Local bulk tomatoes, cucumbers, and green peppers are available at our grocery store. This makes for a “now or never” opportunity for us to access affordable food. We bought 25 pounds of green peppers, and 100 pounds of tomatoes, along with two bunches of celery, and nine pounds of cooking onions. Canning season has kicked into high gear.
The day before yesterday we canned four 500-ml jars of Cowboy Candy using one pound of garden organic jalapeños, that makes a total of eight jars we have canned so far, using two pounds of garden peppers. Regular jalapeños are $4.49 a pound at the grocery store, and organic jalapeños are not to be had at any price here. Cowboy Candy ready-made at the local store is $8.99 for a 500-ml jar. Luckily we can grow our own peppers and can our own Cowboy Candy.
Yesterday we harvested sweet banana peppers and canned four jars of pickled peppers, another worthwhile project. These are Attila’s favourites, but I don’t care for them.
Today we did our regular grocery run, and found local tomatoes for sale, we bought two 25 pound half-bushels, and one 50 pound bushel, along with the other ingredients we will need to make Chili Sauce, Tomato Salsa, and Pizza Sauce. The cost for the ingredients was just under $80.00. So we will see what ends up on our shelves for $80 and a lot of our time.
Later in the morning we started the first canning project with our purchased tomatoes. We made Chili Sauce. I perused four different tested canning recipes for Chili Sauce. I am satisfied after comparing them with my 40 year old recipe, that my old recipe is safe. We canned seven 500-ml jars of Chili Sauce. I used to can my Chili Sauce in 1-litre jars, we just don’t use that size up fast enough, so smaller jars are a better fit. We like the Chili Sauce so much, that if we have tomatoes left after making the Salsa and Pizza Sauce, we will make more Chili Sauce.
So, day one, of the 100 pounds of tomatoes project, yielded 7 500-ml jars of Chili Sauce.
We used the very last frozen container of pizza sauce yesterday, so our timing on the tomato purchase is fortunate, as we now need more pizza sauce. This year I am canning our pizza sauce instead of freezing it. The freezer is almost full now, and we have a lot of produce to come in from the garden that needs to be frozen, such as beans and squash.
I discovered yesterday, that my favourite pizza toppings are: homemade pizza sauce, True Lemon, nutritional yeast, 30 g of grated mozzarella cheese, dehydrated onion flakes, 90 g homemade no-sodium sausage patty, canned mushrooms, drained zucchini pineapple, and now drained Cowboy Candy (candied jalapeños). I had my doubts about the Cowboy Candy. I was wrong, the jalapeños moved the pizza into the spectacular category.
The salsa is the next tomato canning project. Hopefully 24 500-ml jars will be processed tomorrow. We shall see if that goal is attained.
The day began overcast. It rained off and on most of the day, peripheral remnants of Hurricane Debby. Now at 6:30 p.m. there are fluffy clouds and blue sky. It is quite humid, but it looks lovely.
Worldly
Weather
22°C
Date: 6:00 PM EDT Friday 9 August 2024
Condition: Light Rain
Pressure: 100.4 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 22.0°C
Dew point: 22.0°C
Humidity: 100%
Wind: WSW 5 km/h
Humidex: 31
Visibility: 8 km
Quote
“The man [human] who writes about himself [themselves] and his [their] own time is the only man [human] who writes about all people and all time.”
George Bernard Shaw
1856 – 1950
As a non-man human I needed to suggest the changes!
I agree with the edits! Enjoy all the tomatoes!
Wow that sounds like a lot of work, but you’ll have so much healthy food this winter! I don’t know if I ever asked this, but have you ever thought about adding a small addition to your house? I don;t know how expensive they are but eventually you could get one of those big freezers for some of the food you preserve. Anyway, great job!
Joan, when I was young I didn’t even notice the biased use of the masculine pronoun. Over the years, as I’ve experienced over and over again how that works out in the world, I’ve become more and more aware, and less and less tolerant of it.
Sandy, it is a lot of work! We enjoy our canned foods, and could never afford to buy what we eat. Mostly we put by foods that enhance taste and nutrition, to add to basic foods like beans, rice, pasta.
Oh Sandy, how we dream of an addition! We talk about it sometimes, but the cost would be astronomical for us, so it isn’t on our list. I would love to have a pantry, a big pantry for storing food, shelves, freezers, and for storing equipment and supplies, such as canners and jars. I think eventually we may splurge on proper shelving for our canned items, the shelving we have has a lot of empty space between the shelves, not very efficient. It all works for now though, with a lot of toing and froing and moving this and that around.
The freezer we have was one I bought second hand just after we bought Mist Cottage, rather smallish, and very dirty. It cleaned up nicely, and works perfectly, but it was never intended to be used for garden harvests, just for a property under renovation!
Thanks for correcting Shaw!
I was reading the other day about pesticides on foods. The article was saying that they can’t be washed off as they get into the skin. The only thing you could do is peel the foods. Unfortunately, apparently blueberries, bell peppers and green beans are some of the worst – and you can’t exactly peel those!
You’re lucky that you grow many of your own vegetables, so you know your pesticides are basically non-existent
Teri, we do buy blueberries, as we don’t grow them, so I guess we get some exposure to pesticides. We also buy some bell peppers during canning season and I am sure they are grown using pesticides. But we do grow our own green peppers, which is what goes into our raw salads. And we grow our own green beans. It is almost impossible to avoid pesticides, although I think we are exposed to then less because of our garden.
Not sure what you mean about correcting Shaw.
I meant the changes you suggested for Shaw.
Hmmm… Looks like the board doesn’t know me anymore. Teri
Of course Teri, the quote! Thanks for filling me in. I am not sure what the program is doing that you aren’t recognized, I hope it resolves itself, I think it might because I approved the two comments.