Peaches, Pickles, and Pears, OH MY!

Yesterday I **think** I finished my canning for the winter. Last year was my first year doing it, and we enjoyed everything so much all winter long, I set out to do a lot more this Autumn. So, without further ado, here is my final list. I am publishing this so I don't attempt to can any more this autumn, it's quite addicting. But, if I publish my final list, it will annoy me to can again, and not have something on that final list... therefore, I won't can anymore. Clearly I have given this a lot of thought--I have to, because I love this canning business, and I am an ADDICT. Please send intervention.

27 Quarts of Peaches. (2-20 pound boxes) These are so easy to do, and wonderful... and my family is OK with them, but they mostly endure the Peaches only because I like them best... they are much more fond of the...

55 Quarts of Pears (5-20 pound boxes (100 pounds, eek!)-at 12 dollars a piece, these are a steal--60 cents a pd!) Last year I only did 20-something jars of these, and it was NOT ENOUGH! Kiki could eat these for breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day, if I let her. So, a few weeks ago we opened the first jar of pears that I had canned this year, and we each got about one piece... and she polished off the rest of the jar, raving about them all the while... so, I canned two more boxes last night. To eight of these jars, just for fun, I added allspice (as seen in the picture below) for a sort of spiced pear action. Pears are much harder to peel than peaches, but thanks to me complaining about it on FaceBook, and PegLeg taking mercy on me, I have a handy peeler thing on the way to me called a Rotato, that she swears by--Thank you SO MUCH, PegLeg! Also, if you like your pears in halves, instead of quarters, like I do, I suggest a melon baller for taking out the core. I feel they hold their firmness and shape much better in the canning process when I leave them in as big of chunks as possible.

16 Quarts of Spaghetti Sauce--my recipe, which has been under development for about three years now, and is finally most excellent, I think. :-) With the help of Food Network, hours of scouring the web for other people's Spaghetti Sauce recipes, and the icing on the spaghetti cake was some help with the herbs and spices from PegLeg... (bet you didn't know you were going to be blogged about today, huh, PegLeg?!) Other than the bulk of the tomatoes, onions, and peppers, garlic, almost everything in this recipe is from my garden, which is fun. The rest I bought from a nice lady here in E. Wenatchee who has a huge garden and runs a veggie stand in the summer... I think I made her day when I came and bought her out. :-)

7 Quarts of Stewed Tomatoes--Winter Soups---YUM! This is NOT going to be enough, I know it already. But, this was 65 pounds of tomatoes, and, I don't feel like peeling any more tomatoes this year, thank you.

Canning tomatoes actually does save money for me... I get them SO cheap fresh, and in bulk in the summer months, and the cans of stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, etc., are really expensive. Plus, I know what's in these jars, which I really like. I can can with love. Har har.

16 Quarts of Applesauce... 40 pounds of apple--YUM! So good with BBQ. I can get mixed boxes of apples for 7 dollars for 35-40 pound boxes... so this is a VERY cheap side dish in the winter, and delicious. I like to use my own Pumpkin Pie Spice mixture in my applesauce. However, using an apple/peeler/corer/slicer for 80 pounds of apples, NOT FUN! I am going to get a food mill next year.

21 Quarts of Apple Pie filling... Last year we got a box of ENORMOUS apples... I blogged about it here. Anyway, there's no way we could have eaten all those beasts, so I chopped up a bunch of them and stuck them in the freezer for pies... it was SO handy!! I used them constantly for pie, crisp and cobbler... so this year I decided to can it up, since my freezer space is limited. We've already tested it out, and this recipe is AWESOME, I am so looking forward to using these this winter. If you haven't tried ClearJel yet, you should get on that... it's some pretty cool stuff!
And, pickled green beans, and pickled carrots... most of which are from our garden. We LOVE these... and, with just Frank, me, and Debris eating them, usually go through a while jar whenever we open one for dinner.

All total, I have done 48 jars of Jam this summer... we are already down to 34 jars... amazing. But, homemade jam is TRULY the cat's pajamas... my family complains about it any other way now, and oddly enough, that makes me happy. :-) This year I did Blackberry, Raspberry, Strawberry and Rainier Cherry.

And, it must be said, many thanks to my Gramma M & Aunt G, who have shared many a recipe, procedure, and their love of food preservation by canning with me... and my mom, who has given me many of the tools I need to do the job properly.

And, just because family will want pictures, we started school this week... here's a picture of my darlings, who are doing wonderfully--we are having so much fun--I'm clinging to that right now, because I am sure it won't always be that way... :-)

Since Auntie Caca came to visit last weekend, each day this week one or the other of them has wanted their hair done like Auntie Caca did hers on Sunday.

Have a wonderful day!