Can-o-Rama 2012

It’s 1:43 AM Monday as I write this. The past 56 hours have been a Can-o-rama from “where’s-my-coffee?” to way-past-dusk that has precluded the writing of any witty or useful blog posts. I’m eating good cheese with a spoon, too tired even to drink the well-deserved pour of wine next to me. I got nothin’, peeps.

Nothing except this:

Jars and jars of food. Homebrew Husband took Friday off from his Totally Corporate Job and, in between the needs of children and garden and life, together we canned. A lot. We started at about 5 pm Friday evening after dropping our daughter off for a sleepover at a friend’s house and we ended…well, now.

We got a ton of food safely sealed away in jars (actually about 300 pounds, but close enough) that we will be enjoying until, hopefully, around next August, when we do this again.

Total tally:

• 38 quarts Whole Peeled Tomatoes
• 8 quarts Crushed Tomatoes
• 17 pints thick tomato sauce
• 12 quarts Turmeric Garlic Dill Pickles
• 12 quarts Dill or Spicy Dill pickles
• 5 half-pints Strawberry Lime Tequila preserves
• 5 half-pints Strawberry Black Pepper Balsamic preserves
• 5 half-pints Strawberry Grand Marnier preserves
• 9 12-oz Ginger Peach preserves
• 18 half-pints Blackberry Nectarine Amaretto preserves
• 7 quarts Peaches in Cinnamon Syrup (damn floating peaches)
• 1 gallon Spicy Lacto-Fermented Dilly Beans
• 1 gallon Turmeric Garlic Dill refrigerator pickles (not pictured)
• 14 quarts Spaghetti Sauce with Beef, Bacon and Red Wine (Pressure Cooker)
• 18 pounds Strawberries, frozen (not pictured)
• 5 gallon of Homebrew in primary
• And quite possibly other stuff that has already been tucked away in the fridge, forgotten.

My goal is a quart a week on tomatoes + sauce. So close.

Much of this jam will become gifts.

Strawberry Grand Marnier – excellent way to hot up a Strawberry Jam Margarita.

All pressure cooker food looks like crap. But, oh man, is this good sauce.

Had to buy tomatoes and pickling cukes but these beans are all homegrown, baby.

More peaches and nectarines are on the agenda for tomorrow (oh shit, it’s already tomorrow) later today, after I get a few hours sleep. I tried raw packing these super floaty peaches. Um, yeah – back to hot pack for me.

These pickles are much lovelier in person. I am loving turmeric garlic dill pickles right now. My friend shared her recipe with me – a few small tweaks to her original recipe and I am making jars as fast as I can get my hands on pickling cukes.

I put Homebrew Husband in charge of the 180-degree/30 minute pasteurization these pickles underwent. I asked him if he could keep the water temp between 180 and 185 for 30 minutes. He laughed at me and said something like, “Pshaw! Compared to a six-hour long, traditional three-step German decoction mash, that’s child’s play.” Honestly, I’m not sure what he meant but he kept the water temp between 181.5 and 182.5 the entire time.

There is something amazing and rewarding about seeing the fruits of 56 hours of effort laid out like that (childbirth analogy, anyone?). Processing 150 pound of tomatoes on the hottest day of the year (naturally) isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, and I get that, but in our weirdo way, we had a blast.

But now I’m going to bed.

Anyone else in the middle of can-o-rama?

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