Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Not For the Faint of Heart

Canning is going well, but is exhausting work! And I'm not even really doing that much stuff compared to many people out there. I seriously think they should consider canning for the next summer Olympics or something. What other sport makes you stay in a kitchen with boiling pots of water and other assorted things for 10-12 hour stretches at a time? And then stay on your feet while coring, peeling, chopping, measuring, washing, filling and oh, so many other things? I think that the Olympic committee would be impressed by the stamina and endurance of many serious canners.

I'm too tired to get my camera and load pictures, but I've got lots to show. I've done so many different things in the last 2 days and had to call it really early this evening. My husband and son needed my attention and food, so canning got put away until tomorrow.

So far I've done:
5 batches of strawberry jam
diced tomatoes and tomato juice
pinapple
diced peaches and peach sauce
pear sauce
apple sauce
zucchini relish
and canned some pear-apple sauce that I had made on Saturday

Mostly I'm working on apples from this point on. A few pears will be diced up once they ripen. I'm going to be out of jars tomorrow which makes me really sad! I'm also almost out of lids, so I need to stock up on those or be done canning and freeze things from this point onward.

Can't wait to show you pictures!
Heather

3 comments:

  1. Oh, wow!!!! I agree with you on the hard, hard work - one item on my "someday" list is one of those gel mats for the kitchen floor. The other thing I've been thinking about is getting a bit creative and figuring out how to arrange things so that a person could sit at the table and do some prep - buckets, big bowls, etc. Hope you're able to get some good nights of sleep after all this!!

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  2. That is so wonderful that you are able to can so much. I ended up not doing much canning, I froze most of what I had instead. Nutritionally, frozen foods are better so in a way I can justify my busy/laziness. But, if there is a major power outage or other catastrophe, you will have all the food you lovingly canned this year and I will have spoiled food:( Good job on all the hard work.

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  3. I can't wait to get into canning myself! I am hoping to do freezer jam next summer.

    PS: thank you so much for your thoughtful comment on my latest blog. I love hearing other people's experiences!

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