This year is all about embracing the journey and I’ve been doing that a lot for myself, and trying to encourage you guys to do the same. One of the things I’m doing is stepping outside my comfort zone and tackling new ways of food preservation by canning at home without my mother-in-law helping me. I’ve had great success too! And I want to share that success and that encouragement with you guys.
All through the month of August, Untrained Housewife is hosting the Can it, Freeze it, Dry it challenge! At the end of the challenge someone will win a cool kit to help them towards their food preservation journey but let’s talk about the challenge first.
The rules are simple:
1. Get some food – preferably from your garden or a local source like you-pick farms or farmer’s market.
2. Preserve some of it for later – preferably in a way you’ve never tried before. Freeze something you’ve never frozen. Dehydrate something you’ve never dehydrated (garden fresh herbs anyone?), or can something you’ve never canned.
Here is an index of canning, freezing and other food preservation recipes on Untrained Housewife to help you get started.
The Prizes are Valued at over $50 and Include:
1. Embrace the Journey handmade copper penny necklace. Value $10
2. Yes You Can book by Daniel Gastieger. Value $13.16
3. Ball Blue Book of Canning. Value $9.33
4. Ball Home Canning Discovery Set. Value $10.88
5. One case Heritage Vintage Blue Jars by Ball Canning. Value $13.58
To Enter:
Leave a comment telling me what you are planning to do. Stay in touch with Untrained Housewife’s community and most importantly, snap a pic of what you’ve done so we can share your success!
You can write a blog post about what you did, or upload the pic on the Untrained Housewife Facebook page. Even if all you do is learn how to freeze pesto ice cubes you will have learned something new and we want to celebrate with you!
If you need canning supplies here are some of our favorites to take a look at.
Okay, my challenge I made for myself at the beginning of the summer is to can something. This is my first year at food preservation and I already pickled veggies and dried herbs all from my garden so now I need to make Habanero Pepper Jelly with the TON of habaneros we have in the garden. Thanks for the incentive!
I love that! Be sure to check out the Zesty Salsa recipe too – it had a lot of peppers in it also. Although I don’t think you’d want to do it with 100% habanero unless you like the zing. 🙂
Oh and when you make it – do up a post and we’ll share it on the facebook page ok? 🙂
Made it and I’ll do up a post this next week for my site and the network! 🙂
Yep, made and so behind still haven’t done the post…sheesh
you can plop a picture on the Facebook page and that totally counts too. 🙂 You are an overachiever. 😉 GOOD JOB finishing the challenge! I love how everyone embraced this month’s challenge and can’t wait to introduce next month’s challenge to you because it is going to be SO awesome.
I cured, smoked and canned 30lbs of bacon…. For the very first time
Oh wow! That sounds amazing! We’ve never done that as we have the butcher make us bacon when we take our livestock in for butchering.
I canned peaches this year for the first time making two different types, froze green beans for the first time when I’ve always canned them, and made homemade relish and canned them first time this year too. A lot of firsts, and I hope to continue throughout the rest of the summer!
That’s really exciting! Whatever you do next be sure to catch a picture of it! Sharing hte picture is worth a lot of entries in the giveaway and I am just loving seeing what everyone is doing with this challenge!
I dried a bunch of green onions in my dehydrator. Last year I hung basil, and dill with good results so this year we bought a dehydrator. I love it! So far we have tried fruit, jerky, and now herbs! Thank you for a chance to win and a the challenge!
Last year was the first year I really did a lot with the dehydrator. Even with our simple model we are able to do a lot and I could preserve a lot of my herbs – marjoram, thyme, basil, etc. YUM!
This year my herb garden was very successful. I will be learning how to preserve sage, oregano, parsley and thyme. My hubby just got a dehydrator so we have been learning how to do that as well. I made raisins! They were good too!
That’s awesome! There’s so much you can do with a dehydrator and to me herbs are one of the most money-saving plants in the garden. Seasonings are so expensive in the store and the quality is awful compared to fresh, homegrown stuff. Good job!
I have never made pickles. So I learn how to make pickles this summer. I like your recipe for pickled asparagus. But I also want to try some basic bread & butter pickles.
Awesome! The fridge pickles are awesome and I’m about to publish a pickled tomato recipe. I’ll have to see who can do a recipe for us for regular sandwich type pickles!
