Harvest Tally 2015 & Tattler Reusable Canning Lid Update

I feel like I've been slowing down in the canning department these last couple years.  I think there may be two main reasons for this...

1) I'm sticking with canning projects and recipes I know my family likes eats.

2) As children grow, life becomes busier in a different way and there is less time for the physical and mental act of preserving.

I also spent time this summer freshening up some rooms with new paint and reorganizing in preparation for the school year and life in general (you can see a few pictures here).

Despite all this, our freezers and pantry are full and now we must set to eating, learning, and cuddling in front of the wood stove.  And I don't mind at all.

Harvest Tally 2015

2 (measly) 3-cup containers for sour cherries (from our injured tree), froze

11 pint bags chopped zucchini (for soups and casseroles), froze

14 loaves chocolate chip zucchini bread (our kids think it's dessert), froze

11 quarts blueberries (from a local organic farm), froze

10 quart bags packed New Zealand spinach (for soups, quiches and casseroles), froze

28 quarts corn, froze

36 pints and 28 quarts tomato sauce, canned

9 quarts (of our own!) peaches, canned

15 quarts (half our own!) peaches, chopped and froze (for smoothies and desserts)

5 quarts tomato soup

18 1/2-pint jelly jars of apple pie jam, canned

121 quarts applesauce, canned

LOTS of spaghetti squash, eaten, shared and stored

butternut squash, stored

potatoes, stored

sweet potatoes, stored

Tattler Reusable Canning Lid Update:  I'm getting the hang of these lids!  My sealing success rate this year was very close to that of my metal lid sealing rate- an improvement from last year.  My guess is that most folks quickly learn how to make these work well.  For others (like me) who have high expectations for their canning projects, when I didn't get things right (right away), I was frustrated.  I'm so glad that I didn't give up.  These lids work very well, have close to paid for themselves and they (the lids and rubber rings) all still look like new after using them for the 3rd year in a row.

When I can something that I share with others (like our applesauce below), I still use some metal lids so I don't need to worry about getting the Tattler lids back.  I've grown quite fond of them.

How are your canning projects changing from year to year?  Are you ramping up, simplifying (like me) or cutting back?

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Closing Summer

Where did the summer go?  It went into our hearts, our memories, our muscles, and bones.  It became another layer of who we are and what we hold dear.  Thank you, God, for summers.

Cousin camp...

(with these water balloons)

A week of rest on the lake...

Our school room in summer...

Volunteer by the back door...

Summer evening quiet...

Garden bounty...

Applesauce making...

Growing pigs...

Non-laying duck boarders...

Honey bees that might have a chance this winter...

Fresh paint in kitchen and bath...

Young apple trees that are finally producing (but only one...apple)...

Four ropes in a tree are always better than one...

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January Pantry and Freezer Pictures

My friend Mavis challenged her readers to send her photos of their pantries.  For every set of photos she receives, Mavis will donate $20 to a food bank!  I couldn't resist so I grabbed my camera and started snapping.

If you'd like to take a look, you can find my photos and a little write-up about what's in our pantry and freezers these days right here as well as more info. about her challenge.  Then, join in the fun!

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Harvest Tally 2014

Finally, I'm able to wrap up our harvest tally for the year.  It's less in many ways than other years but it's so much more than I thought we were going to be able to accomplish. It worked well for me to lower my expectation to absolutely nothing and then be pleasantly surprised as our pantry slowly filled up.  God is so very good.

We used a pressure canner for the first time this year (green beans and soups) and this was our first full year of using the Tattler Reusable Canning Lids.  Overall, I'm still very impressed with them and had good success.  For some reason, I didn't get good seals on my peaches which was discouraging because of how much work canning peaches is.  I just chopped up the peaches that didn't seal and threw them in bags for the freezer.  I do love that buying lids every year or so is a thing of the past. Also, I can say that not one of our Tattler lidded jars has come unsealed- a problem I occasionally experience with metal lids.  Their seals are super tight.

I hope your harvest was gratifying no matter what it's size.  What a gift it is to grow your own food!

Harvest Tally 2014

2 gallons, 1 quart and 1 pint honey

zucchini, chopped and froze, 17 2-3-cup bags
New Zealand spinach, froze, 11 quarts and 11 pints
zucchini relish, 15 jelly jars, canned
zucchini bread, 20 loaves, froze
green beans, 37 quarts pressure canned

tomato soup, 6 quarts canned
chopped tomatoes, 13 pints canned

Brunswick Stew, 14 quarts pressure canned
tomato sauce, 17 quarts and 28 pints, canned

corn, 10 1/2 quarts froze
red raspberries, 1 quart and 3 pints froze (many just didn't get picked or what did were eaten)
vegetable soup, 13 quarts and 1 pint, pressure canned
bell peppers, 1 gallon froze
peaches, 23 quarts canned and 8 3-cup bags froze
peach jam, 12 jelly jars froze

tomato juice, 13 quarts pressure canned
pearsauce, 10 1/2 quarts canned

applesauce, 105 quarts canned

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October Thus Far

Where does the time go?!  I actually know right where it goes I just wish it I could control the speed of it all. You know- to fast forward through the laundry and dishes and vacuuming and press slow motion during the sweet times with kids, friends and family and those rare, rare moments I have to myself to recharge.

