2011 Canning - anyone doing any?

 

as for the ripe ones, i want to can the larger ones and anything that is smaller than a golf ball or so, i will probably turn into greek sun-dried tomatoes, which are REALLY bloody good. when it comes to canning tomatoes, i am "old-school," probably to the point of being boring. i prefer to simply do whole and/or crushed tomatoes in jars - my reasoning is that from there, i can do anything i want with them and use them in any recipe, or for sauce, or to make into an impromptu salsa or whatever. having said that, i've been looking into the concept of stewed tomateos and am thinking i might try these. the combination of tomatoes, onions, garlic and celery sounds like a good one. most recipes i see call for a bit of green pepper too, but i will most likely leave that out, since green peppers and i don't agree on much.

 

one other idea i saw was an interesting concept called tomato marmalade or tomato conserve or something - basically a savory jam for spreading on bread. might be worth a close look - will see. other than that

 

when the box of greenies ripens up, i might also try making some Salsa di Pomodoro Siciliana, which i have made before with oh-so-good results....

 

any other ideas?

 

ann - i have heard of freezing tomatoes, but have never tried it. sounds like a good way to go ~ will be trying to grow some san marzano tomatoes next year (tried last year but it didn't go so well) and will see how this method works with them ~ aye, if i do any venison canning, i will definitely be using the pressure cooker that i got. jsut gotta figure out how to use it!

 

as for my canning goals, i did pretty well yesterday. we managed to do 6 pints of pickled beets for the beautiful mrs. tas, who seems to like them, and i also was able to can 8 quarts of whole (actually a mixture of whole, halved and quartered, depending on size) tomatoes.

 

i still have almost a paper grocery bag of full of green tomatoes, mostly small golf-ball sized or smaller ones, and am waiting for them to ripen. with those i will probably make sun-dried (actually dehydrator-dried) tomatoes - just cut the tomatoes in half or quarters, depending on size, put just a breath of sea salt on them, and dehydrate until somewhere between elathery and crispy-dry on the endges. most people put them in a jar with olive oil to preserve them once they are dry. i can't speak for the "offical" safety of this practice, but it has worked well for me. the acid, salt and oil seem to discourage any creepie-crawlies. ia slo keep them in the refrigerator, for added protection. they taste great! 

 

that, plus the crab apple jelly i would like to make, and the canned venison, will be the bulk of my food preservation this year, not counting hunting season. depending on how that goes, i have a few projects i would like to try.

 "Waddaya mean outlawed?" sez you.

 Okay, here's the deal.

 I knew of some crabapple trees that were on what might be considered public property. I dont want to get too specific so I'll just say, like in a village park, okay?

 Now, if you've ever tried to go about getting permission to do this sort of thing you've probably learned that the first step is to appear before a meeting of your town council and after waiting for all regular business to be conducted you can stand up when they ask if there's any new business and you can make your request.

 At this point two council members will nod their heads yes, four members will look at each other to see which way the wind blows, and member number seven will bring up the subject of liability.

 You'll then be told that the village will contact their attorney and you'll get your answer at next month's meeting.

 Rather than get a haircut, shave, get dressed up, and then attend two or more monthly meetings only to be refused permission I've developed my own procedure.

 I take my big duffel bag with the shoulder strap, some plastic grocery bags, and my cane, and I head on into town early in the morning. You've seen me before, I'm that respectable looking gentleman taking a stroll through the park before anybody else arrives.

 I stop at the convenience store first and get an iced tea and a cheese danish, and then head on over to the park. When I get there I put my gear on a picnic table close to a crabapple tree, take out a plastic bag, and keeping the tree between myself and the highway I start picking.

 Every now and then I step back and take a bite out of the pastry. After all, that's my reason for spending time at that table. It's all very respectable.

 By the time I run out of pastry I've put three bags of crabapples in my dufflebag and have the sort of smile on my face that makes people say "Gee, that guy has a great attitude".

 Of course I have a smile, I just outlawed 25lb.s of crabapples/two gallons of hightest crabapple juice/36 halfpint jars of excellent crabapple jelly!

 

 By the way, if you should happen to have a surplus of crabapple juice and would like to experiment, pick up a large bottle of "Ocean Spray Blueberry Juice Cocktail". Put it into a pot and boil it down till it's half of what you started with. Then add an equal amount of your crabapple juice and the proper amounts of sugar and pectin. You'll find "Blue Crab Jelly" to be quite tasty.

 

 Looking at my pantry, I see twenty quarts of tomato puree, four quarts and six pints of bread and butter pickles, five quarts and a half pint of applesauce, six quarts of garlic dill pickles, six quarts of pickled dill green beans, nine half pints of red apple jelly, six quarts and seventeen pints of pickled beets, twelve half pints of crabapple jelly, three pints and six half pints of Blue Crab jelly, six pints of berry flavored applesauce, and eight pints of pickled pearl onions.

 I'm also in the midstage period of making forty pounds of kraut that will be canned, and am thinking of trying a few pints of the red hot apple wedges.

 There's a few other things on the shelf that might be of interest;

 Those 16 oz. jars of peanut butter that go on sale at the dollar store, the peanut butter is pretty lousey stuff but I use it in my bird feeders. On the other hand, the jars are excellent when used as containers for some of my dehydrated goods.

 There are six of those jars in the pantry right now and each one holds the yeild from six red or green bell peppers that have been cut into strips and dehydrated, and there are also four jars of dehydrated sliced mushrooms.

 There's one other peanut butter jar on the shelf, and it has a story;

 I'd been wanting to make venison stew for awhile, and a couple of weeks ago I saw that my local supermarket had 5lb. bags of carrots on sale for $2.99 so I picked up a bagful.

 The stew only needed five of those large carrots, so I cleaned and sliced the rest into 3/16" coins. they filled all four trays of my dehydrator.

 The next morning they were done and had reduced in size to the point where all four trays of the fit into just one of my peanut butter jars with room to spare!

 So there ya go, even without taking into account the things I've put into the freezer I'm having a pretty good year preserving foodstuffs.