When you can pickles, you can't taste them right away. (It turns out that pickles are really just cucumbers.) You have to wait a couple of months so that the vinegar has time to work its magic. Justin and I decided that the time had finally come for us to try our home canning experiments. We started with the spaghetti sauce.
I was making stuffed pasta shells for dinner one night, and the recipe called for spaghetti sauce, so I decided to use one of our homemade cans. We had used the recipe from Barbara Kingsolver's book, the one that inspired all the domesticity in the first place. It turns out that while Kingsolver has written several good books, she doesn't really have a flare for writing recipes. The spaghetti sauce was nasty, and we dumped it all out.
Next we tried the pickles, with much the same result: it turned out they were nasty, and we dumped them all out.
After two disappointments already, we turned to the salsa without much hope. Even as we were canning it, we thought that there was a good chance we had chosen a terrible salsa recipe. The thing that clued us in to this was the apple cidar vinegar combined with 7 cloves of garlic. We were right. The salsa was terrible, and we dumped it out.
So what did we get out of more than 50 pounds of tomatoes and cucumbers? A mere 6 jars of tomatoes. Lessons learned: 1. Find a good recipe before you start canning. 2. Instead of canning, just go to the store and buy what you need.
9 comments:
I've been wondering about the benefits of canning. Now I know! This post made me laugh. -Ali
Hey Bethee! Love your blog. You are so entertaining to read--I'm not surprised! Justin is tall and cute! You look great together.
As for canning, yes, canning is for those who have a garden and have 50 pounds of tomatoes all at once that will go bad if they don't find something to do with them. I've done the garden, which I really enjoy, but never tried the canning. Your post doesn't get me any closer to trying!
Congrats again!
Haha. I mean, I really shouldn't laugh because the logical side of me bemoans the time and money you spent on canning attempts... but how can you help but laugh? Lessons learned. Vlasic and Hunts really are the way to go. And there's no need to worry about inhumane treatment of cucumbers and tomatoes to worry about raising them in your backyard. Unlike turkeys. Have you adopted one yet for next year's Thanksgiving?
Boo on Barbara for picking nasty recipes.
Very funny. I love the picture of all the money going down the drain. So fitting...
I loved the top picture on this post! It totally looks like the face that Heather's cute baby Molly pulled in a photo on Heath's latest post!
Thanks for the warning. I've been reading that book and getting all sorts of bizarre ideas--guess I need to temper my excitement.
we got your invitation in the mail! love the picture... so cute!!
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the factory workers in Ohio doing my canning for me, and of Costco for selling me those cans. Now there's two commandments you can keep by writing a check. Now if only I could pay off my assignment to clean the church . . .
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