At least a peck...

...of pickled peppers. And flanking them on either side, four jars of spiced peaches.

Here's a close-up:

Tonight's accomplishment

8 bunches of sweet basil, 1 liter of olive oil, 2 heads of garlic yields 12 cups of pesto, now stored in half-cup measures in my freezer.

Thanks to Horton Road Organics for the yummy basil. They're starting to offer their storage special orders, so stay tuned for canning season!

Picallili

I spent yesterday afternoon/evening making about 6 pints of picallili, because it seemed like a good idea since it has become cold enough now that the tomatoes left on the vines in the backyard are not really ripening anymore. About halfway through this process I realized (duh!) that picallili is a sweet relish. I don't like sweet relishes, never have. Fortunately, the rest of the family does, but it looks like I'm set for holiday presents. Picallili, anyone?

Spiced Peaches

Today I received my ten pound box of peaches from Full Belly Farm. Truly a beauty to behold. I picked them up after work and when I got home my wonderful husband was just finishing cooking dinner so that I would have a clean kitchen to work in. He stashed dinner in the oven and took the kids to the swimming pool while I started working. The first thing to do was to sterilize jars and make the syrup for the peaches.





Then I had to skin the peaches. The recipe I had said to dunk the peaches in boiling water and immediately transfer them into cold water, then the skins would slough off. Not even close. After the first batch resulted in a lot of peeling with a knife (which leaves a peach that doesn't look so great) I learned that I needed to dunk them in boiling water, and then wait for the water to come back to a boil before transfering them to the cold water. I got much better results - beautiful blushy smooth skinless peaches.




Cut the peaches in half and poke some cloves in them and then boil them in the syrup...Here's the first batch in the syrup while I wait for the water for the second batch to come back to a boil to do the skin thing.













At this point the husband came back home with two hungry kids. I was too involved in what I was doing to eat, so they ate while I started peeling the second batch. When the first batch was ready to come out of the syrup it went into a jar...












Two more batches like these and the final result is beautiful to my eyes. Ten pounds of peaches yielded four quarts of spiced peaches and another quart of the syrup which was left over. Number One Son is really looking forward to this winter, when we can open these and savor them with ice cream while remembering (and looking forward to) summer.

A photojournalistic account of today's accomplishment: Canning 20 pounds of tomatoes!

Today the husband and kids went off to visit friends in Catheys Valley, there to build forts with legos, enjoy the heat, and celebrate our dear friend Tiffany's birthday. There will be birthday cake made and consumed. I will miss this part, because I stayed home to CAN 20 POUNDS OF TOMATOES.

I ordered the tomatoes last week after getting a notice in our CSA box that it being the right time of year, they are selling these boxes of tomatoes in order to prevent them being used in tomato wars between their workers (think water balloon fight, only more acidic and messy).

Today I picked up the box of tomatoes at just after 1pm, brought it home and began my task:


Here's my dish drainer full of the jars I would use. There's 18 of them, which was my estimate of how many I would use today. I washed these before I left to get the tomatoes.







Here's my "Bouquet Garni" for making tomato sauce. It's sprigs of rosemary, parsley, and oregano bound between a leek sliced lengthwise and a stalk of celery. Beautiful, no? I'd never made proper tomato sauce before today, so here goes...







Here's what 20 pounds of tomatoes looks like. There were 78 tomatoes there, not including the four over on the side, there, that were the ones in our regular CSA box. Thanks, Full Belly Farm!





Now time to get down to the serious business of making tomato sauce. I used the recipe for "Rich Tomato Sauce" found in Perfect Preserves: Provisions from the Kitchen Garden by Nora Carey. The recipe called for 6 pounds of tomatoes - lacking an actual scale I had to estimate this by dividing the number of tomatoes in my box by 20 pounds - I wonder how accurate the weighing was at Full Belly...Anyway, I wound up being short by one expected pint.






The first soon-to-be-boiling water bath: Three pints of tomato sauce and four pints of regular canned tomatoes. After this boiled I set the timer for 40 minutes and prepared the next batch of canned tomatoes...




There's the boiling water bath going on the left. On the other back burner I'm heating up four more pint jars which will be used for the tomatoes you see on the front burner. They're being heated up for a hot pack.

When I got to the end of these four jars in that pressure cooker (and one more that was left over from the first batch), I still had some tomatoes in my pot...but not really enough for another pint. Quickly I ran out to my garden and picked a bunch of my own tomatoes that were red. I got enough to round out two more pints. So I actually canned something OVER 20 pounds of tomatoes today. But, lacking a kitchen scale, I could not tell you exactly how much. If this information becomes vital to society it shall be researched.




Finally! The finished product. There's three pints of tomato sauce on the left, four pints of tomato juice on the right, and 11 pints of canned tomatos in the middle. Whew!

I had been thinking about ordering another box of tomatoes, but I may have my hands full canning what will be coming out of my own garden in these next weeks. However, in two weeks I am expecting a box of peaches, so stay tuned!

Vinagre

Yesterday's accomplishment...pickled jalapenos with carrots, onions, and garlic. Yum!