was ready to be done!

Pears are amazing, but they are work! You have to wait for the pears to ripen and then you have to peel, core, and cube them and then actually can them. This year I bought 2 bushels and yielded 24 quarts and 43 pints. Not too bad!

Aren't they beautiful in their jars???

October: Green Beans, Grape Juice, and Applesauce

Beans...... oh beans! It was quite an adventure this year! In my opinion, beans are one of the toughest things to can because you have to pressure cook them. My Mom was out of town and my Dad's beans were ready and waiting to be used. So my sister-in-law, Chelsea, and I decided to try to tackle beans without my Mom's expertise.

We snapped, washed, and placed the beans in bottles and started up the pressure cookers. We usually cook in the garage with my Dad's camping stove. My Mom has two pressure cookers and one is older and can be touchy. Well, to make a long story short, we are out in the garage, pressure cookers are up and running. One is heating up just fine, but the older one is struggling. Finally, the pressure is rising and then we notice that the older cooker is started to raise in pressure really quickly and we could hear it! Then comes white steam out billowing out from the lid and the pressure kept on rising! This all happened in less than a minute or so. I got nervous real quick and quickly turned off the heat and half yelled to Chelsea, "RUN CHELSEA!" Our kids were with us and Chelsea's baby was in the high chair and Jack and Olivia were just playing. So I grab Jack and run, but poor Chelsea is trying to lug the high chair to safety. I thought the whole garage was going to blow! We heard a loud "POP" after that and then the smoke and pressure both died right down.

We were both really nervous after that and didn't use that pressure cooker again. Come to find out, the seal was loose and that caused the problems. Never a dull moment! Luckily, we can laugh about it now.

I ended up yielding about 45 pints of green beans.

We were soooo grateful to be able to do grape juice this year. It is hard to find concord grapes these days. We got some last year and they were not great and we ended up not loving the end result. When we lived on our farm, we had tons of concord grapes growing and we miss having that!

Luckily, this year our soon to be sister-in-law, Ashlee, had grapes and was more than happy to let us use them! Good start to getting her into canning! :)

We yielded 168 quarts of grape juice this year and after giving some to Ashlee and her family, we each ended up with 52 quarts each, meaning my Mom, sister-in-law Chelsea, and myself.

Yummmm! So good!

Chelsea and I decided to do some applesauce at the last minute this year. Since she had a baby and I have one on the way, we decided it was worth it. You have to realize that by the end of canning season, you start to go a little crazy! We are always grateful to have a year to re-cooperate! :) It really is hard work, but again soooo worth it!

We worked at Chelsea's house and worked most of the day. We bough two 3/4 bushel's and yielded 35 pints and 10 quarts. We also had some apples left over and a little bit of extra sauce.

I don't have any pictures from this year, but we also freeze corn every Fall as well. My Dad grows the BEST sweet corn and we cook it, cut it off the cob, and freeze it. This way, we have great corn all year long! Yes, canned corn is a SIN in our family! We all pitch in and it is always a lot of fun. Another Roper tradition!

I also helped my Mom can some salsa this year. She gets most of the credit, but I did help her a little. I had a lot left over this year and so I didn't need any myself. Again, my Dad raises all of the tomatoes and peppers, so it is really worth it! Again, I don't have pictures. Sorry.

Overall, I think it was a GREAT canning year!