One of the fun little projects I have taken on this summer is canning!
It started from not wanting to waste any of the great produce we got from our CSA share, but it was actually more fun than I thought it would be. (And it's SO cool to know we have jars tucked away to use this winter!)
One weekend, Tiffany and I decided to order 35 lbs of tomatoes (we got the wholesale price since it was through our CSA) and dove into canning tomatoes and sauce!
We all got together at Tiffany's. We thought the adults would be able to play games while waiting for the cans to boil, but Tiffany and I ended up working the whole time, so the guys played a few rounds of Trivial Pursuit. (And by rounds I mean games. This night went on forever!)
First we blanched the tomatoes in boiling water to help their skins come off easily.
We had to work in small batches...
...but at least we had fun doing it together!
The tomato sauce had to boil down for a while, and in the process, made quite the mess!
Yikes!
Some sauce in the water bath.
We were also given quite a few peaches that weren't sell-able due to bruising, so we cut out the bad spots and made spiced canned peaches too!
Here's our finished product from that night:
And Tiffany snapped this picture when she finally pulled the last batch out before going to bed - notice the time! (Our family heading home with the girls a little before then.)
It was a fun night - but a lot of work!
I've also done a few smaller batches by myself. When I knew I had too much produce for our family to eat up, I'd try and can it.
I've made many batches of salsa, pickles,
lots of jams,
and peaches.
I'm not sure how much I'll do this in the future, but it was a really great way to use up what we already had!
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