Easy As Canned Corn...

The hardest part was stripping the kernels off the cob. That didn't take too long as I had the right tool for the job. I heated the kernels in spring water and then put them into jars with just a bit of sea salt. 

I had three dozen ears of corn, but retained four ears to have with dinner the past couple nights. The remaining thirty two ears yielded fourteen pint jars of golden goodness that we can enjoy over the winter in casseroles or as side dishes.

We're going to have to buy apples this year, as all the apples on our old tree dropped. The weather has been weird enough that they just didn't hold until they ripened this year. If we want applesauce (and Handsome always wants applesauce), we'll need to get them from the local orchard. I'll look into that soon to see when we can expect the local harvest.

I think the frozen roma tomatoes from our garden last season will be next on the canning agenda. I'm going to turn those into pizza sauce and homemade rotel. I'll likely do those tomorrow. I'm planning to stitch today. What's on your agenda?

It's A Good (Safe) Tired...

 

Before you worry, I've been behaving. Handsome does all the heavy lifting (bless his heart), and I do what I can safely accomplish without risking my recuperation. Most of our tomatoes have gone to the freezer to process later, but a friend who lives up the road had an overabundance of tomatoes that she graciously shared with us. I decided we should process these right away because they were just that gorgeous. BTW- we bartered some of my canned goods for the tomatoes. Everybody was happy with that arrangement!

I've been revisiting our pantry to see what I typically purchase that we could replace with our own homemade version, and one of the things I found were cans of Rotel Tomatoes and Chili Peppers. I usually add this to our enchilada dishes or other Mexican fare. I found a great recipe from THIS website

and we ended up processing 25 cups of tomatoes (run through our food processor), 8 jalapeños (also chopped), and the rest of the incredients called for in the recipe.

When all was said and done, we had nineteen 12 oz. jars of beautiful homemade rotel fresh from the water bath canner. It's already on the pantry shelf now.

 

 

Andy and Shelly found a sweet corn stand and shared some of their corn with us. We got a call when they went back to see if we wanted more, so I asked them to bring three dozen ears for us. Over the weekend, eighteen ears were processed into creamed corn (We already have canned sweet corn, but if I want to make corn casserole it also calls for a can of creamed corn). The cream and butter are added to these jars when it's time to cook them, not in the canning process. You can see we ended up with seven and a half pints.

We also did another batch of Corn and Black Bean Salsa with some of the remaining corn, and ten cobs were blanched and then vacuum-sealed for the freezer. We're set with sweet corn for the winter now!

Today Handsome and I will be baking bread, but I'll likely can sliced green tomatoes, too. I found a recipe from the same site as the Rotel copycat recipe to can the green tomatoes so they can be used later for fried green tomatoes! As I seriously doubt that many of the remaining tomatoes will ripen on the vine, this is a perfect solution to enjoy them all winter long!

By the time our day is done, we'll have four loaves of bread and multiple jars of sliced green tomatoes. I'll share photos tomorrow. I know when we're though, I'll be a really nice tired, and be very grateful for my dear husband who helped every step of the way.

Not Bad At All...

I did it! I jumped right in yesterday, and put up twenty two ears of sweet corn. As I was shucking the corn in the morning, I tasted some of the corn that I was breaking off. It was so sweet, I served two ears with our lunch. The rest were processed for the pressure canner.

I read and reread the instructions, and then read them once more. I set everything up exactly as advised, and then read what I would need to do when the fifty five minute processing time was up. 

There were no incidents whatsoever! No damaged ceilings. No blown lids. No minor (or major) explosions. It was actually the easiest thing ever.  

I waited for the canner to vent all the pressure on its own. I certainly didn't want to try to rush the process and ruin my hard work. I watched television with a cup of tea, actually. When I went back to check an hour later, the gauge was back to "zero", and the little pressure popup "thingy" was back down. I slowly turned the lid to unlock it, and there were my nine beautiful jars of shelf-stable, canned corn waiting for me.

I am so glad I faced my fears, challenged myself to push forward, and having so much deliciousness to show for it. I'm quite chuffed, actually. Today, I'm going to do tomatoes. No luck needed. I think I've got this.