My feet and back have still not recovered, and my floor may never be clean again, but gosh I love canning. I just find the whole thing so dang satisfying, all those gorgeous gleaming jars stuffed with great things I made from scratch, and thus will not have to make from scratch again until next year. I know some people think of canning as something people only do if they have too much time on their hands, but I find it incredibly time efficient. It took me two days to can all that marinara sauce, but that means that for the next year I’ll never have to make sauce from scratch again. Think of the hours that add up if I use it every time I make homemade pizza, or any Italian dish, or just need a last minute dinner I don”t have to regret. Plus, for 30 qts of sauce, it cost me about $40. Even buying in bulk, for that much of the pasta sauce I like at the store I would have spent over $100 dollars.
Then there’s all the wonderful things I really can’t get at the store, unless I want to go to Williams Sonoma or some other gourmet place and pay through the nose. The peach pepper jelly, the peach butter, the salsa that is exactly the right temperature for my taste.
I think I need to start digging myself a root cellar.
Last week I put up:
16 pints of salsa
7 half-pints of peach pepper jelly
7 half-pints of peach jam
9 pints of peach butter
and 30 qts of marinara sauce.
I had some requests to share my marinara sauce, so I’ll do that soon, along with my recipe for the pesto sauce I made up and stuck in the freezer.
But first, I have a floor that needs some serious scrubbing.
