Loving Home

It has cooled down enough to can again. I have two quarts of diced tomatoes in the canner right now and then I will have pickled sweet banana pepper rings to can. Not sure how many 1/2 pints I will get. After this I will officially be out of pint and half pint jars. I really need to go through and find the cranberry salsa I made last year. David did not like it so I need to dump and wash the jars. I also need to make barbecue sauce and cranberry sauce to can. I need to make zucchini bread and cake to use some of the shredded zucchini from last year in the deep freeze. Next couple of days will be busy busy.

Today I made homemade V-8 juice. Last year when I made it dh loved it. This year I added more "greens" to the mix. It is in the canner right now. I love it because it is all veggies - no salt, no sugar, no nothing other than veggies. It is a great way to get hubby to eat his veggies. ~smile~ Also shredded some zucchini. Got 6 cups of shredded and froze two of the bags. Will make bread with the other two cups.

Last night I stayed up late to finish canning. I got 13 pints of dill pickles, 8 pints and 1 half pint of zucchini relish and 3 quart bags of summer squash. Shelves are looking wonderful. Today, I processed the rosemary that has been hanging in my pantry. I have a 9 x 13 pan over half full. I love the smell of rosemary and my plant survived the winter and is huge now. I may end up giving some away but I know I will have lots for me.

Today I did the first canning of the year. I made dill pickles. 10 pints and 1 half pints. This is a new recipe so I hope that we will like them. It calls for dill seed so I went and bought a little tin and it only did nine of the jars so I remembered that our dill from last year came back in and I had just enough fresh dill for the other two jars. I need to find a bigger container of dill seed next time. Pickles wise I am only making dill this year as I still have a lot of bread and butter and relish. Tomorrow I will turn my attention to the zucchini and yellow squash. I am looking at zucchini relish and use the yellow for part of it. Yesterday I baked a zucchini cake and two loaves of zucchini bread. Yummy. The cake was soooo moist it was amazing. I will make it again.

Boy was June busy.....canning a storm. I love seeing those beautiful jars filled with yummy treats for later. July has started out busy also. Hard to believe that my honey goes back to work in a month. Where has the summer gone? Our garden is still producing alot. The broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and summer squash are gone. The zucchini is reeving up for another round. We have already gotten over 30 pounds of zucchini. The tomatoes are finally starting to turn and the peppers are loving the heat. We are finally having luck with cucumbers this year. I love making pickles with then. Last year I ended up buying the cucumbers for the pickles. I need to find a dehydrator for the peppers. I want to try to make our own chili powder. We'll see what happens. I am excited that next week the animals start going back to school. I want my laundry room back. We have two chameleons, a corn snake, a tarantula, a leopard gecko, a tree frog, an Egyptian toad, and a snider skink. ...

...canning jars that is.  This week has finally seen the end of the pears.  I still have some put I am going to save them for eating.  I went out and found a case of pint jars on Wednesday but went back today and they had nothing but quarts.  I don't want quart jars right now.  So I looked high and low and have now used EVERY canning jar that I have in the house.  I even emptied the salsa in the fridge into a bowl to have that jar.  So today I have canned:  4 quarts, 19 pints, 12 jelly jars and 5 half pints of pears.  I have no jars left until we empty some more. I thought I would list what I have processed from the harvest this summer:   12 quarts and 1 pint of diced tomatoes 11 quarts and 13 pints of spaghetti sauce 2 quarts and 2 pints of beets 9 pints of tomato juice 6 pints of V8 juice 6 pints of sauerkraut 11 pints of applesauce 3 pints of zucchini relish 24 pints of dilled pickles 15 pints of bread and butter pickles 15 pints of pepper relish 53 pints of salsa (we have eaten...

This weekend was absolutely amazing. Beth Moore was something else. I am so glad that I took the time to go. Rachel really enjoyed it also. Her key phrase was "competently competent". Love it !!!!!! Sunday I did pay for though as I spent most of the day in bed. So much pain. Was it worth it. Absolutely. Today, I have been up since 6:45am working in the kitchen. I have got three batches of spaghetti sauce bubbling away, gotten 5.5 lbs of ground beef processed and almost done snapping beans for dilled beans. I will be canning the spaghetti sauce in quarts this time as the pints are just not enough. Dh likes a little spaghetti with his sauce ~smile~. Tomorrow I will make salsa with the two huge bowls of tomatoes that I have staring at me. Had to go to the store twice today as I forgot something the first time. Please keep Ian in your prayers as he is trying to find a new part time job. He is actually losing money driving for Pizza Hut. He applied at seven differe...