After last's year's inaugural run of home canning, we learned a very important lesson--not all home canned goods are worth the effort. We were trying all sorts of crazy things like pickles, salsa, and spaghetti sauce, all of which we ended up throwing away. This year, we decided that we should just keep it simple.On Saturday we went to the farmer's market in Old Towne Alexandria, and haggled our way to a great price on heirloom tomatoes and peaches. Okay, haggling might be a bit strong of a word. Really, we asked the farmer if we were to buy a whole box of peaches, if he'd give us a deal--and he said, "Sure. I'll give you 25 lbs. for $20 bucks." In case you haven't priced out peaches lately, that is a very good deal. (They were originally $2.29/lb) We did the same with the tomato dealer--we got 12.5 lbs of tomatoes for a steal!
So this year's canning went much smoother than last year. All we had to do was blanche, peel, and stuff in the can. Easy peasy!
We started by putting all the peaches in the fridge. It looked pretty cool, so I took a picture.
And here are our tomatoes. They look funny because they were grown to taste good (rather than ship well). We have been fully indoctrinated on the importance of buying locally grown food.
And here are our tomatoes. They look funny because they were grown to taste good (rather than ship well). We have been fully indoctrinated on the importance of buying locally grown food.
So Here I am about to put the peeled tomatoe into the bowl. (Note: I woke up and walked directly out into the kitchen for our canning adventure, so if I don't look quite as beautiful as usual, pray forgive.)
Then Justin took them from the bowl and put them in the cans. He wore his red shirt just in case he spilled. (He has maybe had a few tomato drips down his shirt recently.)
And now it's on to the peaches. Tip: If you cut an "X" into the peach or tomato before blanching, it makes it really easy to peel.
Peeling the peaches is fun to do, fun to do, to do, to do...
The tomatoes are done! But what happened to the 5th can? I swear we put 5 cans into the steam bath...
How sad! The bottom blew off the jar, so we lost 1/5 of our tomatoes.
But it turns out we had way more peaches than we anticipated.
All in all, we ended up with 4 jars of tomatoes and 13 jars of peaches, and it only took 3.5 hours from start to all cleaned up and blogged about. It should be a peachy winter! 
7 comments:
This looks so fun. And from what you put in your email about kids making you domestic...I think it was probably a little EASIER for you to do all that WITHOUT munchkins. :o) The only reason that a child has made me more "domestic" is that the said child brought me HOME from work. :o) So now that I'm here all the time, might as well be domestic, right? Still working on that...
You guys crack me up! I'm trying to picture Chad and I canning together. Justin is a peach of a fellow...pun intended!! I went to a class the other day on canning, I decided it was cheaper just to buy a can at walmart. I am cery proud of your domesticity.
I think it probably is cheaper to buy a can at WalMart. I think canning is really only cost-effective if you are growing a ton a fruits/vegetables yourself, and you have so many you don't know what to do with them all. But, on the other hand, we did get actually ripe fruit grown by a local farmer so that it has the ideal taste...unlike Walmart's suppliers who grow things to be hard enough to survive shipping long distances. And I can't really picture you and Chad canning together either. Maybe after you help mom with her peaches you'll feel differently about it...
Did you sing Presidents of the United States of America afterward? That's what's going through my head right now. :)
WOW Bethany! Good work! I'm impressed!! I love home canned peaches - I think they taste way better than store bought. Although with my lack of canning ability I would probably end up just buying them at the store.
I haven't checked your blog in a while, so I'm going to reply to lots of posts at once here. First of all, the license plate creation is AWESOME! I love it when we can rip off other people's good ideas in the name of art (especially when we are successful at it). I love the color blue in your place, it is so fun! I am impressed with all of your canning. It makes me think of grandma's big closet of random jars of peaches and such that my mom always told me never to touch. I hope you're doing well. Live up the last few weeks of your 20s!
Wow! I am so super impressed! And that last photo of all the jars lined up is amazing!
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