Category: Canning/Harvest

Canning/Harvest, Recipes

Bbq barbeque sauce 2022

Keira

***disclaimer before you think this is a real recipe, it is not! It is notes on what *I* did on a scientific basis in order to create my own safe bbq sauce recipe from tomato skins. It has not been tested by any official source and I completely created it myself instead of using my knowledge to safely tweak someone else’s. Use this recipe and this blog post at your own risk.**z

Once again I decided I’d re-try a recipe I had in the past and it’s been so long that I have no idea what that recipe even was or where it came from. I would hide in self-pitty but I’m too stubborn. I’ve been looking for days and I am just going to have to do my own digging on what makes a good and bottle-able sauce! So here goes:

First of all, I struggle with a lot of the recipes on the world wide web because they start with whole tomatoes! Since I use tomato skins to get my tomatoes, this is an impossible measurement. So for my recipe I started with 3 gallons of tomatoes and tomato skins that I have heated, blended, heated some more, and run through the victorio. It’s pretty tedious to run that much tomato through the victorio since it likes to just kinda hover and not run through with the entirety being soft and small, but some tips I re-learn every year should help the process: first, when things stop moving, do a turn or two backwards. It loosens everything back up and gets things flowing again. Also, if things get unproductive, grab a scoop/handful of the already processed skins and push them through. After that process, you’re left with smooth tomato juice, no seeds, no skins (or at least very small shreds of it. Not gonna lie, some seem to always slip in).

Then reduce that down by about half (so 3 gallons becomes 1 1/2). Upon further reading after it was too late, I wish I had added onion before reducing, because even the ball recipe adds diced onion, which is odd to me because I was told to never add vegetables. But I had onions and my guess is that they’d be obsolete as a pH-affecting entity in such a reducing process. I pH tested my tomatoes at this point just for scientific reasons and my particular tomatoes (I used all the interesting colored heirlooms, so a lot of Cherokee green and brandywine yellow and Valencia and German stripe. I also threw in all my unripe ones, about 3 pounds) simmered down this far had a pH of 4.3. just in case you were curious. I don’t know what they started out as before simmering down so this info is pretty worthless. But it gave me a starting off point for how much it’s safe to play with a BBQ recipe.

After it simmered down I added:

  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar (5%)
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 6 tbs molasses
  • 5 tbs prepared mustard
  • 3 tbs lemon juice
  • 5 tbs salt
  • 4 tbs onion powder (I think I was happier at 3)
  • 3 tbs garlic powder
  • 3 tbs chili powder ( I would have been happier at 2.5)
  • 1 tbs sugar
  • 4 tsp cinnamon (I wish I had stopped at 3)
  • 4 tsp paprika
  • 3 tsp nutmeg
  • 2 tsp coriander

I let it summer about 30 minutes (I bet 15 minutes would work, I was testing flavors), put it in jars and pressure canned for 15 minutes. Only to discover that there aren’t any pressure canning guidelines! I’m guessing that pressure canning is just overkill? I intend to call the extension office tomorrow to find out if I need to reprocess them, but for now, they’re sealing easily as I type this [I called. Without hesitation they told me I was fine to have pressured it and probably overprocessed but for bbq sauce it wouldn’t matter]. And the pH is 3.97 so they’re acidic enough I easily could have waterbath canned them. It’s just I pressure canned the tomato sauce right before this and the sauce starts out the same way so I didn’t think about it until it was in the canner gaining pressure.

As far as flavor, I wish it were sweeter. My husband wishes it had more heat. But we could mess with it the whole time and end up ruining it in entirety, or bottle a decent sauce that is pretty basic and therefore can be tweaked for what preparation I intend. For instance, I will probably add some liquid smoke and a tablespoon of brown sugar when I use it to make pulled pork. But I will also probably add a dash of ketchup when I give it to my kiddos for dipping fries or chicken strips. And I’ll appease my husband and add some hot sauce and a little clear gelatin when I’m basting some ribs.

Also, I read during my research that you could add applesauce and the more we talked about it, the more Ranger and I agreed that would have helped it. Applesauce should fall safely I’m the pH range, too. We both think we might take one bottle and experiment with it that way.

