Outta canning jars....

Greg1959

Well-known Member
I did not plan on doing much canning this year because I have more than enough canned garden produce from the past few years.

Somehow, with the cold and wet Spring and a lot of cloudy days, my garden has produced a lot (including weeds!). I have been picking about a bushel of tomatoes and 1/2 bushel of California Wonder Green Bell peppers every other day.

Anyway....so, I'm out of jars(even bought a few cases of new ones), and still have stuff from the garden. I've donated produce to the food bank, given a lot away to friends and neighbors. There is still more coming from the garden.

Now, I'm dehydrating the tomatoes and Green Bell peppers.

I'm almost out of freezer space. 2-full size chest deep freezers. Now, I've got a plan.....

I skinned and cored a bushel of tomatoes and cooked them down to a sauce-like consistency. Then I added a peck and a half of diced Green Bell peppers plus 3 pounds of diced onions.

I boiled this mixture until it thickened substantially.

I only added salt and sugar to counter the acidity of the tomatoes, no other seasoning was added.

This will be my "base" stock for any dish. Like if I want to make spaghetti, chili, goulash, meatloaf, etc...All I have to do is add the seasonings to this "base" to make what dish I want.

I filled quart freezer 'ziploc' bags and froze them.

Y'all got any more ideas??????
 

When I was a kid my brothers and my sister and I were expected to do a lot of garden work. Sometimes neighborhood friends joined in. A favorite activity was cleaning up the tomato plants and the tomatoes that were left after the first killing frost. A day or two after the frost the tomatoes would be starting to turn so that they would have a pretty bad smell, yet they would still be firm enough to stay on a stick that you stuck into them. We cut small alder branches that would make a good whip, then stuck the branch into a tomato, then wind up and whip it at someone else. A few minutes of this resulted in the tomatoes being pretty well cleaned up, or at least spread far and wide, and a bunch of very smelly kids.
 
If we ever run out of canning jars, I will be surprised.
Probably have about 1000 and still buy some each year. Gonna finish canning taters tomorrow.
Richard in NW SC
 
Richard G.- I've been wanting to ask you about your canning of taters....

I plowed up a bunch of my Kinnebeck taters and have 'cured' the most of them. The "new" taters(marble size), I thought I'd try to can......

I scrubbed them and rinsed, the canned.

I've seen countless versions...."can you can 'NEW' taters with skin on?.....I see answers from yes to no. How do you feel about this? and what do you suggest?
 
Making tomato sauce base and freezing it is a good idea- I've been doing it for years. Tastes so much better than what you make from store-bought cans.

As to the bigger problem- out of canning jars, 2 freezers are full, still got lots from last year, gave away stuff to neighbors and food bank, still got lots coming on- Do you see a trend here? Might be time to reduce garden size a bit, which will also reduce your workload, so you have time to kick back a little bit!
 
Yes, if you get them clean, they can be canned. We have canned with the skin on, but they don't look as nice in the jars. Will post photos of ours this evening.
Richard
 
If you have green tomatoes you could make green tomato pie. It taste a lot like apple pie. Much better than it sounds. Wished you lived closer as I could use some more tomatoes.
 

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