I "Can" Do it!

This is my second year of canning things. I guess I wouldn't say second year ever canning, but it's been years since I canned much of anything. Last year I had so many jalepenos that we pickled some and pressure canned some.  We also canned some apple pie filling.  YUM!!!  That stuff was wonderful!  I did several kinds of jellies and jams and several pints of green beans. 

The green beans were such a success last year, I told myself I was going to do several more pints this year.  Well, I have 36 pints and 7 quarts of beans in the cellar, just waiting to be opened up and used.  I avoided the jalepenos this year.  We just didn't use them like I thought we would.  I still have several jars of jams and jellies, so we probably won't bother with much of those again this year.  We'll use up what we have. 

I've branched out and tried a couple new items this year.   Pickles were the first thing to try.  I looked and looked for an easy recipe.  I've never done them before, so I needed easy and not many steps involved.  I know there may be pickle pros reading this and shaking their heads.  I know I should use a tried and true recipe, but I need easy!  I found some Mrs. Wages packets at my local grocery store and tried the Bread and Butter pickles.  It was as easy as add the packet, other ingredients and heat up, pour over the pickles and process!  And they taste good too!  I think I got 7 or 8 pints from that recipe.  I stopped there, since I wasn't sure how good they would be and how often we would eat them.  I also tried the Mrs. Wages packets with dill spears and dill slices.  They didn't turn out as crisp as I would like, but they taste good.  That's good enough for me and my first pickle experience! 

I had seen the Mrs. Wages spaghetti sauce packet at the store too and had always wanted to try it.  I grabbed a packet and did that too. Surprisingly enough, it worked and tasted good.  I may just can tomatoes the next time and just add spices when I want to make sphaghetti.  I'm not sure if I want to deal with the packets and trying to get them all fit into a certain number of jars.  I think it will be easier to just deal with the tomatoes by themselves. 

I'm hoping to get some more apples this year and get some homemade applesauce made.  My goal last year was to can some, but I couldn't get enough together to can.  We ate it as fast as I could make it.  I only have a hand food mill.  My mom calls is a ricer, I've seen it called a chinois (sp?), but it takes FOR-EVER to make applesauce.  I'm going to use some birthday money to buy myself a nice crank food mill.  I'm still researching which one to buy and where.  If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

Onions are out of the garden too and filling up shelf space in the cellar.  I apologize for the bad pictures.  I have 1 light in the cellar and it's at the door.  Our goal is to get some more light in there, but the ceiling is so low, we'd hit our heads on it if it hung down too much. 

 

 

My onions have a few tendrils that are trying to sprout, but those will get used up quickly. 

 

This room is a nice place to have.  I'm not sure it was made to be a cellar or more of a storm shelter.  It's ceiling is cement, so this is why I think it was more for shelter, but the wooden shelves are perfect for storing my canned goods.  We brought the plastic shelves down for more storage and need to put some built in shelves between the plastic ones to maximize the space that is there. 

 

I think this is about it for canning this year.  I'd like to try some new things for next year.  Carrots are on the top of my list.  Not sure what else will make the list.  Any ideas?