Canning/Harvest, Recipes

Berry lemonade

Keira

Our berry choice was huckleberry, raspberry, and nanking cherry juice. They’re all tart berries so I added 1 cup sugar. My mom probably would have added more but she also said that she can always add more sugar when it was made up but I wouldn’t be able to take any out. Also, I modified the recipe to what I wish I had done as I sat waiting for it to process. This time around we divided the juice evenly between the jars and then added water to get a better headspace; but, I really feel like the berry lemonade could have had more lemon, so the recipe reflects an extra cup of lemon juice I wish I had added in processing. It will probably need more sugar that way, though.

  • 10 cups of lightly masserated berries
  • 6 cups of water (you may need more)
  • Peels from 10 lemons (instructions below)
  • 5 cups lemon juice
  • 6 cups of sugar (plus more to taste)

Simmer berries and water 20 minutes.

While the berries are simmering, peel 10 lemons with a peeler so that they are large chunks. You don’t want to zest them, but you’re after the whole yellow part. Set aside.

Transfer 3 cups of liquid (try to get just liquid!) into a separate saucepan. Add 6 cups of sugar. Stir and simmer until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add lemon peels, and cover to steep for 10 minutes. When it has cooled a little bit, return to the heat until it simmers and then let steep 10 more minutes. Re-heating the liquid helps release the rest of the oils and infuses it in the syrup better.

Strain out the peels and turn them into candied lemon.

Put syrup and lemon juice back in the stockpot. Simmer until desired flavor is achieved (can take a few hours). Add sugar to taste. And remember it’s a concentrate, so it should be strong!

Put 2 tablespoons of the reserved mash of berries into 7 warm sterile jars and then spread the rest evenly throughout. Pour warm liquid over the berries (you need about 1/2″ headspace, but it can vary based on how much liquid you have). You may have to add a little water.

Process for 20 minutes, adjusting for altitude (I live at 5000 feet).

To reconstitute, it’s about one part concentrate to one part water or soda, but adjust it to taste. You can also add sugar to taste if you need to.

Canning/Harvest

Harvest 2021

Keira

This post is probably boring to everyone but me, so you have my permission to move on. But if you like gardens and knowing totals, you might find one information here:

In thinning the carrots, I picked about 3 gallons when the stems were off. That made 10 jars of pickles carrots. And boy are they pretty with all the different colors in there. Note to self, Cosmo purple aren’t great for canning. I took a risk and left the skins on just to hilight the purple that is only on the outside and they are still orange when canned, but the brine is red-tinted. Not worth it. However the atomic red are pinkish in the jar, and make a nice addition. I haven’t found too many of them, yet. And they don’t really scream red, but in a jar full of real orange, yellows, and whites, they’re different and elegant.

The lunar white carrots taste amazing, but they kept getting rooty and seedy. Not cool. I guess I can’t say for sure if was the lunar whites, it could have been the mystery whites from the Sow Easy packet.

The varieties I planted.

I will have to go thin them again (or at least harvest them) but it was nice to harvest and get the canning ball rolling. And my preschooler that hates carrots will now eat them… In pickled form.

I put all the pretty ones in the same jar.

I really want to find a way to plant carrots so I don’t have as much early thinning. I tried mixing them with sand this year and it didn’t work, I still ended up with bald spots and over-crowded spots that I wasted tiny seedlings. And with the sand, I ended up with carrots all over my garden from seeds not staying in their spot.

I thinned the beets, too. I planted Detroit Dark Red and Ruby Queen. My family has always done Detroit Dark Red… But I might be a traitor because Ruby Queen has grown amazingly and they’re so much easier to peel. It’s already time to harvest the Ruby Queen beets, but the Detroit Dark Red can stay longer. There is definitely a difference in color. One is really purple compared to the other.

I got 6 1/2 pints. I can’t remember how many gallons of just roots from harvesting, though.

And oh the peas! My peas have been crazy this year. I planted 4 rows, 6″, 12″, and 6″ apart like I usually do… And I’m not gonna do that again. Usually they don’t come up so well and then I have some on either side of my string trellis and it works out. Next year, I will plant them with a walkway between them. Or at least use better string/twine! They snapped the string and I had to deal with vining swampy peas. No fun. But I got 6 harvests of 2 gallons each! And I’m still getting about a gallon every few days now.