Alton Brown has a very good Bread and Butter Pickle recipe, just search the Food Network site. The best recipe I’ve found is from a 1959 Farm Journal cookbook. 😉
I like to make jams and preserves. This year I’m trying out something new – watermelon jam. It failed to gel, but the jars are sitting in a box on the counter waiting for reprocessing. I’ve never reprocessed a jam, so I’m getting to try something else new.
That sounds so interesting. I’ve never tried watermelon jam. Reprocessing is also something I’ve never done *wry grin* I usually just call ungelled “sauce” and let the kids add it into their yogurt or oatmeal or top their pancakes with it. 🙂
This year I am expanding into dehydrating. I am doing a little bit of everything to see how we like it. I am also expanding my canning to more staples like dry beans and broth & stocks.
I am definitely going to try to expand into canning more staples this year. I loved my co-author’s 30 day menu plan for emergencies that we published in the Untrained Housewife’s Guide to Getting Prepared. All the meals were ready-to-go in the shelf stable cans and could just be popped open and quickly cooked as needed. I think if I had more like that on my shelves I wouldn’t eat out as often.
I’ve already gotten started on preserving this year but my challenge is/will be: To dehydrate as much as I possibly can since storage requires much less space. Of course, I’m still canning and freezing as well but I hope to get the biggest chunk of it dehydrated this year@
I’m purchasing a second hand food dehydrator on Sunday, and am going to dive right in! I’m so excited! And I sure hope I win all those wonderful prizes!
I just posted a pic of the tomatoes I dehydrated today, to your FB page here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151584129551936&set=o.103441156401202&type=1&ref=nf
Awesome!! Drying tomatoes are a post I don’t have yet. 🙂
I planted a grape vine a couple of years ago and this year will be the first that I can harvest the fruit. I plan on making my own concord grape jelly!
I’ve canned for years and have started going on a smaller scale now that my children are all out of the house. Actually, a couple of my married children are the ones that have the big gardens with over abundance to share, so this year, I’m canning salsa with the tomatoes my grandson grows and trying pears for the first time…(they live in a warmer zone). Daughter picked my raspberries and made me jam this week 🙂 so nice to see the next generation carry on. Funny when they were living here, no one seemed interested and help was grudgingly given most times. Now that they have growing families of their own, they are doing the same things I did Praise!
this is something completely new to me, but I am going to start with something easy like pickles. Looking forward to learning this new skill.
I’ve been canning/freezing/drying for a few years now, so I’m trying to think of what I can do this year that is “new”. I am prepping to enter things I’ve canned so far into our local fair next weekend. I’ve been looking at the categories in the Exhibitor’s Guide to see if there’s something different I can try, like chutneys or relishes.
Hello…I am brining Sweet Pickles..they have been sitting for 8 days I have 2 more to go. Also freezing green beans. Drying Chamomile for tea later on. Plan on canning lots of tomatoes…when then turn red. Never really done any of this before this year. Fun times in the kitchen. Happy Canning everyone 🙂
My goals for August include using the dehydrator for the first time and to pressure can something. I can a lot in the water bath canner and have for years but need to graduate to other food types too. Great contest. Love the incentive and being held accountable!
I’m doing hash browns for the first time today…I had about 8lbs that where getting old, I peeled them and placed them in salted water over night.. this morning I graded them and back into salted water. drained and did it again as I was still getting a lot of starch off the taters. then put them in a large bowl and covered with almost boiling water for 10 minutes. Drained again put on the trays for the dehydrator. Will see how it goes, if this works and they aren’t all dark gray, I will do it again. Wasn’t hard and I love hashbrowns.
I am going to make cherry jam – no sugar added.
Hi there! I really want to can some summer fruits. This week will be canning peaches and making peach lavender jam. Yum!!
Definitely getting back into canning! I MISS it! 🙂
Just finished a batch of fig jam and fig butter last night. We’re going to try adding some spices to the next batch of fig jam. There will be lots to compare as we’ve never made any of these before 🙂
I did that with all my peaches too – tried some seasoned one way and the next batch a different way. Plums too – check out the spiced syrup I used in this peach recipe: http://www.untrainedhousewife.com/how-to-can-spiced-peach-slices-in-light-syrup I’ll bet it would go well with figs also.
