Last night we:
Picked tomatoes from our horribly overgrown garden, then de-stemmed, boiled, ice bathed, peeled, cut, squeezed, de-seeded and strained them. We washed canning jars, lids and rims, then heated them in hot water until ready for canning. Shawn ran to the grocery store to grab the appropriate herbs needed. I browned some meat. We simmered and boiled the entire mixture of tomatoes, herbs and meat until it had boiled down and looked somewhat like spaghetti sauce. This took far longer than it sounds like it should.
After the sauce was ready, we poured it into the available jars, then placed them in the pressure canner. Since it was my first try at pressure canning anything, I didn't realize how high the heat had to be to get the pressure going. We waited and waited for it to start working, but it took forever. When it finally did, the pressure regulator was working too fast, so we had to work with our wacky stove until the temperature was right. That, too, took way longer than it sounds like it should. THEN we had to process the jars in the pressure canner for 1 hour. By the time they were done, it was after 1 AM. All told, last night we spent about 5 hours working on and off on this pet project.
What did we yield? Well, a very, very disappointing 2 pints of spaghetti sauce and one pint of tomato juice (which neither of us like to drink). And something happened because one of them didn't seal properly. So, basically we did all that work for one single jar of spaghetti sauce. We will be able to use the other one we made, but we can't store it for long like we can the other one.
On an positive note, the tomatoes were all organic and came from our garden, as were the green peppers we threw in there. The flavor is great, too! I imagine once you get good at the whole canning thing it goes a little better.
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2 comments:
The most valuable thing was the experience itself: now you are in the sisterhood of home canners; you and Shawn worked together to accomplish a noble goal; and last but not least there's nothing like doing home canning to make a person greatly appreciate God's provision of food through farmers and processors, plus the ability God has given man to streamline such tasks!
I am totally sitting here giggling at this post because I can totally relate! I ended up going and gathering all the supplies I would need to be a by-the-book hot water canner.. blue book, canner, jars, etc. I worked my arse off for 3 pints of pear butter. Yes. 3 pints. I hope it tastes good. I did get brave enough to use the pressure cooker to cook some frozen corn on the cob last week..first time ever using the scary contraption.. It was scary and exciting. I loved your blog because I could totally see it in my mind. You will get better/more productive in time.. and you will look back and giggle when you recall all the work that went into your first canning experience, eh? I was totally intimidated by canning but I am finding hot water canning to not be so bad at all.. it could turn into a lot of work but I am learning to work smarter not harder in each session. I will eventually graduate to a pressure canner for green beans, soups, etc. but the world of high acid foods will keep me busy and learning for quite some time. You are awfully adventerous to take on canning with a new baby. I bow to you, LOL.
I bet that single pint will taste like liquid gold. Nothing like blood, sweat and tears to make ya appreciate the bounty of the garden. ;)
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