Since last we talked about my canning adventures, I’ve continued in a couple of different batches to can:
3 qts sweet pickled green tomatoes
4 qts sour pickled green tomatoes
9 pints green tomato chutney
9 pints green tomato salsa
4 pints green tomato jelly
4 pints green tomato butter
9 pints blackberries in light syrup
3 pints blackberry jam
3 1/2 pints blackberry chipotle jam
My pantry is brimming, and most of it is with food I won’t exactly turn to every single day, but it’s all been a really fabulous learning experience.
My whole goal in taking on this canning project was to make heaps and heaps of homemade marinara sauce. I haven’t had a spare second to get back out to the community garden and see if the tomatoes are ripe, but I fear I may have missed my window for free tomatoes.
The week before my big conference, I got a message that the tomatoes were going to be plowed under. So I dropped everything and raced out there to claim what I could, only to discover that all the tomatoes were green. Since I was already out there, I picked a basket of green tomatoes and got to work on them. Green tomatoes aren’t exactly easy to find in the grocery store, so I had no idea how many great things you could make with them. Including a salsa that substitutes them for tomatillos, and a sweet jelly with just a hint of basil aftertaste. Pickled tomatoes are also not something I ever would have tried on my own, but they are really yummy.
A few weeks before that I went out to a spot in town where there are some blackberry bushes along the road. I was hoping to pick gallons and gallons of them, but my helpers weren’t exactly helpful. The power went out to the car’s cigarette lighter, so Atti was left without an Elmo DVD to entertain him, and Bear was scared off by enormous spider webs. I spent a couple of hours getting torn up by blackberry brambles and grumbling about being the Little Red Hen, before going home for frozen lemonade.
Blackberries are my very favorite and they remind me of my childhood in Washington where blackberries grow wild and we would walk down the hill to collect bowls full of sun-warmed berries to turn into pie. I’m really excited about the blackberry chipotle jam – which ended up kind of being my own recipe – and I plan on pouring it over ham or pork to use as a glaze.
Hopefully I’ll come across a great deal on ripe tomatoes in the next few weeks and I can put all my practicing to work filling my shelves with homemade marinara sauce so I can always have an easy go-to meal on hand.
Wow – you are ambitious, girl! Good for you! You've inspired me – not to can necessarily, but to actually get dressed and get something done today! LOL Take care! 🙂
I am impressed… for blackberry picking you need a walking stick. The wooden one with a curved handle. We always kept one in the back room for blackberrying. Long sleeves helps too.. at the minute I am picking the odd one here and there to treat the dog when out on our walks, he loves them.
Tree- I am looking for a great marinara recipe… do you have one?Glad things are going well.:)Patty
Whoa, Lady! That's so awesome and I bet your pantry looks amazing filled with good things you put up with your own hands. Wild blackberries sound wonderful! I've never had them let alone picked them. You did one fabulous job with all that canning!
I am impressed, it's an amazing thing to can (I do not have the fortitude for such adventures)! I learned in my garden last year you can pick the tomatoes when they're green and put them in a brown paper sack, roll it up and let them sit for several weeks, they'll ripen naturally and taste just as great as if you picked them red.
I'm Mormon and have never canned a thing in my life. (Freezer jam doesn't count, right?) I'm going to have to read up on how you did it — my interest is peaked! I especially like the blackberry jam idea!! We lived in Portland for years and my kids would pick blackberries on the way to school — they are my favorite!
to The Osborne's if you add a banana to the bag they ripen even faster…I usually put a couple of bananas on a tray then pile on the green toms and shuffle them around every day.
Look at you go!!! I wish my pantry looked like that… but I'm pretty proud of my ten pints of pasta sauce from my three tomato plants on my tiny patio!