How many have I managed to get in the freezer? Um… 1/2 a gallon of just peas, and 1/2 a gallon of peas and baby carrots from my first thinning. The rest have gone into just about every meal I’ve made over the summer. Or straight into little mouths. Am I complaining about that? Not in the slightest. But it tells me that 4 rows is my minimum.

However, green beans… I planted those darn things twice and something keeps eating the new sprouts! I even placed forks in the rows to keep things out and they eat around the forks. Which makes me think that field mice really like bean sprouts. So I bought 11 lbs from my friend and it made 27 pints.

My other purchase for canning so far has been cherries. I thought I’d missed them, and wasn’t willing to pay upwards of $5 per lb, so I didn’t think I’d get to use my new cherry pitter this year. Then I was walking down the produce aisle at the grocery store and saw cherries for $1.99/lb! I snatched up 4 bags (couldn’t bring myself to get more) and filled the jars half full (I want to use the juice just as much as the cherries), boiled the pits (for not nearly long enough) to get more meat/juice off of them (eventually I’ll have a steam juicer) and put about 3/4 a cup of what I had boiled in each jar, filling the rest with simple syrup of 1:4 (sugar:water). I hope they’re not too sweet, I used internet suggestions. It made 13 qts, so 2 lbs per batch. Remember, that’s about half full, though.

And, as a note to myself, I made a video of my garden, but I don’t want to add it here because it has identifying location features.

Canning/Harvest

Tomato Varieties

Keira

This is more of a tomato diary than anything. If you don’t care about tomatoes, keep moving, haha.

Firstly, I planted tomatoes on April 15th. Not as early as I wanted to, but last year I planted them too early and they all got root-bound so late is better in this case. In my growing zone I don’t actually put them in the soil until the weekend after memorial day (we always get caught off guard by one last super cold day and too many people lose their tomatoes. I don’t wanna be one of those people), so we still have plenty of time. I planted 3 of each variety.

I bought an heirloom seed packet from David’s Garden (no commission. Just pretty impressed with his seeds. No one is paying me or rewarding me for this post). This included Slicing Black Prince, Striped German Hybrid, Slicing Moskovich Slicing, Beefsteak Brandywine, Beefsteak Cherokee Purple, Beefsteak Cherokee Green, Beefsteak Great White, Beefsteak Valencia, Beefsteak Yellow Brandywine, and Beefsteak Rose. I also had cherry, pear, Roma, and Rutgers tomato seeds from years past, Carbon seeds from Baker Creek Seeds (kind of a seed nerd girl favorite. All their catalogs are so pretty and I feel fancy ordering from them), and Delicious tomato seeds from Gurney’s seeds (I like their seeds but they’re never in a rush on shipping, so order *way* early).

The only ones not claiming “heirloom” status are my Roma, the Delicious and Cherry tomatoes (though I have a packet of Cherry tomaotes that do say heirloom. This packet is older so I grew it this year (I like my other one better, though), and the Striped German (it’s the only one that says hybrid in the title). I want to keep seeds, done all the research on how to do it, but I haven’t managed to do it yet. I’ve also never managed to compare seed packets like I’ve wanted to before, so I’m at least checking that off my bucket list. Fingers crossed I can stick with it.

If you want to see how last year went, I’ve got a gorgeous tomato picture in this post. The same seeds were used.

Today is April 27th and I feel like I need to get this all written down before I forget it all.

First, the Delicious seeds popped out of their pods first. They’re growing amazingly well. Next (a very close second) were the Valencia, White (surprisingly. The packet said they’re hard to grow. And I got a whole 4 white tomatoes last year, so it’s probably not wrongn), and Brandywine. They all have their second set of leaves. I think the Black Prince will catch up, they’re all kind of showing their heads, but just barely. Then I have 1 German, 2 Moskovich, 2 Purple, 2 Roma, 2 Green (plus a sneaky volunteer. I dropped a seed when I planted and it landed right in the hole, I guess), 2 Yellow, 2 Rose, and 2 cherry. My Rutgers, cherry, and pear seeds are losing the race. The Rutgers have sprouts but none of them look healthy, they still have the seed shell on them and they’re tiny. I’ve got some sprouts starting to show in my cherry pods, and not a single pear tomaoto is showing, which surprises me because I always have a *ton* of Pear and Cherry tomaotes by season end. Fingers crossed the rest show up but each day looks less promising. I also have an extra white and a mystery plant. The white seeds were both little and stuck together so I left them (like I said, they’re supposed to be hard to grow). And when everything was planted I found a random seed and didn’t want to put it back in the wrong spot, so I just threw it in some soil. We will see what it turns out to be).

