Squirreling it away
A large stockpot full of sour cherries from our tree planted 2 years ago. I got 17 jars of sour cherry jam from it.
This weekend has seen the putting away of 18 jars (1l each) of organic Roma tomatoes. This is my first time doing it and even though I followed some recipes, not just one, I will see if it works. It is just so interesting to see the discrepancy between recipes, government health recommendations and actual experience handed down by somebody that had been doing it for many, many years, namely my dearest neighbour Dina. She is of greek descent and when she arrived in Canada over 40 years ago, she had an italian neighbour teach her.
So I did some by her recipe, some by Tessa Kiros from her book 'Twelve", and some from a government recommended guidelines. It is so beautiful to see the pantry fill up with glimpses of summer. Oh, and did I mention that I also have about 45 jars of jam? Mind you, they are 250 ml ones, so it is only about 11.5 kg of jam… not so bad for a family of only three people. (My dear Mr.C. finds it rather a bit on the extreme site), good thing I haven't told him that I still have to make pear butter and quince jam. Quince I really have to make, as I've missed doing it for the past two years and I just absolutely devour that jam. I was also still going to put away a few jars of pears, but I have to see how time is doing. Applesauce is another thing that I will do a bushel off.
My goal with the canning is that I can can enough fruits so as to not having to buy much of any from far away places. Of course, there is always the occasional fresh items such as bananas about once per month, mandarins, oranges, lemons for baking.
Last year I ended up giving quite a few jars away for Christmas, together with a large mason jar of pancake mix, loosely based on a recipe from Laurel's Kitchen. Boy, I'm so bad, I should really be providing weblinks to all these books, but I'm just to bushed.
On friday I had also prepared a flat of plums for freezing. I freeze them in flat bags, so that I can put them frozen onto a "Wähe", a swiss-type-quiche-egg-custard like pie thingy that is very lovely to have as a meal. So I've also got 10 of those that can be made during the winter.
When I'm done, I'm planning to post a full list of jars and type of goods, not only to share, but also to keep an inventory.
Other news…. I got my Victoria spinning wheel today!… but boy do I need to lear to spin before I'm able to show of anything. Even though Pluckyfluff states that there is no ugly yarn, and I do have to agree with her in principle, I know that a lot of practice is in order. A whole bunch of my friends had chipped in for it as a birthday gift, lovingly organized by beloved Mr. C.
I guess I'd better get to bed now, this coming week will be the first full week of me getting to the studio for 6;30 am monday to friday and I'm curious to see when the novelty will wear off.
Hugs to you all!