Anthony and I are trying our hand at canning. A few weeks ago we got a bunch of tomatoes, peppers (okay we’ve been getting a variety of peppers for 5 or so weeks!), and the like from our farm share at Griggstown Quail Farm. I figured let’s put these fresh ingredients to good use by canning! After our second time at it, it’s kinda fun being in the kitchen with my husband. He blanches, peels, and chops the tomatoes while I do the other prep work (i.e. sterilizing jars, boiling water, etc.). I think I’m going to pickle some of the peppers (we have a two gallon size bags full of peppers in the freezer!) and try my hand at pickled jalapenos (they are Anthony’s favorites!)
This was our kitchen after the first time we canned. It sure is messy!
Second time around, I got the special utensils and all!
The spaghetti sauce I used was a version of this one. From trial and error, we discovered we don’t like celery or bell peppers or as much sugar and salt. Also, I used an immersion blender on the second batch so that it wasn’t chunky. Tastes delicious!
Feel free to click on the recipe cards – you can download them that way!
This salsa recipe came from Tasty Kitchen as well. It can be found here. We did more modifying of this recipe, removing the pickling spice (okay we actually put this in this batch and it made it too sweet – almost like cider! so the next time we won’t be adding it), removing the brown sugar and not adding as much regular sugar. We ended up using one of the jars for dinner, hence why it isn’t full!
Feel free to click on the recipe cards – you can download them that way!
To locate a CSA in your area, check out Local Harvest.
I’m still too daunted by canning but way to go on tackling it! Maybe next year for me…
Those look DELICIOUS! I’m totally stealing the recipes!