I intend to keep 2 plants from anything that grows, and the 3rd plant I will send to my parents. They live in a different growing zone (I’m in 5B and they’re in 7A), but I wanted an accurate idea of how things grew and didn’t want to have open garden space because something didn’t grow well, and my mom said plant some for my dad, too, so my dad getting the surplus is a win for both of us.

More to come…

May 23 Update

I transplanted tomatoes (and my sunflowers) on the third of May. I decided to re-plant some of the problematic ones. For science. Some were just extra for my mom (I had the space). Instead of writing lots of paragraphs, it seems easier to just start putting everything in chart form. I like charts.

Varietyreplantedtotal notes
Delicious03Still doing crazy well.
Valencia03Doing well. Turned the grow light off because they were getting sunburned (weird) but nothing else has suffered from not having it on.
Purple03Interesting note: I thought only 2 would survive (only transplanted 2) but the other guy was just a late bloomer. He’s currently got his second set of leaves and I’m about to transplant him.
Green02growing well. I had 4 plants (one volunteer seed) but one didn’t grow and my children … loved on the other one. This plant also got sunburned from the growlight. I didn’t replant because my mom doesn’t care for green tomatoes.
Yellow02Growing well. Didnt replant because my Mom doesn’t care for yellow either. She’s more of a classic tomato fan.
White03I have 2 unlabeled plants now (thanks kids) so maybe 1 is the extra white one? They’re looking a little weak. Thin, long stems. The packet that came with advised planting a fish with them, so when I put them in he ground, I most definitely will!
Brandywine03The tallest plants now! They’re getting eager to be transplanted but I never dare plant tomatoes in the ground until after Memorial Day.
Roma25I thought I was only getting 2 Roma plants so I planted another for science and an extra one for my mom. 2 days ago the last little Roma popped his head out of the dirt! The other 2 (planted May 3rd) have their second set of leaves now, but that guy’s pulling through!
Rose13growing as expected
Moskovich131 plant doing really well. One on the short end. replanted one appropriate size for being re-planted.
Cherry23Same as Roma, thought I was only getting 2 cherry plants so I planted 2 more just to make sure I had enough to send to Mom and I have a little seedling growing well! the original 2 are growing well. the second planting have not sprouted yet. But that 3rd little guy is growing!
Pear33One pear plant transplanted with the rest. Replanted 3 to make sure I got enough. 2 have sprouted from the second set.
German24ishI thought I was only getting 1 German so I replanted 2 more. When I was checking on my seedlings today, the 2 I had all but given up on are starting to break through the soil. No leaves out yet, but there are 2 living plants coming up. One of the replants is also up. the original plant is doing well and about 6″ tall.
Carbon23ish1 carbon made it to transplanting and is doing well. one was decapitated when the seed shell didn’t come off right (I need to figure out how to help them with that). It’s still alive, but I’m not counting it a survivor. one of the replants is up with it’s second set of leaves. And as I was evaluating all of the other late-bloomers, I’ve got a carbon sprout working it’s way out.
Black Prince221 plant is growing well. 1 replant is sprouted with a second set of leaves.
Rutgers306 plants and 1 was decapitated when the seed shell didn’t come off, one still has the seed shell on and I don’t wanna repeat the problem (but it’s not growing), and the new ones haven’t even sprouted yet. Don’t think I’ll keep trying these.

Brag, Canning/Harvest

Harvest totals (for my information)

Keira

I always forget by the time it’s next harvest season (or even next growing season), so I’m writing a post, simply for my memory, but feel free to follow along!

This year, I planted sooo many seeds and most of them died. the only thing that survived were my tomato plants (and I planted a ton of them, thinking I’d sell them or give some to family or neighbors. But by the time I got them in the ground, I didn’t wanna give them to everyone else because they were not in great shape. They needed to be planted sooo much sooner, not halfway into June! But I have toddler twins, and a super active preschooler (still technically a toddler when I was growing from seeds and planting), and needed help to get them in the ground. I intended to keep track of how many plants were out in the garden, but… I didn’t.

