Some more small batch canning

This is what I did with the tomatoes that got ripe (the ones I had wrapped in newspaper and put in boxes to ripen).  

It makes me want to make soup or stew just looking at them!  lol.

Small batch canning

I put up five pints of tomatoes today to use for soups and stews this winter.

I have some jerky drying but will have to show you that after it's done.  

My baby's hot, like jalapenos!

OK, not really, but I like the song.  lol.

(standard disclaimer about date on pictures - you're probably sick of hearing it by now)

My jalapenos are LOVING the hot weather we've been having and I found myself with quite a few of them.  We eat them on the grill, in soups and stews, cut up in various recipes and on sandwiches and stuff, but I still had a bunch on the counter.

I've already canned sliced jalapenos this year so I decided to try making some jalapeno jelly.  I've had jalapeno jelly a few times in my life.  In fact, I have a small jar in the fridge right now, but it's not spicy at all, which is a disappointment to me.  So, let's see if we can do better, shall we?

I used the recipe in the Ball Blue Book.  So I washed, seeded and stemmed the jalapenos and blended them with some of the vinegar the they went into the pot with the rest of the vinegar and sugar.  I got most of the seeds out, personally, I don't care if there are some in it, so I didn't take the time to make sure every single one was out.   I like some heat, so I took all of the seeds, veins and cores and tied them up in a clean (bought for canning purposes only, years ago) cloth diaper and put it in there to hopefully add some heat.  You can't see it in the picture, but I had a wooden clothes pin holding it on to the side of the pot.  :)

After it boiled for ten minutes I added the two packages of pectin.  It called for liquid, I only had powdered, so that's what I used.  I used a whisk to make sure it was mixed up well.  After another minute, I skimmed off the foam and into the jars it went.

Not the best picture of it in the jar, but you get the idea.

Foam skimmed off:

I processed them in a water bath for ten minutes and I ended up with six of these jars of jalapeno jelly.  Pretty, huh?  I like how you can see the bits of pepper in there.  Now, let's hope they have a little heat to go along with the sweetness.

Move over husband

This is the first time I've ever lived in a house with a basement.  It does get some water when (and if we ever again) get heavy rains, but there is a pump and they did a bunch of work on it after we moved in, so I'm hoping it works.  Regardless, though, there are some heavy shelves down there.  Husband has been using them for his stuff since we've been here.  Yesterday I told him he has to learn to share.  lol.

I've outgrown the limited storage space in the kitchen and dining area.  So all of this had to go live in the basement.  Then I ended up finding MORE stuff, probably another 10 jars or so, so it went down, too.

There will be more as we go along, too, I'm sure.

My jar purchase

I've been washing my new jars a few at a time as I've had room in the dishwasher.  So far I've found plenty of regular Ball and Golden Harvest jars.  I've also found a few that are different, and I just love them.  I put a kitchen towel inside them to try and get a decent picture for you.

This one says:

Moms Mason and has a picture of a lady on it

This one says:
Harvest Time

I just thought they were neat.  Sorry the dates on the pictures are wrong again, something is wrong with my camera where it resets every few uses and I don't always notice in time.  I promise I JUST took those pictures a few minutes ago!

Garden update 8/9/11

I'm still getting quite a few tomatoes daily.  I have five eggplants out there growing.  They aren't growing very fast, so not sure how that's going to turn out.  I think I already told you that I've pulled all the beans, peas and green beans.  I'm still getting a few cucumbers, probably 2-3 per day, which is a HUGE reduction from what it was before.  Jalapenos are doing fine, they like the heat and dryness.  Zucchinis are coming to an end soon, I think.  I get a couple every few days, but the plants are looking pretty ragged and the stupid squash bugs have arrived, so I may just go ahead and pull them soon.  I have a few melons growing out there but it's August already, so not sure how big they'll get during the rest of the growing season here.

I made more spaghetti sauce the other day because I had probably 10-15 pounds of tomatoes to use up.

Ketchup!

OK, this time I didn't forget about the seeds!  Yay!

Private #2 really wanted us to make ketchup, so ketchup it is.  Here are some photos I took during the process.

We did a small batch, so we needed six pounds of tomatoes from our garden.

You have to get the skins off and the seeds and cores out.  You get a pot of water boiling and put the tomatoes in it. 

After a bit of time, the skin will split open.  Sometimes (on the smaller tomatoes, usually) the skin doesn't split.  That's fine, just leave them in there for roughly a minute or so then take them out and put them in a colander or a bowl to cool off.  Save this pot of water.  Some of the nutrients from the tomatoes will be in the water and your houseplants (or any other plants) will love it after it's cooled to room temperature.

After that I peeled them.  The skin comes off VERY easily (like pull it with your fingers easy) after having been in the boiling hot water.  I then cored them and tried to get all of the seeds out.  I admit I did not get every single seed.  The kids won't die, they like tomatoes, they probably won't notice.  I probably got 98% of them, close enough for me.  I ran the tomato pieces in the blender on the liquefy setting just to make sure there were no tomato piece blobs.

Then it goes in a pot to thicken.

I'm sure you won't be surprised at all to know that I got busy and forgot to take a picture where I added the spices, vinegar and sugar.  It looked like the above picture only a bit darker and thicker.  Sorry!

After it was done cooking I processed it in a water bath for 40 minutes.  

Ketchup!

The kids all tried it and deemed it yummy.  The recipe said you'd get five pints of ketchup but, as you can see, I ended up with 2 pints, 2 full jelly jars and (in the refrigerator) a 1/2 full jelly jar full of ketchup.  

Now I can no longer say I've never made ketchup!