My chickens are doing great. I'm covered up with an overabundance of fresh eggs & every few weeks I have to give all my local friends and family a shout out to see if anyone needs some. Last week, I have over 15 dozen eggs sitting in my fridge. And that was after I'd already used 2 dozen eggs for a recipe. Luckily, after my shout out I managed to sell or trade 11 dozen in two days.
I didn't do a garden this year, but I did plant a lot of veggies in pots on my front deck. I've harvested a few handfuls of green beans and my banana pepper plants are covered up. I did a bell pepper plant for the first time and it had two baby peppers on it. I noticed the other day that one of them is missing. :( I don't know if it was a bird, squirrel, or it just shriveled up and fell off. I figure I'll be lucky if the other one survives. My tomato plants grew big and tall, but produced nothing. *Sniff, Sniff* However, my mint grew like crazy & smells so good. :)
On the upside, I'm getting pretty darn good at canning this year. I started doing a little last summer, just some hot water bath items, but over the winter I broke down and bought myself an All American Pressure Canner. I finally used it for the first time a few weeks ago for green beans and they turned out beautiful! I love it! I'm addicted now.
Last year I did pickled beets and sauerkraut in the summer, then made applesauce and apple butter in the fall. However, this summer I've canned green beans, strawberry jam, blueberry jam, whole blackberries, dill and bread & butter pickles, and whole kernel corn. Here are a few pictures of my yummy bounty. :)
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| Whole Blackberries in Simple Syrup |
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| Strawberry Jam |
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| Green Beans |
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| Bread & Butter and Dill Pickles |
Man...I think Canning is such a great idea. However, I am VERY afraid of it. I have a local person who said she would help me figure it out if I ever want to get into it. Not to mention my kitchen is not very big so storing all the jars after the canning would be an issue. Its much easier to make certain things and then just freeze them. I usually do a HUGE batch of things like sgetti sauce, stews, soups and freeze them. I also roast garlic in huge batches and then package them in 1T increments and have that at all times for recipes. I just freeze it...LOL...I do want to learn to make Jam. I think that would be awesome and probably much cheaper than the store bought and much healthier!
ReplyDeleteI'm loving it, Corey! I actually just finished scheduling a post for Monday where I talk about the price comparisons of canning versus buying.
ReplyDeleteI actually do freeze a lot of stuff, but I've had freezers go out on me and sooo much wasted food. As for storing, heck, I just put a case of corn under my bed. LOL! My kitchen it FULL & I'm still not done. :D