I making Onion and Pepper Relish will go great with the Pinto’s and a few other veggies I love.
Also plan to learn how to make Green Tomato Relish!
Nothing like fresh Pinto’s from the freezer cooked and add a little relish on the side. Absolute HEAVEN!
I’m not able to post pictures the Onion and Pepper Relish is awesome!
OK I am brand new to canning and such. My first trial under fire was to can some of the ground Elk I have in my freezer to make more room in the freezer. First I talked to another guy who has done canned for years. Being a man I was surprised to find another man who canned. Anyway, under his guidance I bought a Presto 23 qt. canner and all the supplies I needed. First I browned my meat by skillet and also by boiling. I wanted to see if there was a difference in the meat afterword. Both were good but I chose the skillet method. I browned it, packed it, filled the jar to 1/2 inch from the top from the boiling juice, and the ran it at 11 lbs. pressure for 90 minutes. All jars sealed fine and I had 20 lbs. of canned elk. I used some of the meat to make a large pot of spaghetti sauce a month later (one qt jar of meat). I then canned the sauce. After 4 months I tried the sauce and it was so yummy. So to make a long story short, I used one canned item to make a second canned item and both were yummy. So far that is all I have canned since I am a newbie to all of this. I want to try making watermelon jam next for another new type of canning. Let me know how to upload pics of the meat and sauce and I will include them. 🙂
That’s really cool! Most people I know start out with a water bath canner and then “graduate” to a pressure cooker. You just went full force into the pressure canning!! LOL! If you want to submit a pic to the facebook page you can go to http://facebook.com/UntrainedHousewife and upload the photo to the timeline there. If you want to contribute the recipe to our website email the details to admin@untrainedhousewife.com and I’ll set you up with a contributor account and we can just publish a quick post about it! 🙂
I currently dehydrate everything I can as I don’t have the equipment or resources to can at the moment although I would love to in the future. I have dehydrated a lot of herbs, numerous bunches of bananas, grapes, peppers, onions, cabbage and I have apples in the dehydrator now.
I want to make Blueberry freezer jam; I became a vegetarian 3 yrs ago, so I look for foods that are versatile…Ex: I made “inside out stuffed green pepper soup” today & froze it in 2 serving freezer containers–it can be eaten w/ a baked potato; made into chili; made & served w/ corn chips; thawed & have other vegetables, such as sliced, fresh zucchini added to it…
I was diagnosed w/ a wheat allergy last month, so have been making my own wheat/gluten free bread in my bread machine (then sliced & put in freezer)
I’ve been canning blueberries all week! 🙂 So much yummy. We ended up with about 10 quarts frozen for baking later and 10 pints of jam.
I want to can some tomatoes!
Peach freezer jam.
I found a grove of Autumn Olive berries and I am going to can Autumn Olive ketchup as soon as they are fully ripe! I’ve never tried it before and hope it turns out well!
This year I have planned on dehydrating herbs from the garden and tomatoes, I am growing one potted plant and usually get several from a food bank, overripe and don’t last long, I thought it would be nice to dehydrate them then store them in olive oil and herbs to keep.
As soon as I get some canning gear I want to make pickled watermelon rinds and pickled veggies! (We get lots of extra veggies from food bank in summer)
I’ve made jerky in the dehydrator, as well as dried a lot of basil, mint and tomatoes. I also chopped a bunch of onions, chives, parsley, garlic & basil, froze them in ice cube trays, then put them into marked freezer bags to use as needed. Haven’t canned in years, lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, but I used to make my own pickles, tomatoes, fig preserves & jellies. I am going to buy a pressure caner to can to can meat, beans, etc. and some canning supplies. My garden is really producing this year!
We’ve been having a great year in the garden also. Tomatoes and peppers are excellent.
Tried my first time at canning homemade Maraschino Cherries and canned them. I had purchased 2 large bags of cherries and after eating as many as i could for 3 days. I then tried my first time at making Maraschino Cherries. Did it! 6 pints later and all have sealed!
Isn’t that a great feeling! We gorged ourselves on fresh blueberries and I baked like a demon and finally canned ten pints. So awesome.
This year I’m getting my husband to learn how to preserve (canning and freezing) with me. 🙂 So far, we have ramps, jams, elderberry-flower cordial, pickles, green beans and peas. We have lots more to come because the garden is bursting at the seems!
