My Big Ideas

I saw on the Bountiful Baskets site last week that they had pickling cucmbers on a great deal and I thought, "hey I want to do pickles." So I ordered a 36 lb box for $17 and planned the week to have everything I needed. I even enlisted my mom to help me for a few hours. Well the box was bigger than I thought and we got twice as many quarts as I had originally planned on doing. Which made me run to the store in the middle of the whole process to get more dill and vinegar. 4 hours later we had 35 quarts if pickles and two tired mommies. I am so gratful that my mom was willing to come and help me and that the kids were relatively well behaved. Now we will be enjoying pickles all Summer long. I need to keep my goals a little more realistic next time! 3 kids and canning makes for a long day!

Garden

Our garden did pretty well this year. Matt and I went out last night and harvested 2 bowls ful of green peppers and tomatoes. Today I made 10 jars of Jalapeno Jelly, 2 pints of pickled Jalapenos, and 2 quarts of stewed tomatoes. Kind of a lot of work for only a few jars, but I sure didn't want all that food to go to waste. I think I am getting this canning thing down pretty good.

Pears!!

I got my pears done last week. They took longer than I was anticipating and were a lot more labor intensive than the peaches the week before. But I managed to get them all done. 26 quarts of wonderful pears. So I am well on my way to having plenty of fruit to get us through the winter!!

Peaches, Peaches, Peaches

I have been feeling a little domestic in the canning department lately. I have done 9 pints of dilly beans, 8 quarts of pickles and I thought I would do peaches and pears. I got a really good deal on a 25 pound box of peaches for like $11 and the pears were $12. So I ordered two boxes of each and the day they arrived the peaches were ready to be canned. So I worked my little tail off for about 4 1/2 hours and managed to can 24 quarts of peaches. I was pretty proud of myself for accomplishing this all by myself, I have never done that big of a canning project by myself. I was exhausted by the time I was finished, but they sure look yummy and now every time I open a jar it will remind me off all the hard work. There is something about preserving your own food for your family, it really makes me feel that I am doing something good for them. My goal is pears this week!