In having a VERY, VERY busy week, I realized AFTER, I should have read the directions...
It all started last Sunday..
Our harvest was PLENTIFUL!
We pulled, plucked and snipped...
From a few jalepeno peppers....
To some ridiculously LARGE zucchini...
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| "what is that?!?" |
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| "Uh... Mom?!?" |
We had plenty of help...
And brought home our first batch of zucchini, pickles, and bell peppers!
The zucchini I blanched and froze on Monday...
Also on Monday I purchased about 200 canning jars for $40 (what a score right?!?)
Tuesday my baby sister came over to can!
The boys watched TV while the girls played upstairs...
I had trusted Mariah read through most of the process and we followed some random recipe online...
We chopped...
We sterilized...
However, I heard that little voice telling me NOT to use my UN-enameled cast iron pot to boil our vinegar solution in...
...My pan immediately rusted...
We proceeded to use the brine regardless.
We did NOT dry the rim of our jars before placing the lids on....
So... with boiling canning pots, we placed our jars in.
We covered the pots and waited 15 minutes (like the directions said) and we took them out.
We finally sat down after about 6 hours on our feet only to read through some articles about canning, including the canning section in this cookbook (which I HIGHLY recommend purchasing) we've been using for this whole process.
Good timing huh?
Apparently, you start timing the processing cans once the water has reached a VIGOROUS boil.
Ours didn't boil at all after we put our cans in.
We RAN into the kitchen and started the fires back up.
We placed our jars back into the canning pots and let them sit in there probably a good 20 minutes.
GREAT! We probably overcooked them now!
Needlesstosay, by God's grace, we didn't poison our pickles,
e.v.e.r.y. s.i.n.g.l.e. can sealed,
AND they actually turned out crisp and EXTREMELY delicious!
We sent a few jars to Fargo, ND with my sister to the guys who helped till our garden, as well as cracked open a jar for our monthly family dinner.
That was our first time really canning anything in a large quantity before.
We're heading back to my mom's this week to harvest more cucumbers, zucchini and a whole batch of bright red Roma Tomatoes!
I'll let you know how all that goes ;)
With this book in hand, and a plant in the other, we're s.l.o.w.l.y. becoming better at this.
Okay that Zucchini is huge! lol. I love making noodles with my spiralizer out of zucchini in place of pasta noodles. I was thinking about how much "spaghetti" I could make with that one zucchini! Sheesh. lol.
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