When we harvested all the tomatoes before the freeze, 99% were still green. But when hey did finally ripen, they were pretty yellows and purples and some nice round reds. I got about 10 green tomatoes and 1 (count it) white tomato. I think I had more white, but they ended up in the green salsa/enchilada sauce because they didn’t look like they would ripen well (which is how I decided which green tomatoes to select).

From those 10ish boxes of tomatoes, I’ve gotten

  • 17 pts freezer green salsa (somehow I messed up and it made a ton so I didn’t feel safe canning it)
  • 31 pts regular salsa (a batch of 8 used the only peppers I got from plants I bought on clearance and the onions my MIL gave me. The jalapenos were smaller than my fingernails, but I had a few good poblanos and some mini bells, some Cajun bells [spicier?], some seranoes, and some spicy banana peppers) 23 jars used serranoes, Jalapenos, and green bells.
  • 7 pts green salsa (I labeled it small batch green salsa to keep track of 2 different recipes I’m trying this year )
  • 7 qts stewed tomatoes
  • 6 qts spicy stewed tomatoes
  • 1 batch of bbq sauce (I’ll have to update the total, but I think I got about 14 half-pints of sauce)
  • 18.5 qts green enchilada sauce
  • 9 qts of stewed tomatoes (forgot the salt, dang it!)
  • 4.5 qts of leftovers from previous batches (mixed stewed and rotel/spicy stewed)
  • 16 pts of salsa (jalapenos and green peppers only)
  • 12 qts of whole tomatoes
  • 12 qts of tomato juice (one jar was a hand-me-down from my grandma and isn’t quite a quart, but there’s another hand-me-down jar that is probably over a quart, so I’m just rolling with it)
  • 11 qts whole tomatoes (forgot the salt in 4 of them again! And I had the *worst* luck. In one batch I only had 1 jar seal!)
  • 32 pts of green salsa with very little heat. I ended up doing the math wrong and making way more than intended, but it used up all the greens I had left, so I wasn’t complaining!
  • 14 jars (assuming they all seal, as they’re cooling as I type) of herb tomatoes. And I am DONE with tomatoes. whew.

I also bought 3 boxes of tomatoes (in case mine never got ripe), 1 box of peaches (all they had was white when I went to buy them. I looked at a comparison chart and I’m guessing they’re Georgia Belles?) and 1 box of pears around mid-September. In which, I got:

  • canned sliced peaches (when I actually count this, I need to remember I’ve already snitched one jar)
  • canned quartered pears
  • multiple varieties of mixed fruit (note, some of the mixed fruit came from my friend delivering fruit from her tree and my MIL giving me a box of peaches. Most of my MIL’s peaches went into jam this year, though because the peaches didn’t know if they were gonna be too firm or too mushy and were varying combinations within the same peach)
  • 34 qts of whole tomatoes

So… how much does approximately 10 boxes of tomatoes weigh? I measured it all because I was curious.

I used:

  • 7 1/2 lbs green
  • 4 1/2 lbs green
  • 30 lbs green
  • 17.5 lbs green

  • 5 lbs ripe
  • 1 1/4 lbs ripe
  • 5 lbs ripe
  • 10 lbs ripe
  • 14 lbs ripe
  • 11 lbs ripe
  • 5 lbs ripe
  • 12 lbs ripe
  • 5 lbs ripe
  • 10 lbs ripe
  • 12 lbs ripe
  • 22 lbs ripe
  • 22 lbs ripe
  • 3 lbs ripe
  • 25 lbs ripe

So, just under 60 lbs of green and 128 (and change) pounds of ripe tomatoes!

I also turned our tomato skins into tomato sauce (because a), paste scares me, and b), I think sauce has more uses). The first batch (which included leftovers from last year that I never processed – just left in the freezer – started out as 20 qts of skins and turned into 3 3/4 qts (in 20 different half and quarter pint jars). The second batch is still sitting in the fridge waiting for processing, (it’s not nearly as much, but with all the heirloom tomatoes, the bowl is quite colorful).

