Preserving The Harvest

I spent the last couple of days busy in the kitchen canning. We have a nice garden that gives us tons of tomatoes and my green beans are finally in. They got started late so they should of been done by now but I'll take what I can get! We are fortunate to live near lots of apple and peach orchards so I was also able to get a bushel of the juiciest, freshest peaches perfect for turning into jam, peach butter, and slicing and freezing for school lunches. The peach butter is in the crock pot right now and oh my goodness the whole house smells soooooo good! It's almost 100 here today but in my kitchen it's fall with the scent of cinnamon and cloves.

I'll start today by sharing my best ever attempt at canned spaghetti sauce. I've attempted it before using the Mrs. Wages seasoning mix. It always turned out OK but for the amount of work that goes into it OK just doesn't cut it. This year I used the USDA's recommended recipe for spaghetti sauce without meat. You can find the recipe easily by searching but I got mine here
Spaghetti Sauce Without Meat
I started the process on Friday. My wonderful husband picked the tomatoes while I was getting kids bathed and ready for bed. Somehow over the last couple of years he has taken over as the main vegetable gardener and I don't mind one bit letting him take that on! After the kids were in bed we set up our usual tomato processing operation. He is in charge of getting them washed, dunked in boiling water, and skinned, and I core, slice, and get chop/process in the appropriate manner for what we are canning. I knew I wanted these for sauce so that's all we did that night. It was 10 PM before that was done and I didn't have the energy to continue so I sat them in the frig overnight to stay nice and cool until I was ready to continue on Saturday.

I started on Saturday morning by dipping off as much of then excess water as possible. We had some very juicy tomatoes and the more water/liquid the longer it will take to simmer it down to the right consistency for sauce. I couldn't stand to let all that yummy juice go to waste to I dipped it into baggies and stuck them in the freezer. I'll use them in soups and stews and as the liquid for some marinades this winter.

I simmered the tomatoes for a half an hour or so then ran them through my food mill. This gets rid of seeds, missed skins, and pulpy part so the tomato so you can simmer what remains down into a nice smooth sauce.



I added the rest of the ingredients and set the pot on the stove to simmer. It took a good 6 hours simmering on low on my stove to get it to a consistency I was happy with. You can see from the pictures the starting and ending amounts.



I canned the sauce in my pressure canner and after all this work I ended up with 4 quarts of the most delicious sauce I've ever make. It was quite a bit of work but I'll appreciate it when I'm enjoying it this winter!

My child (ren) most definitly did not................
Sleep in my bed last night just because I knew this would mean he (and I) would sleep in
Eat their breakfast in front of the the TV this morning
Go for a bike ride in 90 degree weather in sweat pants and a shirt three sizes too big just because he wanted to dress himself
Come home from said bike ride and request and get hot chocolate to drink.
Nope, none of this was my child!!

I found this fun idea on MckMamas blog.


As for me I spent the weekend in the kitchen canning. I have lots of pictures and will be back to post about all my food preservation adventures later today.