Joy to all!
I’m going to try that salsa you mentioned. It will be my first salsa!
Ooohhhh….the pressure! the pressure! Hey – it passed the husband-litmus-test for salsa so that’s saying something! 🙂
I’m going to dehydrate lemons.
I’ll be freezing herbs I have grown.
I am definitely in the thick of preserving right now. Canned green beans from the garden are on the agenda for today but that isn’t new. I are planning on canning corn relish today or tomorrow for the first time. I also saw someone mention peach lavender jam and I would love to try that I am over run with sage right now and trying to think of some thing other than drying it. On my list of first is to can some soups this summer/fall. Love hearing what everyone is doing!
I am going to try canning Roma tomatoes for “Sunday gravy.” I have a half dozen plants in my garden with fruit that’s finally beginning to ripen, so I should be able to get started in the next week or so. My goal is to can up to 50 quarts.
This summer I joined a CSA. I got a LOT of rhubarb. I have canned some (chutney) and I have frozen the rest.
There is a 100+ year orchard in our back field and usually the apples only get eaten by the deer. We started picking them this year and I am going to try to can some applesauce. Because the apples are not pruned, chemically treated, etc. they are small and more work to peel/cut because of the spots, but actually I am pleasantly surprised that they are nicer apples than I thought they would be. Plus I’m sure it is much healthier and will taste a lot better than store bought.
You’ll find that applesauce will be killer good. Just make plenty. And you can add red hot candies or cinnamon sticks (grated) to some for a change of pace. Good stuff. You can also mix various varieties of apples together for a different taste. I try to catch them on sale at the local farmer’s market or we get the family together for a pick your own day. I’m teaching the DILs and nieces to can. Nice to have my kitchen full of young people once again. ^-^
Going to can fresh green beans from our garden. 1st time canning 🙂
Please tell me you are using a pressure cooker for your green beans. You must not use a water bath for green beans! Green beans carry the botulism pathogen naturally. The water bath does not get hot enough to kill the pathogens, hence you need a pressure cooker. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can freeze green beans very successfully. Just wash them throughly, lay them out on a cookie sheet, freeze and bag. Not even necessary to blanch them. I find them to be slightly “mushy” if blanched, but that’s a matter of personal taste.
I’m hopefully going to do some ‘real’ canning…but does infusing my herbs into vodka count? 🙂 So far, I’ve done mint, rosemary, and lavender flowers (I can’t *wait* to play mad scientist with the lavender vodka!)
In the past I have mainly stuck to canning staple items for my pantry. This year I have tripled my garden space and am using a food dehydrator and foodsaver to increase my pantry storage and shelf life of some items as well with drying.
I have never canned pickled beets before, so when I saw a pickled beet recipe while I was blog hopping last week at http://vitalhomestead.wordpress.com I decided to try it! In fact, I am going to try it today and will probably blog about it! Hopefully it will turn out because I love, LOVE pickled beets on my salads!
I would try making pickles.
We’re trying lactic fermentation, with summer squash and cucumbers, and we’re about to try to pickle hot peppers…just call us Peter Piper!
My challenge this year is to try fermenting… like cabbage etc.
I’ve already canned chili, peaches, pickles, green beans, and beets. 🙂
I have been putting corn and green beans in the freezer, and made peach jam from freshly picked peaches. Earlier in the year my husband and I picked then froze 8 gallons of black raspberries for jelly and pies. This year I am going to try “real” canning and am so excited! I have a great recipe for Ragu/spaghetti sauce a friend gave me…and I have all the ingredients right in my garden. I love putting healthy meals on our table; knowing what ingredients are in the food I serve and from where they came is very important to me.
Every Fall I make fresh applesauce, but when the apples in the orchard are gone, so goes my applesauce. I would like to know how to can or freeze the applesauce I make so we can enjoy it through the winter months as well 🙂
You can surf the web for various applesauce recipes, but I like this site both for her recipe which is close to the one I got from my MIL and the information on how to can/preserve various fruits and veggies. http://www.pickyourown.org/applesauce.htm Very user friendly.
Making jerky for the first time…wish me luck
GOod luck! My father-in-law makes jerky in a woodstove and I still have no idea how he manages to keep the temp as even as he does. I’m doing good to do it well in a controlled dehydrator unit! 🙂 Let me know how it turns out!