Here are a few glimpses into our last few weeks.

I'm sorry this photo is blurry.  I just wasn't willing to get any closer.  Sadie had run inside saying there was a huge raccoon by the red raspberries.  To make a long story short- it was acting really strange so I called animal control and a ranger came out and put it down.  It was a beautiful animal but the safety of our kids trumped its sick self.

We traveled to Jamey's parents' house for applesauce making and when we drove in the driveway, they were well on their way!  They had all the apples and jars washed, many apples were cut and a large vat of applesauce had already been turned through the strainer.  Three cheers for my amazing in-laws!!

After making applesauce and celebrating Jamey's birthday with his family, we traveled north into Sullivan County, PA, where my family is part owner of a hunting cabin (where I've been going since I was very young).  We like to travel up this particular weekend for the local Fall Festival.  If you ever have a chance to go, you must!  There are craft and food booths galore but what we enjoy the most are the lumberjack competitions- log rolling (above), chainsaw carving, ax throwing, spring boarding, hot saw competitions, etc.  Jamey would love to enter one of the competitions some year. Pharmacist lumberjacks are a rare breed, I would think:-).

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying family (particularly my newest nephew who we met for the first time), taking walks and playing in the creek. Oh, and eating. We do a lot of that there as well.

Walking with my {almost 12-year-old} boy.

At home, the rest of the garden was brought inside- white potatoes, sweet potatoes, dry beans (Scarlet Lady Runners below), butternut squash, some surprise tomatoes and peppers, and...

...a huge bowl of shiitake mushrooms.

With the garden gleaned and the applesauce made, our harvest season is complete...except for our pig. But she's a story for another time.

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We are in Love with Pearsauce

I wish I had thought to take a picture of our entire pear tree a few weeks ago when it was covered in pears. I also wish we had picked more of them because we finally have our pear groove on.

When we bought our house there were six large Keifer pear trees in our front yard.  They had gotten extremely tall making them difficult to pick, we hadn't yet learned the best way to ripen pears and even when a couple ripened successfully, they weren't that tasty.  Eventually, we cut them down.

Back in the little orchard behind the house however, was/is a pear tree of a different variety.  We took better care to prune it and tried year after year to eat and use its fruit.  It's a tough little tree.  Not only has it survived another tree falling on it and has provided shade and shelter for our chickens but every year it gives us a nice little crop of small pears.

in the shade of the pear tree

(If any of you recognize the variety, I'd love to hear it.  They are small, tart and change from green to yellow as they ripen.  We don't spray them, so this is what the un-sprayed version of this variety looks like.)

Once we learned the best way to ripen them, I started canning them and we all started eating them fresh because they are wonderful when allowed to ripen properly (otherwise, they ripened from the inside out).  This year they were especially small so the thought of peeling and canning them was not appealing so the plan was to try my hand at making pearsauce.

Jamey picked two 5-gallon buckets full (later regretting he didn't pick more) and he carried them over to our neighbor's house who generously keeps an empty refrigerator in their basement for our use. Thank you, Marie!! After chilling them for a few days, these same generous neighbors allowed us to lay them out on newspaper on their basement floor to ripen.  On Saturday Sam brought the pears back over in our little red wagon.  I halved them, removing the stem and loaded them into pots to cook them down.

You use the same method to make pearsauce as you do to make applesauce.  I did make a couple adjustments.  First, the pears were much juicier so I needed to pour off most of the liquid before loading them into my Food Strainer (we call it a "Squeezo"-the brand my mother has) otherwise I got more of a pear juice than a sauce.  Because these pears are tart, I also added some sugar.  The hot sauce was canned and processed in a hot water bath for 35 minutes.

The result was AMAZING.  We all love it- possibly more than we love our applesauce and that is saying something.  And we have plans to turn every last pear on next year's tree into pearsauce (except those we eat out of hand, of course).  Our two five gallon buckets yielded 10 and a half quarts and a bowlful for eating and making Upside-Down Pear Gingerbread.  If you haven't tried that recipe yet, you must.  I make it most often without even turning it upside down- we just spoon it out of the pan.

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