August | 2010 | Finding Joy in the Little Things

FOR TODAY

Outside my window… it’s cool and cloudy. I have to admit I’m eagerly awaiting the official arrival of fall. Our summer has been rather hectic and I am enjoying the slower pace of being home.

I am thinking… I have a lot more canning to do in the next few weeks. Pears, carrots, and apples are next up!

I am thankful for… my husband’s new job!! I have finally had a taste of what it’s like to have a husband who comes home at 5pm every day and has weekends off… I like it!

From the learning rooms… taking it easy for now, lots of liturgical celebrations and planning happening.

From the kitchen… I think my last post summed up my kitchen pretty well. Lots of canning. LOTS.

I am wearing… yoga capris and a t-shirt. Comfy.

I am creating… inventories. Pantry, freezer, canning inventories. Organization baby!

I am going… back to the farmer’s market on Wednesday to get dill and carrots to pickle.

I am reading… a bible study by Kimberly Hahn. It’s in my room or I would tell you what it’s called… I’m enjoying it a lot, it’s great morning reading.

I am hoping… that one day I’ll be caught up on laundry. I’m not holding my breath though.

I am hearing… Sirius Pops on my satellite radio. I love my satellite radio. I listen to a lot of EWTN shows, Open Line and The Doctor is In are my favourites.

Around the house… lots of things I want to tackle now that cooler weather is here. Sewing and knitting seem to be winter hobbies, I have hardly touched my machine all summer.

One of my favorite things… the satisfying *pop* jars fresh out of the canner make when they seal.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Canning, register Mary for gymnastics, visits with friends we haven’t seen in weeks. Fun! 🙂

Here is picture for thought I am sharing…

Is that not the biggest zucchini you have ever seen? For $2 at our farmer’s market I couldn’t resist.

This is more for my records than anything but here is a look into what I have canned so far this year:

Salsa: 15x500mL jars. Bernardin. This is good. A little watery and plain for my taste, used jalapeno and anahiem peppers. Definitely could have left all seeds in jalapenos, left half in for hot and it’s not very hot.

Red Hot Sauce: 8x125mL jars. Bernardin. Used jalapeno and serrano peppers, seeded. Very tasty sauce but not even a little bit hot. Make again using hotter peppers.

Old Fashioned Tomato Ketchup. 8x1L jars & 3x500mL jars. Well Preserved. My sil did the lion’s share of the work on this one (It was the second day of my period and I was c.r.a.n.k.y so she kicked me out), we used (50lbs?) of tomatoes for this. It cooked down for like 6.5 hours. It’s really yummy but way too much work to do regularly.

Preserved in light syrup:

20lbs of nectarines. 10x1L jars. YUM! Nathaniel says they are the best canned fruit he has ever tasted. Light syrup (6cups water 2 cups sugar) is perfect. I left the skins on but they slip off very easily for the kids. Seriously. Yum. Do these next year.

30lbs of peaches. 13x1L jars. Also very yummy. The kids ate an entire jar after dinner the other night.

10lbs of plums. 5x1L jars. These ones not so much. They are a little bitter and probably could have used a medium or even a heavy syrup. I’ll use them for plum cake.

Plum Jam. 6lbs of plums made 8x500mL jars. Well preserved. This needs pectin. It’s too runny to be jam but it’s really good! Super easy and very yummy. One recipe makes around 3 500mL jars.

Peach Rum Sauce. Bernardin. We must have doubled this (?check with sil?). 10x250mL(?). This is super yummy. My dad and Nathaniel both raved about how good this was on ice cream. Make again.

Peach Salsa. Bernardin. 3 batches. 12x500mL jars. This is better than the tomato salsa. Way better. I was super skeptical as to how good this would be but WOW. After trying my sil’s first batch I was in love. This is going to become a staple around here I think.

Raspberry Jam. I think we made around 87 (seriously) 500mL jars of this. My mom and I used to do it with my Grannie so it was a little bittersweet but my uncles, Grandad, and Poppa all can’t exist with out this jam so we make it every year.

Picked Beets and Onions. 5x500mL jars & 1 250mL. Bernardin. I just did these tonight so I don’t know how they are but they were easy to do. My dad picked me a bunch of beets from his garden so I’m sure they will be yummy.

Spicy Pickled Green Beans. 9x500mL jars. Well preserved. I bought these cute little red peppers for the hot peppers for this recipe. Not knowing what kind of peppers they were or how hot they were I asked my poor dh to take a bite. Well he almost exploded and he has a high tolerance for spicy food! After drinking almost 2 liters of milk he advised me not to put too much of them in my pickles. So we only made two jars of spicy, the rest are just garlic/dill. These were also done tonight with fresh farmer’s market beans so we will see how they taste in a few weeks!

WOW! Not counting the jam that’s 103 jars! That is a lot of canning. No wonder I’m having a hard time finding somewhere to store it.