I really want to try making jam
I’m going to try and dehydrate some mushrooms, onions, and garlic. That will be new for me. I use them fresh a lot in my cooking and it seems I am always out of one or the other so preparing my own dried ingredients so I have a backup plan.
I plan on continuing to can everything I can get my hands on! I am currently working on tomatoes. I am on the look out for peaches and apples. I already have one batch of applesauce taken care of. I have a newly built canning storage area, and am working hard on getting it filled up!!
This is so wonderful!! My family has recently moved in with my parents due to hard times. My mother has a fabulous herb garden! It needs some work however, it is very over grown and getting out of hand. I will be harvesting vast amounts of parsley, sage, thyme, peppermint and a few herbs I have never seen or used. I will be dehydrating, oven drying and air drying herbs over the next few weeks! I also want to try dehydrating local green beans from our farmers market to add to soups over the winter. I have never canned and was looking forward to having my mother give me lessons. We may try to get tomatoes at the farmers market as well and can our little hearts out. Our tomato crop has been less then perfect this year to do to much rain. I;m really looking forward to see what everyone else will be doing!
Start with one of the water bath recipes from our index and you’ll be addicted to the ping, ping, ping of sealing jars in no time!
I’m going too can homemade tomato sauce tomorrow…I’ve only frozen it before….hoping I have enough tomatoes to try making salsa too!
I am going to try making blueberry jam
Last August the boyfriend and I moved into his grandma’s ranch house (5 acres of apple orchards– gravensteins) Since it was late in the seasons last year we didn’t do much since we were busy moving and such. This year I have had a little time to prepare. Also have found a very productive Barrlett pear tree, and three peach trees. His family has offered to teach me how to can but are always so busy. The second best way is to trial an error until you get it right. That is my weekend adventure since I picked the peaches last night and need to do something with my two 5 gallon buckets of them. First I think I will start with making apple sauce just until my coffee kicks in a bit more to get more indepth with what is going on.
I’m going to try several things: using my dehydrator for a variety of foods, especially apples. I’m also going to preserve some tomatoes this year. I’m going to freeze some and try to can some, if I can find a rack for the water bath.
My husband & I are getting ready to plant our fall garden.We live in South Florida. Last year was our first and I was proud of our little garden. We had success and failures. Last year I did some freezing of Tomato sauce, Pesto. Sadly the freezer was found unplugged one day and lost everything in it. I didn’t care about the meats, ice cream and other sweets but my homemade tomato sauce and pesto all had to be thrown out. 🙁
This year I am going to try canning a few things. Not sure why this scares me but it does. LOL Looking forward to reading more on your website and getting the newsletter. Glad I found you.
Canning scared me too until I tried. Now I’m addicted to that ping, ping, ping, ping. 🙂 You’ll love it!
Don’t be afraid to try canning. Do, however, invest in a good canning book. Follow the directions, the key is quality fruit and veggies and good sanitation when you’re working with this stuff. Sorry to hear about your freezer issues, that is so frustrating.
My grandmother use to can. I enjoyed watching her make her pickles, apple butter, and chow chow relish (although I never liked it). She use to have some blue jars. I’ve been trying to can, slowly but surely collecting the jars, lids. We live on a tight paycheck so it’s slow going but well worth it. I’ve already canned a few jellies and jams. I also canned wine jelly (my father in law makes his own wine) – great with scones!
I’m going to can salsa. I make salsa all the time, but have never tried canning it. Either the hot peppers or tomatoes will be from my garden, I don’t think they will both be ready at the same time 🙁
This year I am hoping to preserve more of my garden, as I finally am done with school, as last year we threw so much away 🙁 I have a TON of tomatoes so looking for a good spaghetti sauce recipe and thinking of freezing it since I’ve heard you can’t can it safely – am I wrong? If there is a good way to can it I’d love to try that too.
Freeze or can the tomatoes and make your sauce in the winter from them. You can certainly can spaghetti sauce with no problem, but I can tell you from experience the time will come when you won’t want to look at another tomato for a good long time. LOL However, by staggering your “cooking” you can use the basic frozen, dried or canned ingredients to build a great sauce in the winter. And boy does the house smell wonderful.
Just canned huckleberry jam, first canning experience ever. A bit too sweet but i love it.
