Preserving Your Harvest

[Sammster]

We were fortunate to get several nice watermelons from the garden this year.
At hubby's request I made Watermelon Rind Pickles. The brine made the kitchen smell like cinnamon, allspice and cloves.
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I've never heard of that. Sounds interesting!

 

[Sammster]

I trayed up a small harvest for the freeze dryer. This tray plus an additional, full tray of cabbage. That's one of the best things about freeze-drying - you can just do little bits until you have enough for a load. The trays are pre-freezing in the deep freeze.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I have these nice round off white gourds more than the zucchini or yellow squash I intend to cook and freeze.

 

[tripletfeb]

I just found this thread so here goes. I made some sweet and spicy zucchini relish yesterday. I used one habanero and one big Hatch chili pepper for the heat. The heat is so mild that I can only sense the heat in the aftertaste. Kid friendly, probably.

I processed 5 pints, all sealed up tight!

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And I started a batch of fermented Hatch pepper sauce. I used my food processor to chop the peppers, mixed in salt and set it in a dark place to ferment. Two or three weeks is what it takes to ferment.

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Don't forget to "burp" it everyday

 

[Sally PB]

At hubby's request I made Watermelon Rind Pickles. The brine made the kitchen smell like cinnamon, allspice and cloves.

Oh, nice. My mom made them one summer. The entire house smelled wonderful!

I've never heard of that. Sounds interesting!

They were quite a bit of work, as I recall. My mom only made them once. They were delicious!

 

[Sally PB]

Has anyone made tomato jam? Or had any? I still some ripe 'maters left, and I don't want to can any more.

71 quarts on the shelf downstairs, 71 quarts on the shelf...

Sorry about the possible earworm!

 

[Smokerbill]

Don't forget to "burp" it everyday

I used a section of a quart freezer bag for a "lid" underneath the ring. I didn't screw it on too tight, so I thing CO2 pressure will bleed out past the jar threads.

And if it doesn't the freezer bag will start ballooning up, and if that happens I'll loosen the ring a little.

Remember Balloon Wine? Kind of the same principle.

 

[Smokerbill]

Has anyone made tomato jam? Or had any? I still some ripe 'maters left, and I don't want to can any more.

71 quarts on the shelf downstairs, 71 quarts on the shelf...

Sorry about the possible earworm!

My mom made tomato preserves one summer. They tasted ok I think, but there was that nagging feeling that jam made out of tomatoes was just wrong. I think she only made it the one time, so it must not have been a hit.

But her pink corncob jelly, now that was good.

 

[Sally PB]

I had corncob jelly once. The woman gave everyone a taste before she said what it was. We were all very impressed!

 

[tripletfeb]

Has anyone made tomato jam? Or had any? I still some ripe 'maters left, and I don't want to can any more.

71 quarts on the shelf downstairs, 71 quarts on the shelf...

Sorry about the possible earworm!

I have not but I made veggie soup to can today. I used my tomatoes as the base instead of broth. I just washed and cored the tomatoes then cut them into large cubes. Put them in my blender to chop them fine and used that. Added whatever other veggies I wanted, salt, pepper, italian seasoning, brought to a simmer and let it simmer for about 10 mins. Put it in quart jars and pressure canned for 85 mins. My canner fits four quarts at a time so I still have some to can tomorrow. I plan on adding beef stew meat and canning the rest as a beef veggie stew, that will process for an hour and a half because of the meat