Preserving Tuesday

Well this past week I didn’t get half of the things preserved that I wanted too, but that seems to be the way it always works out.

I did get my salsa done!! Yahoo that was a big goal for me this year. With the tomatoes getting blight last year we sparingly used the salsa we had left and in the past few months had resorted to buying salsa from the store. I was able to get 12 jars. I still hope to make another batch this week and then we should be good for awhile.

I had a couple of canning firsts last week. I made pickled cauliflower for the first time. I followed the recipe faithfully and only ended up with 3 500ml jars and 1 250ml. I was supposed to get 6 500ml jars, so that was a bit disappointing.

The next day I tried again. I ended up with 4 500ml jars. Not sure how they are getting 6 those liars...lol

As you already know from my pitfalls of canning post I also made crab-apple jelly.Pictured above. This was another first time canning experience for me. It was very easy to make minus the burnt sugar ring on the stove. I might make another batch, however Mr. Pickles isn’t quite sure what we will do with the 8 jars I already made.

I also made a huge batch of cabbage soup to freeze. Yes I still have heads of cabbage in the fridge from almost a month ago...lol

Last night I chopped up onions and froze them. This morning I sorted them into 1 cup, 2cup and 4cup bags. I was able to get 21cups. I was going to use my food saver to vacuum all the bags, however it is hard to take out small amounts as needed that way. So I put about 12cups into normal freezer bag.  Now I just have to remember to use them!

Last night I finally braided my onions. This is another first for me and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. This is what I ended up with. It is not exactly what I was going for, but it is as good as it is going to get. I made another smaller one and hung them in the storage side of the basement. I could have put them in the cold room, but it is creepy and smelly in there...lol

This week I hope to try and can the following items

Whole tomatoes (I would like to make tomato sauce, but I don’t have the 35lbs it calls for so I will just can them whole and make sauce as needed)

Crab-apple butter

Salsa

Beet Relish

Fridge Pickles