The Chaos of Canning

I decided this would be the summer I would develop my canning skills. I remember helping my mom can when I was a young girl. It seemed like we did it all summer long, but it was worth it because I loved eating all of the finished products during the winter. So when one of my friends called to see if I wanted to can peaches with her this year, I jumped at the chance. We picked our own at the church orchard out in Caldwell and then canned away in her mom's garage. We got a bonus that day at the orchard because they said we could pick as many apples as we wanted and take them for free. We didn't have any extra room with all the peaches, so Dave and I went back the next day to pick the apples. Don't let Dave fool you...he contributed to all the canning chaos in his own way when he continued picking buckets and buckets of apples. He kept saying, "Well, we might as well pick all the apples we can because they are free and we don't want them to go to waste."

After successfully canning peaches, I wanted to try my hand at going solo and canning some applesauce. I decided Labor Day would be my first trial run. Good thing I had nothing else to do because it took me all day to get 12 quarts of applesauce...2 of them burned. I had made up my mind that I wanted to do chunky applesauce because that is what my mom made and I was going to stick with tradition. Well, after that laborious and sticky day, I traded tradition in for ease and finished up the applesauce with my friend Colette. The Victorio strainers were a dream and we were done in much less time than when I had done it on my own with double the quarts.

Well, all the canning of peaches and applesauce primed the pump and soon I was out of control. I made peach jam, raspberry-peach jam, peach salsa, peach butter, and strawberry jam. Every time Dave would come into the kitchen, I would be slaving away stirring over the hot stove. He would just roll his eyes and laugh.

We still had more apples left over, so Colette and I decided that we wanted to do apple pie filling and got together for one last hoorah. Despite thinking that this was my last canning project for the summer, Colette informed me that we could go and pick plums at a neighbor's house down the street after we finished the pie filling. Never one to turn down free fruit, or anything free for that matter, I went and picked plums. I came home and made plum butter and dehydrated the rest.

And the fun hasn't stopped there....I've also canned tomato salsa and salsa verde and feel another batch of salsa verde coming on as soon as our tomatillos are ready from the garden. Oh...and I might just try my hand at a batch of pear butter...I heard it is pretty tasty. I can't stop! I'm just glad to know that all my neighbor gifts are ready for the holidays!