Jam!

My mom and I canned strawberry/raspberry jam last night. It is really yummy.



So here is the info I'll need next time. Read if you feel like it. We made 3 batches with 4 lbs of strawberries and 10 packages (6 oz each) of raspberries. This worked out to be exactly 15 cups of fruit. We ended up with 22 cups of jam. (15 various sized jars). Kroger "can-jel" calls for 5 cups of fruit and 7 cups of sugar. (yikes!) Regular sure jell calls of 6 cups of fruit and 5 cups of sugar. We did one batch with sure jell and the other 2 with can-jel (the last was 4/5ths of a batch, so we divided everything to work out). Next time get more fruit and use sure jell. The ratio of strawberries to raspberries is really good. So there you go.

Feeling A Little Amish...

Amish women keep track of all their canning from year to year. How many jars of what. So, in a more technologically advanced way, I'm feeling a little Amish tonight as I log how many jars of what I canned this year.

From left to right:

Amana Orange 4 pints
Cherokee Purple 3 pints
Oregon Spring 4 pints
Homestead 11 pints

Red Tomato Juice 4 pints
Amana Juice 1 pints

Red Salsa 5 pints
Amana Salsa 2 pints

Incidentally, Amana is an Amish colony in Iowa. I've been there, it was pretty cool. Hmmm


And I know you love my labels. Just remember: a little more technologically advanced, not necessarily a lot more.

Lots of Work for A Little

My Mother-in-law Terilynn and I slaved away in my kitchen for 3.5 hours tonight making salsa. This is what we got out of it! And yes, that is orange salsa on the right. We made two different batches (cooking simultaneously) so we could have some of the weird looking salsa for fun. Well, two jars later...

I'm Getting Tired of Canning

I'm thinking it's time to make some salsa and get it over with!

Tomatoes

On Sept. 26 I took this picture. I cut up and froze the ones in the bowl that day, and ripened the others to eat/freeze a few days later. I thought I knew what the names of all these varieties were, but thanks to Google Image I found out I was quite mistaken. I guess that is what I get for planting everything so close together. Note to self: don't do that again! The following pictures will enlighten us a little on what these are really called. I'll be adding flavor info, and who liked what after I talk to everyone about it:

San Marzano Roma
3-4" long fruits. Very high producing heirloom Roma tomato. We got approximatly 200 fruits off of two plants during the whole summer. These were on the side of the house.

Terilynn says they are good in her stir fry, but doesn't like to eat them plain (with vinegar, of course). Prone to disease, but we carefully removed the effected bottom leaves as fruit was just beginning to set. The plants endured!



Oregon Spring
2.5" fruits. I think we got about 50-60 from a few plants, I'll have to check on that.




Crimson Beefsteak
Small, 2" fruits. Heirloom. I thought this was Oregon Spring. Oops. These seem to be quite acidic for me. I think we got 20-30 this season off of 2 plants. I believe this was the variety I had to remove on of because of disease early in the season, just before they started to set fruit. So it was probably 20-30 from one plant.



Cherokee Purple
Large 4-5 inch fruits. Heirloom. I thought these were Crimson Beefsteak. Mild flavor, everyone likes them a lot.



Homestead
Medium, 3" fruits. Hi producing-200 harvested just before frost from 4 plants. These were on the side of the house.
Picture to come...here's someone else's for now



Amana Orange
Large 4" fruits. I think we got 40 or more of these from 3 plants.

The Count is In...

Here's what 163 various tomatoes look like sitting on my piano and hanging above it. I don't know the weight and I couldn't keep track of which was which because they were all growing together. But for my records the varieties are: Amana Orange, Crimson Beefsteak, Better Boy, Oregon Spring, and Cherokee Purple.

But here is what 200 Homestead tomatoes weighing 32 pounds looks like.
And here is what 182 heirloom Roma tomatoes weighing 20 pounds looks like.
In case you are wondering why they are green... there have been rumors in the east of a shadow growing, a snow storm to be exact. We'll be ripening the tomatoes inside. Then I will attempt my first canning project. With the help of my mother thankfully.

Canning is to happen week after next. Let's hope it goes well.