Category Archives: canning

Tomatoes. 150ish pounds of ’em.

Leave a reply

So Shannon went to Utah to help Mom out post hip replacement. (This was during the first week of school.) While she was there she found out that this food rescue place just got in an unexpected shipment of organic on the vine tomatoes. $11 for 66lbs. HELLO! So I went and got some. Unfortunately it was one order per household. However when Shannon got back into town they still had some so she ran over and got an order. At that point they were REALLY wanting to unload them before they all rotted, and asked Shannon if she wanted two orders. She almost got two orders, but then thought better of it.

So between the two orders and what she brought back with her from the garden (Jon's Dad has an AMAZING garden!) we were swimming in tomatoes. And if we didn't have to worry about taking and picking up kids from school we would have been done much faster, and probably would have grabbed that third order. Because we are completely crazy like that!

 

IMG_1951

I didn't want the tomatoes I picked up on Saturday morning to spoil any faster than they already were, so I took out some shelving from the bevi fridge and crammed them in to wait for Monday and Shannon.

 

IMG_1952

Every single tomato had a sticker. EVERY.SINGLE.ONE! I found this annoying and excessive. I kept reminding myself of the sweet deal we got on them as I de-stickered and de-vined them for washing,

 

1174558_10202021836687696_533415265_n

 

 

025

This is a picture of most of the tomatoes washed and ready to go. I lined the boxes with paper towels and stacked them up to conserve space in my little kitchen.

 

027

This is where we lived for the next several days between kids and school. For the several hundreds of tomatoes we had we only tossed around 20 due to rot. I was thrilled with how well the organic tomatoes held up.

 

040

Our treasures from Utah. This whole tomato/Utah garden deal softened the blow of our garden failure this year.

 

042

  

IMG_2222

We processed 28 quarts of diced tomatoes, 8 quarts of spaghetti sauce, 19 pint and a half jars (24 oz jars) of spaghetti sauce, 35 pints of salsa, and 5 quarts of pickles.

 

IMG_2223

It took us four days, but we got it all done. Just in time for weekend fun. Thanks for being crazy with me Shanny!

Canning

Leave a reply

We came home from Utah with a whole lot of produce from the garden. Jon's Dad always has an amazing garden. Shannon and I got 52 bottles processed. Most of that was salsa. We also did relish, pickles, and carrots. Shannon is going back up in a couple of weeks. I am excited to see what she brings back for us to do! We also drank orange Fanta when our energy started to run low. YUM.

002

While Shannon and I were busy in the kitchen the kids ran wild. I asked Rebekah to help Kaylee make a countdown to school chain. 003

She did an awesome job. I really love how colorful she made it, and how each chain is labeled. i.e. 10 day til school starts. etc, etc…

Thanksgiving 2012

Leave a reply

We hosted this year. It was fun. Lots of people and LOTS more food. Pictures are from Wed – Sat. I am so thankful for such an amazing loving family. I really LOVE that our parents get along, as well as all our siblings. It’s so nice. SO SO nice. In fact the children got a special surprise because all the grandparents arrived at our house at the same time as they caravan-ed. It was SO exciting for them/us.

We ended our long (but oh so fun) weekend by canning 100-115 lbs of apples. Made 28 quarts of apple pie filling, and then loads of apple sauce. to quote Regan, “Yummy in my tummy!”

It was a delish weekend.