Labor-intensive weekend and holiday

This weekend I canned 13 quarts of diced tomatoes (it takes a LOT of tomatoes to fill a jar with diced ones), 5 quarts of whole tomatoes and 28 half-pint jars of jam : Peach, Raspberry, Pluot, and Triple Berry (Strawberry, Blueberry, and Raspberry). I had help with tomatoes today -- a friend who is completely blind helped peel, core, and dice tomatoes. I am regularly impressed by her expertise with tasks you might think impossible without sight.

And if you read that first paragraph and thought, "What is a pluot?" It is a fruit that is a plum-apricot hybrid. The jam is a beautiful purple-red color, and I suspect it will be a little on the tart side. My only complaint about pluots is that they don't like to be separated from the pit. I wonder if another variety might be more apricot-like in that respect, because apricots are quite willing to let go of the pit.

Perhaps another day when it is not past 11PM, I will line up a sample of the jams and take a photo to post here. Don't hold your breath though. It's a busy week.

If you have any extra jam/jelly jars you don't want, I'd be happy to take them off your hands... I tend to give away jam and the jars don't seem to come back, so I'm always trying to replenish my jar inventory. I like the 8-oz ones best, but would be happy for some 4- or 12-oz as well. Heck, if you have any canning jars you don't want, I'd take 'em! :-)

Next on the canning agenda: red pears. They are delicious raw, and I suspect will make wonderful pear sauce.

Adventures in canning

My friend BS and I added two new tools to our canning accessories this year -- a new food strainer and a pressure canner. The strainer made very quick work of the tomatoes and turned them into a lovely tomato puree that we cooked down with onions, garlic, and some herbs which produced a heavenly scent of tomato-y goodness. Later we added some diced tomatoes and a little sugar, and pronounced it worthy of preserving.

All was well until I retrieved the third quart from the canner. The contents were still boiling, and just before I set it down on a towel, it exploded -- all over me, the wall, the counter, the floor, the fridge...you get the idea. Luckily, none of the children were in the kitchen at the time, and neither BS nor I were scalded by the contents. Whew. Pretty exciting stuff. Next up? Hopefully peaches. And more tomatoes - but not in the same batch. :-)

I am looking forward to making applesauce with the new food strainer -- that should be a breeze!