WHAT ARE YOU CANNING TODAY?

[Beekissed]

Finished up with 26 1/2 pts of fire jam and it turned out to not be too fiery hot after all...it's rather JUST right! Hotter than most people prefer but not too hot for me, which I pronounce is perfect. I'm glad we didn't water it down with sweet peppers.

Finished up with 45 qt. of sweet corn and I had 16 left over from last year's canning, so 61 qts. of corn on hand total. That's our favorite veggie for cooking soups, pot pies, mixing into this dish or that one for a sweetness and a crunch, so it's good to have that on hand for the winter.

Usually just put up 40 qts. of that each year, as that seems to be the right amount to get us through, but since this past winter wasn't very cold, we ate less soup than normal.

Next thing to can will be next week, when we forage for mountain apples and do apple sauce, apple butter, apple slices for making of pies later, and juice. Will do the sauce and butter the old fashioned way, in the large copper kettle and invite some gals out to help and partake. LOVE that way of doing apples.

Then the next thing to can will be tomatoes into soup, then deer, then later on in the season we'll be canning up chicken.

 

[Beekissed]

I had soaked all my canning rings in ammonia and soapy water to remove any built up oils to be found there....some were starting to feel tacky to me. Well, that sort of stripped them TOO much and they seemed like they'd be hard to screw on with the new, extremely dry surface. So, I sprayed them lightly with WD40 as I didn't have anything better in a spray at the time...would like to have sprayed them with some olive oil.

Don't know how that will all come out in the end, but it did restore a softer finish to the rings.

I was on a FB canning page there for awhile and saw a good idea. Someone had mounted dowel rods onto their canning shelves and was storing their rings on the dowel rods, separated by size, of course. I thought that was pretty nifty and I may steal that idea. Right now I'm storing them in ziploc bags.

 

[Hinotori]

I have a few wire coat hangers that I untwisted and just drop the rings on then hook it back. They hang off the side of my metal shelves

 

[tortoise]

I found 2 sets of extra shower rings that DH insisted we keep. I put 6 jar rings on a shower ring and throw them in a bin. i purged close to 100 rings too. Only use so many at a time... I only have wide mouth jars, I'm not going to fuss around with 2 sizes of lids and rings!

 

[Beekissed]

I have a few wire coat hangers that I untwisted and just drop the rings on then hook it back. They hang off the side of my metal shelves

That's an excellent idea! I'd need several hangers, though....lots and lots of rings and I may need to do a purge, like Tortoise.

I found 2 sets of extra shower rings that DH insisted we keep. I put 6 jar rings on a shower ring and throw them in a bin. i purged close to 100 rings too. Only use so many at a time... I only have wide mouth jars, I'm not going to fuss around with 2 sizes of lids and rings!

Now, why didn't I think of that??? I need to get rid of my few lingering small mouth jars and just go to all wide. It IS a pain trying to keep both sizes on hand and I've slowly been moving towards wide mouth over the years, but haven't quite made the full transition.

I may try to move some small mouth pt. jars out of here next week when we do apple butter and invite some ladies over to help and to take home of the goodness.

 

[tortoise]

Kerr brand has wide mouth half pint jars with straight sides. If that helps! I bought 2 more dozen of those and another 6 1/2 gallon jars today. I really don't have enough shelf space for them all but i run out of those sizes.

 

[lcertuche]

As most know my church is great at blessing us with and the community with fresh produce. Last week it was russet potatoes, roma tomatoes, huge papayas, sweet mini peppers, mixed fruit, cherries, mustard greens, spinach, and fresh herbs. I dehydrated the herbs, canned spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes and sweet peppers, canned roasted peppers, canned potatoes. Froze some of the spaghetti sauce and potatoes because I ran out of jars. I also froze the greens because I like them better that way. I froze the papaya cubed for smoothies. We ate the cherries. I will try to remember to post some pictures later but it's off to church this morning.

 

[Beekissed]

I really like your church!!! What a blessing to have so many generous people!

 

[lcertuche]

It takes a lot of people working to do it but it is a real blessing in these times. Our community is a very poor one and Tyson is the main employer. The wages are lower here than anywhere else but at least it's a paycheck. Walmart just closed but we are learning we can live without it. Several new businesses are cropping up. Our closet closet we have for the community is having record turn outs. With us giving away as much as a thousand articles every month, of clothing, not to mention shoes, toys, books, quilts and housewares.

 

[Hinotori]

12 pints of skinless grape jam.

My experiment using the food mill instead of the steam juicer. The little bit left over was pretty good. Purple concords so it is very grapey.