What are you canning now?

[oberhaslikid]

Wasnt planning on doing much this year. I just coldnt let the concords go the smelled wonderful out there on the vine.
Soo I ended up with 9 pints of Grape Butter.Wonderful! love that stuff.

 

[mickey328]

Never heard of grape butter, sounds great! I love grape jelly and we can never get Concords here, so I've got my vine growing...no fruit yet though...hopefully next year.

 

[vfem]

Erin, that is some GREAT info!!!

I can't wait to put that to good use with what we enter this year. Before now I would just read the judges comments on my jars and others to see what was the like and dislike. I even kept the comment cards to read over this year when I pick out my entries.

My husband laughs at me when I arrange, and rearrange tomatoes, green beans, ect in the jars until I like the way they sit. Hahahaha

Our fair is in October, but I have about 3 weeks to get my entry form filled out and submitted so I can get it in on time. We sure do get over crowded with jarred good entries each year now. Its become sooooooooooooooo popular again in the last few years. So much so, they even had a news paper article about the crazy popularity of it a couple years ago interviewing the fair people about how they handled the influx in recent years. I mean really, since when has canned good been a front page article!? Hahahaha

 

[Chick N Haus]

When my daughter was in 4-H, I went with her to one of the leader's houses one Saturday for her demonstration of canning for fair. She won ribbons with her canning, cooking and sewing entries every year. In fact, she considered it part of her household budget. She was serious. So, in addition to all the hints mentioned, I remember that she had a ruler and she measured every vegetable that went into her jars. The green beans were all exactly the same length. She canned a lot of green beans, but her fair batch was all measured to a fraction of an inch. Fair is serious business. My daughter is a grandmother now. But, I doubt things have changed.

 

[erinszoo]

Yep, there are people that measure the cuts of their green beans and carrots and potatoes, etc so that everything is exactly the same size. People use all kinds of tricks to make their jars of food look perfect because they are darned serious about winning. We don't get that crazy even though we judge. We can first for our pantry and home use and then if we think the jars look good enough we'll enter the fair with them. We usually win enough to pay for all the new canning jars we buy each year. A couple of times we've won best in show (we don't judge our own fair) and gotten canning jars and books on canning. One year we won $25 for our jar of pickle relish. But I spent hours hand chopping the cucumbers that year so that they were all the same size ... and we did use a little green food coloring in the vinegar mix to improve the color. It paid for a bunch of garden seed.

 

[mickey328]

I grew up where wild blueberries grew all over and we had gallons of them every year, and I really miss that Colorado has mostly very alkaline soils, so growing here is pretty much out of the question without pretty much growing them in buried bales of peat. Plus, I've never ever tasted a "domestic" blueberry that had the good taste of the little wild ones. We also had lots of wild raspberries, and the same could be said for them. Fortunately they will grow here in Colorado, and we have a u-pick farm quite close to us for those and for strawberries. We have a patch of strawberries that are doing well out in the yard, but they don't really produce enough for much of anything but the occasional snack.

I'll be canning a bushel or two of tomatoes this coming week...can't wait to use my new food mill for them!

 

[ChikeeMomma]

I have just cut up a half bushel of cukes. Have some ready for sweet relish. The rest will be made into bread and butter picks and dill. I have some tomatillos to get on and make more green salsa.

 

[sonew123]

Monkey butter and blackberry ginger lemon jam oooooooooh

 

[Mtn Laurel]

Just got a Presto pressure canner this week and took it out for a spin this morning. Picked, washed, snapped and canned 9 pints of pole beans. Not a lot, but I wanted to make sure I was familiar and at ease with the pressure canner before I did a marathon session.

I LOVE it!

 

[mickey328]

LOVE my pressure canner! I put up about 25 pints of nice green beans last year. I also use it to can chili...make a huge pot and can it in pints so there's enough for a meal for one.

Sonew, ya just gotta tell me...what's monkey butter???

Mickey