I have been on a roll this year – preserved ginger, sushi ginger, crystallized ginger, honey sweetened ketchup, bread and butters (cuke and zuke), mango-lime jam, fermented pickles, cucumber relish, refrigerator pickles, garlic dills, creole spiced pickled okra, pickled jalapenos and have 15 lbs of cukes waiting to turn into pickles at home.
I am canning ready-to-eat meals. So far I’ve done 22 500ml jars of beef vindaloo, with one not sealing. I guess I get to tr it out tonight. 🙂
My challenge is chow chow. My mother has agreed (finally) to teach me her chow chow recipe and can it for the winter. I am very excied because it has taken me 3 years of begging to get to this moment…..woo hoo!!!
I’m such a newbie at this anything I do will be a first time thing for me. This year I’ll be helping my late husband’s family make saur kraut. Last year they put 127# of cabbage into crocks so this should be really interesting. Apparently there’s a whole assembly line and everyone takes turns doing one chore or another.
I going to try my hand at coming up with a spicy peach jam.and canning it. the peaches aren’t from my yard but sure wish they were.
My challenge is going to be canning homemade tomato sauce, I also will be freezing beans, squash.
Yesterday I put up 10 jars of peaches & froze corn off the cob. It’ll taste good come February!!
In a fit of insanity I purchased 65 lbs of tomatoes and 12 pounds of peaches yesterday. This is to augment what is already coming out of my garden. In the past 24 hours I have canned 16 pints of salsa, 14 qts of whole tomatoes, 5 1/2 qts of peaches and 5 half pints of ketchup. I still have 25 lbs of tomatoes left, with more in the garden. I think I’ll have myself committed to avoid dealing with the rest.
Freeze those tomatoes, honey. Just wash them well, put them on a cookie sheet to freeze, tag and bag em. Come winter, treat the bags like boil in bags, drop them in some hot water, clip the end of the bag and squeeze into your cooking pot. The pulp will roll right out, most of the seeds and skin normally stay in the bag.
I just received an All American 921 pressure canner for my birthday, so I plan on canning dried beans (of all sorts), chicken stock, and of course the chicken meat from the whole chicken used to make stock. I also have some sauerkraut brining that I plan on water-bath canning soon too.
New to canning, but I would like to can as much I can this year instead of buying. Going to head to the health food store and buy some fruits and then can whatever I can from my garden:) Would also like to try my hand at dehydrating!
I am going to finally freeze some okra. The okra plants have produced much more okra than I expected, and I’ve been kinda wasting it.
It should be easy, and I’ve got so much of the stuff, but I’ve never actually gone through the blanching process. I don’t know why boil for a few minutes, cool down in ice water is such a challenge for me. Off I go, I think that the okra plants have a new gift of pee smelling goodness out there.
I’m in the process of making sauerkraut for the first time, which I plan on canning. Also I froze cabbage for the first time, cut up an ready for soups and froze Carrots for the first time also. I also made for the 1st time an canned my own dill relish, Strawberry jam, Rhubarb Jam an some Strawberry Rhubarb Jam, and Green Beans. I froze Blueberries,Strawberries,3 different Squash’s, Zucchini. I enjoy it all, an will be also canning Tomato Juice, Spaghetti Sauce,freezing Corn, Brussel sprouts, Green, Yellow & Red Peppers.
I made watermelon jam today! 1/3 of a watermelon from my garden was left from Saturday, and I deseeded it, pureed it in the blender, for 6 cups of juice and pulp, 5 cups of sugar, one envelope of sure-jell pectin. I have made crabapple and apple jelly before, but watermelon jam is new for me!
I too am hoping to just can something! I’m gonna try cherries and/or tomatoes!
My daughter and I are canning pickles; dill, sweet and Bread & Butter. I am also going to try something new this year and that is drying veggies from the garden! I like to preserve in the most natural and healthful ways possible. I normally can and freeze, but will try drying this year too!
This year, I’m trying several new things, inside & outside for food preservation. I’ve planted about 15 different varieties of herbs. I’ve all ready dried lavender & made lavender lemonade. I’m not only dehydrating them for this winter, but I’m also collecting seeds from many of them. (The ultimate food preservation.) I’ve found that ginger juice is really good for stomach troubles, so I’ve been juicing ginger, and I’m planning to dehydrate the remaining pulp for tea, and grind some of it for cooking.
