love the little click ... (with "fall harvest" pic

Sun Sep 09, 2012 6:00 pm

as the jars seal themselves. Something so satisfying sitting here listening to that. Canned 4 jars of fresh tomato salsa and 4 jars of green basil jelly. Working on some lavender syrup. In the meantime the still is going making essential oils... I think it's fall!

Sun Sep 09, 2012 6:10 pm

How do you make your oils? I got a can of peppers to can, probably do it tonight. I got a book on canning and I am excited to try new stuff but I have not had the time to read through it.

Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:42 pm

I have a little entfleurage distiller like this:

http://www.scientificsonline.com/distillation-kit.html

Mon Sep 10, 2012 8:12 am

Here's a picture:

Mon Sep 10, 2012 9:13 am

Thanks for the link that is a cool website. But need to think about whether I wanna get a kit or not.

Fri Sep 14, 2012 2:45 am

Continuing fall food processing, I have a ton of tomatoes coming from my two front garden tomato plants. I did the four jars of salsa. Last night I made two big pans of swiss chard lasagna and froze one. I used mainly all chopped garden tomatoes in it, instead of tomato sauce.

Made a jar of lavender-sage scented hand lotion, which will go in a birthday gift basket someone is getting tonight along with a spice jar of dried purple basil and a spice jar of dried lavender and a (non-homemade) bottle of wine.

Wed Sep 19, 2012 8:31 pm

Still busy putting stuff by, drying and distilling herbs. Tonight I made a big pot of veggie chili, with green peppers, garlic, celery, herbs, and tomatoes from the garden. Used a quart of tomato pieces after coring and seeding. That used up the tomatoes that had been sitting waiting, but didn't touch the huge salad bowl full that was today's harvest. There's enough of the chili for dinner tomorrow (well actually today now) in the frig and for at least a couple dinners in the freezer to be nice meals sometime in winter.

Thu Sep 20, 2012 6:06 am

I have canned all the vegetables I am going to can.

Now itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s time to start making jellies and apple butter. I made a nice big batch of apple butter a couple weeks ago but it has all been given away or eaten already.

I still have allot of tomatoes and cucumbers that I hope to get off before frost. I will pickle the cucumbers and can some more tomato soup.

Thu Sep 20, 2012 6:24 am

Beautiful! You obviously have way more garden than I do... I have canned some salsa, green basil jelly, lavender syrup and I do a lot with herbs. I will yet can some tomato sauce and maybe some more jams/jellies and I am planning to buy apples to do apple butter on your inspiration.

But I like to store things as meals. So I have made up containers of soup, lasagna, chili and frozen them and will yet do some more of that. Then in mid-winter I can just pull out a nice homemade dish of something with lots of garden veggies in it and defrost. I make lots of pesto and freeze it. It was only this summer that we used up the last of last year's pesto and now I'm making this year's.

Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:00 am

rainbowgardener wrote:Beautiful! You obviously have way more garden than I do... I have canned some salsa, green basil jelly, lavender syrup and I do a lot with herbs. I will yet can some tomato sauce and maybe some more jams/jellies and I am planning to buy apples to do apple butter on your inspiration.

But I like to store things as meals. So I have made up containers of soup, lasagna, chili and frozen them and will yet do some more of that. Then in mid-winter I can just pull out a nice homemade dish of something with lots of garden veggies in it and defrost. I make lots of pesto and freeze it. It was only this summer that we used up the last of last year's pesto and now I'm making this year's.

You should try canning some of those meals I can chili, meatloaf, beefstew and chicken. It is just wonderfull and easy. Best TV diner you will ever have.
The chicken works great for anything you would use chicken for. My favorite way to use it is in chicken and dumplings and it is very good sothern fried. And being cooked already it takes half the time to cook it.

Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:54 am

So if you can something and it sticks above the juice/fluid inside the can this is fine? I did some pickled peppers and they float and some of them are outside the brine.

Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:27 am

PunkRotten wrote:So if you can something and it sticks above the juice/fluid inside the can this is fine? I did some pickled peppers and they float and some of them are outside the brine.

Yep it is not going to hurt a thing due to the fact there is no air in the jar. The stuff above the water line stays just a moist as that below.

Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:49 am

If there is empty space above the fluid line, how could there be no air in the jar? If it were a vacuum, the jar would implode. Where would the air that was in there when you put the lid on have gone?

Sun Sep 23, 2012 5:27 pm

rainbowgardener wrote:If there is empty space above the fluid line, how could there be no air in the jar? If it were a vacuum, the jar would implode. Where would the air that was in there when you put the lid on have gone?

It is under vacuum thats what happens durring the pressure cooking time it. Thats why you hear that sucking sound when you open them. They do not implode because they don't have a vacuum pump pulling the air out it is just pushed out during canning. This is the reason you don't crank them down tight before putting them in the water bath or the cooker they have to have room to let the air out.