I went on a canning binge again today... if you count the beef in wine sauce I took out of the pressure canner at 1 a.m.! I canned:
Beef in wine sauce: 6 quarts, 1 pint
Crushed tomatoes: 7 quarts
Seasoned tomato sauce: 7 quarts, 2 pints
(... and finally!) Dill pickles: 9 quarts, 4 pints
(28 jars in all!)
I did have a casualty though. One of the wire bail jars from my grandmother's root cellar cracked. It's still water tight but it's got a big crack through it. It'll be relegated to holding Q-tips or something like that.
Including the things I've frozen, I've put up 40 different things, from fruits & jams, salsas and veggies, soups and berries!
The dill pickles seem to be pretty crisp. I'm actually not much of a dill pickle fan so I'll have to let others be the best judges. They stopped fermenting very quickly. I thought it would be a gradual tapering off but NOPE!
And here's a sentence I never thought I'd utter with such delight: "My fermenting sauerkraut has started to get a scum on it!" Once the pickles started doing that they were ready about a week later. I'm hoping that the sauerkraut won't have to sit on the kitchen counter too much longer. I'm really tired of it.
Only 10 empty quart jars and 6 pint jars in my entire house. Then I can rest!! I figure the sauerkraut will take 3 of the pint jars. My plum tree's bounty will become chutney, then I'll do apple pie filling with the other fruit tree's crop.
My cost per item (canned jar or frozen quart baggie) put up is $1.41, for a total of nearly $300. Not too shabby, I say!