I made 27 jars of plum jam, only the 2nd batch of jam ever!
And it’s better than the jam my mom made. 🙂
Also did about a dozen jars of whole plums from the same batch of plums this summer. BLESSED!
I am doing a few things.My family has never really liked blueberries but this year there was a bumper crop in my area so they were so cheap to pick and while we picked we ate and they were actually really good. So, I am freezing blueberries,I am drying blueberries,plus green beans and snap peas(for a crunchy snack) I am making blueberry freezer jam and I will be canning blueberry jam and blackberry jam (blackberries are free to pick all over here)And today I decided to make apple butter fruit rollups. I hope they turn out because they sound good.
My goal is to harvest, dehydrate, and pulverize the Kale in my raised bed garden. Kale is a absolute super food. I can use the Kale powder for long term storage of my harvest as well as nutrient dense smoothies!
I have an apple tree that has the BEST apples ever. I have a ton dehydrated apples left from last year so I decided to try something new and I found directions on how to make and can apple pie filling. I tried it and one of the jars did not seal so it was used for fried pies, it is SOOOOO good that I ended up canning 40 pints and 5 quarts so far and I have 2-5 gallon buckets of apples left so I plan on making some more. It is very easy and pretty to look at also.
I have never preserved anything by any means other than just freezing. I am going to try to make freezer jam this year. I would also like to try to dehydrate/dry apples this fall.
my challenge is to obtain canning supplies. I have canned with a neighbor but have no supplies myself. I then want to try it on my own
You can sometimes pick up mason jars from thrift shops, yard sales, Craigslist etc. Check your paper, as well. As long as the lip of the jar is perfect they are reusable many time. Btw, jar lids are reusable as well, just wash and sterilize. Water bath canners are fairly inexpensive and will last forever, if you store them properly.
I challenged myself this year to start making condiments. So far I have successfully made ketchup and barbecue sauce. Next on the list is relish, and if I get enough nerve I’m going to try mustard.
I just canned peach pie filling for the first time ever today! My brother’s peach tree produced an abundance of fruit this year, and I happily reaped the benefits! Now, what to make with the rest…
My husband had kept telling me how his grandmother had made pickled cherries and I just had never heard of it before. He even dared me ” I bet you cant make them” Well, I searched all over the internet and even had him to describe to me what they were and sure enough, I found a recipe for pickled cherries. They look really great and he loves them.
I’m freezing lots of berries and peaches. I’ve already made spicy dills and a black and blue berry jam.I’ll be canning peaches and applesauce and a bbq sauce.
I just canned pickles for the first time! I did dill, bread & butter & refridgerator garlic spears. Can’t wait to try them!
This year I’m going to try canning stew/soup veggies. I’ve never mixed veggies, and I’ve never canned potatoes before. Can’t wait to try something new!
I bought a dehydrator last week and started drying. Yesterday’s leftover pineapple, which wasn’t quite ripe, is wonderful dried! My cupboard is full of jam, my freezer is full of fruit, and I want to learn to make pickles and use a pressure canner. My neighbor let me borrow her food saver, and I made 118 meatballs with ground beef from the half cow we bought, and they are now frozen.
My boys and I wanted to make strawberry jam with out loads of sugar, so we tried a different kind of pectin process. It worked and we have some yummy almost all fruit jam to show for it! You can see our photos and fun here:
http://thegilesfrontier.blogspot.com/2013/07/sweet-summer-strawberries.html#links
Holly
The main new thing I want to do this year is to dry herbs for making herbal tea. I have mint & stevia in the garden for that purpose. Yum! (I hope)
http://ssfarm.blogspot.com/2013/08/backyard-eating.html – I posted a photo of a beautiful backyard salad!
I am not exactly a “housewife”, but I have begun canning this year with the abundance from our CSA shares. I had watched my grandmother and mom can for decades with the water bath, but decided to go with a pressure canner. So far, I’ve done bread and butter”freezer” pickles, pickle relish, chunky garden tomato sauce, frozen pesto, dried mint, and canned tomatoes. Apple season is coming and I look forward to making sauce and canning that as well.
I canned beets for the first time this past week. and I hope to attempt dilly green beans and jam too… we have canned tomato sauce, salsa and frozen corn for a few years already, but I want to expand my horizons now that we have room for a bigger garden!!!