Also of note: I bought 200 regular Tattler lids and 100 wide mouth Tattler lids. At the end of canning season, I have 0 regular and 35 wide-mouth lids left. I would have had less but I don’t like doing tomatoes with tattler lids, so I finished off the tail end with the normal kind I had in storage. Seriously, I bawled my eyes out one night. I have never had so many problems canning. I have had great success with the tattlers in water-bath canning, but canning in the pressure canner… yeah. lets just say that the night I bawled, I got 1 successful jar in 2 canner loads (noted above). And a huge exploded mess inside the canners. I don’t think I need all 100 tattler lids in the future, to be honest. But I definitely could use more regular mouth lids!

Canning/Harvest, Recipes

2 Green Tomato Salsa recipes

Keira

I have converted this recipe (because I hate recipes that are variable, and this recipe is sooo easy to mess up with their instructions!) from the Ball Kerr website (they must have caught on, as it’s no longer available. I might try this one, though).

  • 4 1/4 lbs green tomatoes
  • 1 lb peppers
  • 1 1/4 lbs onions
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 20 grams cilantro, stems and leaves
  • 4 tsp cumin
  • 2 tsp dried oregano
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper

Dump tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic and lime juice in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add cilantro, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper and simmer 5 minutes.

Ladle hot salsa into a hot jar leaving a ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe jar rim. place lids and rings.

Process filled jars in a boiling water canner for 30 minutes, adjusting for altitude (you will most likely need less, I live at 5000 ft). Turn off the heat, remove jars and let cool. Check for seal after 12-24 hours.

_____________________________________________________

This one is also modified in measurement methods. It comes from this website. I have labeled it “small batch” so that I can compare the difference. I will update on which I like better in the future.

  • 6 green tomatoes, chopped in large pieces
  • 2 green peppers, chopped in large pieces
  • 2 small onion, quartered
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • 20 oz parsley
  • 1 long hot pepper
  • 2 limes zest and juice (I peeled the limes with a peeler, scooped out the insides, and tossed it in the food processer with the pepper)
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 4 tsp apple cider vinegar
Canning/Harvest, Recipes

Not Quite V8 juice, but as close as I could find: the recipe

Keira

To start off with, I got this recipe from this website (and she says she got it from the Ball canning book in 2014, but I didn’t fact check that), and the author has a lot of good notes, please go check it out. I’m only writing here so that I can remember how I changed it in the future.

I really wanted something with beets because real v8 uses beets, but I can’t find anything I trust, really. And since most of the recipes I found (okay, ALL of the recipes I found) called for waterbath canning methods, I didn’t want to add a very basic (as in contrast to acidic) ingredient without an official recipe to follow.

  • 2.5 oz celery. About 2 medium stalks or 3/4 c
  • 3 oz bell pepper. A little less than 1 or 3/4 c
  • 3 oz carrots. About 2 small carrots (I used 1 small and 1 med and had about 2″ left of the med) or 3/4 c
  • 3 oz onion. About 1 small to medium onion or 1/2 c
  • 5 g fresh parsley. Which is only about 4 sprigs, or ¼ cup
  • 22 lbs tomatoes. The recipe says about 65 medium, but I have so many sizes I only went by weight
  • 3 tablespoon salt, to taste (original only had 1 T and that wasn’t nearly enough in my opionion.
  • 1/4 c worcestershire sauce (not in the original recipe, but when I did my research, it is more acidic than what the jar needs to be at, so I felt safe adding it).
  • 1 T Lemon juice PER JAR
  • 1/4 tsp citric acid PER JAR

Prep all the veggies before you weigh them. I did thin slices for the celery and carrots, dices for the peppers, huge chunks for the onions (though my mom would have blended them in the blender to get as much onion flavor as possible), pinched off the heads of the parsley leaves, and quartered the tomatoes.

In a smaller (only in comparison, it was still 5 qts, which – aside from canning – is my largest) pot, place the carrots, onions, and about 5 lbs of tomatoes (don’t know for sure how much it was, because I measured everything out beforehand and then just grabbed enough to fill the pot decently. Squish the tomatoes with a potato masher to get enough liquid you don’t just scorch your carrots. Bring to a medium-high heat and simmer (you don’t want to burn anything) about 20 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients into a large stock pot (It filled my waterbath canner full! But when you mash the tomatoes, it’s not so scary). Start the heat out low so it doesn’t scorch while you’re trying to get enough liquid from the tomatoes to get everything to a simmer. As more liquid works its way out, and as it becomes easier to stir, turn it up to a medium (maybe medium-high, but on my stove, that burns it.

