What are you canning now?

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Because they're just so darn pretty and colorful, here are pics of my canning!

Here's my cupboard where I keep all my pie/cobbler fillings, fruits, jams, salsas, some pickled veggies, and pressure canned veggies.
Salsasandjamsandveggiesohmy.jpg


Ran out of room, so here are my vaggie soup, tomato sauce, chicken broth, and pickled roasted red & green peppers:
Soupsaucebrothandroastedpeppers.jpg


And, just because I'm happy about having found and used this, a pic of my grandparents' 6 galloon pickle crock. It's got a ton of dill pickles fermenting away in there. My mom remembers this sitting under the cellar stairs when she was a kid. By the time I was born they were doing cold pack pickles but I decided to go the old way & ferment the pickles delli style. Yummmmy!! My brother is so excited to have homemade pickles. Our grandfather, who died in 1990, made them every year but nobody has made any since then. I'm excited to be able to share them. The 1/2 galloon jar on top is a hand blown jar my grandma gave me a couple of weeks ago. It probably had been sitting in her root cellar for decades. It's ancient and has bubbles in the glass. Patent on it is 1858. Very cool!
Grandparents6galpicklecrock.jpg
 
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Oh, man, that pantry is BEAUTIFUL! This was my first year to attempt putting up anything, so I stuck to pickling, preserves, and jelly. My pantry looks anemic next to yours, but SO much prettier than it did last year!

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I have tomato sauce, pickled sweet banana pepper rings, pickled carrots, pickled Anaheim pepper strips, pickled okra, bread & butter cucumber pickles, peach preserves, purple hull pea "grape" jelly, and my two favorites, Old South Lime Pickles (cucumber recipe from the back of Mrs. Wage's Pickling Lime jar) and Watermelon Pickles (recipe from FarmerKitty here on BYC).
 
They are pretty!!! I saw a thread from Terrielacy I think, about pickled eggs. Now I have been craving them. We tore the entire garage apart today looking for my quart sized mason jars so I can make some. Now I just have to find my grandmothers recipes.
 
I have a question for the several people I see using the wide mouth jars. Is there something about them you like better? I haven't tried them and felt unsure.....almost felt like they would be harder to get a good seal (or easier to accidentally break the seal) with the larger surface area? I really like the straight sided look of them better than the standard mouth jars.
 
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I switched to wide mouth for 1 reason: I got killer deals on them! A friend found 4 dozen quart jars at $4.50/doz at a barn sale and I found 6 dozen pint jars at $5/doz on craigslist, delivered! Now that I've used wide mouth jars for a canning cycle, I plan to use exclusively the wide mouth jars. They're so easy to pack. Plus they fit in my cabinets a bit better. In the pint jars there were some squatty short jars which I love love love!

Ninjapoodles - thanks for saying my cabinet looks full! After seeing some people can 20+ quarts of some things, I feel like it's not nearly enough. We'll go through it pretty quickly, I suspect. I love your watermelon pickles - are they as good as they sound? Are they sweet or sour??

I can't wait for winter oranges to come in season so that I can make marmalade.
 
OK but it's yet ANOTHER recipe from the much-touted Ball "Complete Book of Home Preserving"!! I love that book. I got it from the library and may just break down and buy it for myself.

Before I type it, I need to vent that rubber gaskets for jars like these just cost me $4.89. Only close family members (parents and brother) will get things canned in these jars, and under threat of death if they don't return the jar to me. Sheesh.
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Deli Dills, page 346
Makes ~ 6 quarts

3/4 c pickling spice
2-3 bunches fresh dill, divided
10 lbs cukes, blossom end trimmed
1.5 c pickling salt
2 c white vinegar
16 c water
6 garlic cloves (optional)

STAGE 1:
1. In large crock or stainless steel container, place 1/2 the pickling spice & 1 bunch dill. Add cukes, leaving 4" headspace.
2. In large pot, combine salt, vinegar, water: boil. dissolve salt, cool to room temp.
3. Ladle pickling liquid over cukes to cover. Place remaining dill & spice over top. Add garlic if using. Place large, inverted plate on top of cukes and weigh down with quart jars filled with water. Let stand in a cool place (70-75 degrees is ideal), until cukes well flavored with dill and clear throughout: ~3 weeks. Every day, remove scum from surface of brine*. When bubbling stops, fermentation is done. Fermentation can take up to 6 weeks.

*White scum didn't start to form on surface of my crock's liquid until the 2nd week. The crock "burps" all the time with all the fermentation happening in there.

STAGE 2:
1. Prepace BWB canner.
2. Drain pickles and reserve brine. Strain brine into large saucepan. Bring to boil and boil gently 5 mins.
3. Pack pickles into hot jars w/ 1/2" headspace. Add liquid, remove bubbles, adjust headspace, blah blah blah.
4. Process 15 mins.

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Pickles in my area are sold by the hundred from the best farmer. I've got about 120-130 pickles fermenting in that crock. Since I have more than 6 quarts worth of pickles, I intend to do some dill chips, garlic pickles, and hot pickles. I'll throw 1-2 dried chili peppers into a couple of the jars as I can them.
 
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I prefer them. I can peaches and pears in halves, and they are easier to get in and out of widemouth jars in my opinion. I did do tomato juice in narrow mouths just because I had some.
 
I just wanted to say thank you to all the BYC canners for inspiring me and giving me the courage to start canning this year! So far I've canned dill pickles, peaches, tomato sauce, and next weekend I'll be picking apples and will definitely can some applesauce, and now you've all got me thinking about apple butter and apple pie filling. I guess I better prepare to pick a lot of apples! Once I'm done with the apples, I'd imagine that will complete canning season for me, but I must admit I'm becomming so hooked I'll probably be looking high and low for something else to can. Now that I think about it, I'm heading to my parents house this weekend and they always have some very loaded pear trees this time of year. Hmmm...
 

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