After the 20 minutes for the first (“smaller”) pot, add it to the large stock pot. It will take a while for the big pot to get to a simmer (and you may have to turn your stove up), but the carrots had a head start in the other pot, and the warm liquid will help the large pot get there a little faster. Once it reaches a simmer, let everything stay at a simmer for 20 minutes, giving your carrots enough time to cook down. You’re still going to have to stir frequently! But the longer it simmers, the easier it is to stir.

let cool for a few hours (it took us about 3 hours before we didn’t feel like we were going to burn ourselves), and then send it through the victorio (Food mill). As the bowl collecting juice gets full, place it in a clean stock pot and keep going until all the juice is processed. I like to send the skins and seeds through one more time and then re-mill about 2-4 cups of juice through just to get all the little pieces to work out, but that might be overkill?

Place the now-smooth(er) juice on the stove and heat it, but don’t worry about getting it to a simmer. Ladle juice into warm sterile jars, add the lemon juice and citric acid to each jar, and wipe off the rims. Add lids and rings.

Process jars in a water bath canner for 50 minutes (I’m at 5,000 altitude. You probably need less). Let cool and test for seal after 12-24 hours.

Of note: this recipe is supposed to make 7 qts. I ended up with 12! I processed it anyway, because 1) you add the acid to each jar, so I felt confident in the acid being there, and 2) If anything was extra, it was tomatoes, and not veggies.

Canning/Harvest, Recipes

Stewed Tomatoes Recipe

Keira
  • 8 qts tomatoes (13ish lbs.)
  • 2 qts vegetables (3 c onions, 3 cups green peppers, 2 c celery)
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 2 Tbs lemon juice (to taste. but note, it’s supposed to be 2 tbs IN EACH JAR. I tried it that way once. It was soooo nasty. Citric acid in the jars is a better bet)
  • 1 1/2 tsp of salt per jar

Heat vegetables and 2 qts tomatoes to warm, then add the rest of the tomatoes and the garlic. Heat to warm. Add lemon juice to taste noting that there is going to be salt added to the jars.

Process in a pressure canner for 30 mins.

___________________________________________________

To make this into a Ro-Tel type stewed (spicy stewed), change the recipe as follows:

  • 8 qt tomatoes
  • 1 qt peppers (I did 2 jalapenos, 1 Anaheim, and filled the rest of the jar with green bell peppers (about 1 1/2).
  • 1 qt onions
  • 3 cloves garlic (pretty sure I forgot the garlic this year. Oops)
  • 2 Tbs lemon juice
  • 1 tsp salt per jar

________________________________________________________

Notes: there is usually extra (as in more than 7 qts full) but I didn’t want to work the math to tweak the recipe down as this is the ratio I see given most often in other recipes and I know with tomatoes you have to be very careful not to tweak proportions. Most of those recipes are water bathed and in my research, it sounds like water bathing any tomatoes is a dangerous idea if you’re adding any other vegetables. That being said, I’m just an internet junkie and do not have enough knowledge to be an authority (AKA, Use this recipe at your own risk).

Canning/Harvest, Kids Need Play

Harvest!

Keira

Dear Reader,

Well, tis the season. Things are busy around here. We are harvesting apples and tomatoes before the freeze! We didn’t get our tomato plants into the ground even remotely soon enough, so most of our tomatoes are still in the green stages so we picked a TON of green tomatoes. This season, our preschooler has been super helpful. She has been anxiously awaiting the day the apples were ready to pick, even sneaking out to go check them frequently. The day we decided it was time to pick, she was super excited! Does it really count as an intentional preschooler activity? Maybe not. But it is teaching her life skills I mean, doesn’t everyone need to know how to harvest and preserve? And if I can teach her now, then all the better.

There was a hard freeze warning a few nights ago so we harvested all the tomatoes, green or not. We filled every box we could find and I calculate it’s about 10 half-bushel boxes worth? I have been weighing the tomatoes as I use them (the ready ones and the ones I know are not going to turn red) and keeping a tally, and I’ll add an update at the end of this blog. So far, just in the past few days, we’ve got 2 boxes of ripe tomatoes, and I made 2 batches of green salsa with the ones I knew weren’t going to ripen. The pic with little fingers are the beginnings of the green, as my preschooler helped me sort them. Obviously, for the most part, she can’t tell what is going to ripen vs what isn’t, but she is good at making a pile and picking red and yellow from the green. The other picture is my brag picture. that tomato is huge! I weighed it and it weighs 1 1/2 pounds! It fills both palms! I prayed it’d ripen before the freeze. It’s not quite there, yet but it can ripen in the house now.

There are still apples on the trees (2 aren’t quite ready yet. They’re a later variety), but so far we have gotten 7 boxes (3 of which are coolers) full storing in cold storage while I work on the tomatoes. Although our preschooler loved harvesting all the tomatoes, she loves picking (and eating) apples more. We have plenty of applesauce, so I think most of the apples this year are going to go toward apple butter and pressed apple juice. I’m really excited about the juice. We bought a press a few years ago but didn’t have the time to finish putting it together before we gave up and made applesauce. This year, though, that press is getting assembled. We have soooo many apples! But with 3 littles, it will be such a blessing to have fresh apple juice all winter long. I was talking with my mom this summer about how I always thought it was such a luxury to have juice at our house, but now that I have so many kiddos it makes sense. Keeping that much juice in the fridge is expensive! and one thing of juice only gives everyone only a small glass full before it is gone.

Check back in on a future post to see Canning totals! I like to keep track of them on my blog so that I can go back in next year and see what everything ended up equaling. It really helps me keep a better perspective on what the harvest is compared to the year before.

Keira at searchforseven.com
A Day in the Life, Canning/Harvest, Kids Need Play

What We did with Our Berries

Keira

Dear Reader,

I’ve had a longstanding date with my friend’s raspberry patch set for about once a year. She only calls me when it gets desperate in her patch and she’s struggling to catch up; her main goal is to fulfill all the demand that others have for berries from her patch and I usually take about half of the berries I pick. This year has been a great year for raspberries and she said she had more than she could handle, so I bought extra from her. That meant I’ve been busy working raspberries for the past few days. Since my preschooler helped me pick the berries, I figured she would also be interested in helping me process them, as well.

Obviously, this activity would have to be tweaked if you don’t have a food strainer, but you could easily mash berries with a potato masher! It just doesn’t involve a cool crank, too. My food strainer is called a Victorio, but based on the internet search dive I just took, they must have changed their name? either way, it looks like this. My preschooler could both turn the crank handle and mash the berries, and it was kinda fun watching her get so excited at something that is really technically a chore. She loved making “squished berry juice” and I loved both the help and the time with her. All in all, she lasted quite a while! Equal to about 4 quarts of raspberry juice/pulp. We added a little sugar and canned it that way.

I’m adding the activity scales here even though it’s not the end of the post because if you’re only reading for the activity, the rest of this is a little dry, but since this blog is also a chronicle of my gardening/canning adventures, I need to include the following information (mostly for me…)

All in all we had 6 gallons of berries (6 large clam shells) and it made:

  • 2 batches of jam with lemon peel pectin (aka 8 cups of berries, 6 cups of sugar, an entire bag of my homemade lemon pectin – about 10 tablespoon cubes but they were old and nearly impossible to separate from the bag, hence the large batch, and 4 T lemon juice (it just needed the lemon). It set pretty well, but I understand why they tell you to do it in small batches. Some of the jars are extra firm gel and some are barely set).
  • 2 gallon ziplocks of whole frozen berries (filled 2 xl cookie sheets and 3 regular sized (they’re Pampered Chef large size)
  • 3 1/2 quarts of raspberry juice (it required a whole cup of sugar to make it not so tart) and then I went to the store and bought a regular sized clamshell of strawberries, a large clamshell of blueberries, a whole bag of grapes, and a small clamshell of blackberries and that plus the remaining raspberry juice (and half a cup of sugar) made another 2 1/2 quarts so I processed it all together – 5 quarts, 2 pints – and although the canning guides said 1/4″ headspace, I think I really needed a whole inch of headspace because they bubbled out everywhere and 3 didn’t seal (2 ended up in my fridge but I didn’t notice the 3rd until I didn’t wanna trust it),
  • pulp for fruit leather (filled a quart bag but its currently still in my fridge. I’ll update when it’s leather). I used the strainer and only ran it through once, so it’s really just pulp and seeds without any liquid. The liquid was bottled in the quarts above).
Keira at searchforseven.com