I am going to make some jam.
My challenge this year is to make Wild Huckleberry Jam/Jelly. I’ve made freezer jelly before, but I want to truly can this year, not just mix it up and stick it in the freezer.
Lots of peaches and lots of jars= a project for me!
Earlier this summer I made a list of new jellies to try this year. I spent last weekend making watermelon jelly, and then golden honeydew jelly. Both turned out so good. I had never used liquid pectin before but found it to be just as easy, if not easier than the powder. I got so carried away that I also made my first batches of simple syrup, with homegrown chocolate mint and rosemary, as well. Here’s to many more new adventures in canning and preserving!
I want to try making peach pie filling. I have canned peaches before but never pie filling. Hope it turns out.
I am harvesting tomatoes and “storing” them by drying, canning, saucing, and freezing. My harvest is so big and perfect this year, I cannot give them away or store them fast enough. I am also taking cuttings and hoping to extend the harvest throughout the year. I was successful one time, years ago. 🙂
I’m going to attempt to can some blackberry sauce!
Oi! I meant BLUEBERRY JAM! Sorry.
Sunday and Monday was our first attempt at canning Salsa…. I posted about it today. http://daybydayhomestead.blogspot.com/2013/08/canning-salsa-and-few-canning-tricks.html
Good job Nora!! 🙂 We just cracked open our first salsa jar to make some spanish rice and it was REALLY good.
We are currently saving up for a dehydrator, so for now I’m my challenge is to learn how to dehydrate in the oven.
A co-worker just gave me a huge bag of various herbs from her garden so i plan to dehydrate them this weekend. I’m also getting more cucumbers then I can possibly eat fresh so going to try out some refrigerator pickle recipies also. A waterbath canner is on my list to buy before my tomatoes ripen so I can can all kinds of different tomato recipies. Id also like to try to can some pickles as I’ve read that you can waterbath can those.
I am going to try freeze and dry some of my fresh herbs.
I have to make crockpot applesauce to freeze & have some corn calling my name to also freeze (cannot serve home canned foods to my childcare kids so I freeze everything I plan to serve them)
I’m going to try to make some no bake crackers with potatoes. I put them in the dehydrator last night. They’re looking pretty good; they certainly smell good! I’ll do a blog post about it soon. Thanks for hosting this challenge and giveaway!
This year my meager garden yeilded a few tomatoes and a whole lot of jalapenos! So, I’m going to make candied jalapenos. I’ve haven’t done any canning since I was a kid helping my mom, so this will be challenge to get back into it. I’m excited though. 🙂
Hi. I’ve canned a lot of garden veggies this year, but I was never big on dehydrating food. My sister gave my mom and I a real nice dehydrator and I don’t think the poor thing has been turned off since we got it. I have dehydrated all kinds of food including peppers, squash, eggplant, tomatoes, and loads of other items. I am also dehydrating some of my herbs, just finished with some sweet basil. It will be fun to see what else ends up on the trays of the dehydrator this year.
i plan to can pears for the first time. i had to look up the best way to can on here and found it to not be very hard to do lets hope that it works
I am a new canner/dehydrator. I just bought a pressure canner today so I want to start with canning vegetables in my pressure cooker. I also want to make apple chips and apple rollups for my kids in my dehydrator. All for the first time!
Oh awesome! I love that you have a plan that includes your kids – I think it’s important to really consider your family when you’re planning food for the year.
I will try some Carrot Cake Jam, I think that sounds very delicious and some baked apple jam and some Christmas jam with red wine.
I just started canning again after taking several years off due to all the bumps in the road of life. Most of my canning experience was pickles and jams and I was self taught. I’ve broadened my horizons this year and already have canned everything I could pull out of the garden and anything at the farmers market that looked good and was priced right. Cantaloupe jam has been on my list since I ran across a recipe a couple weeks ago. My family could live off of cantaloupe. I just finished my first small batch this evening. Hoping it tastes as good as it looks!
I usually can a lot every year. Our goal each year is to not buy any veggies from the grocery store. Last year was the first year we actually reached that goal. Last year, I also started dehydrating veggies. Even though canning is my favorite way of putting food up, this year, my goal is to dehydrate more foods than I did last year.
Making and freezing ketchup from tomatoes that I froze last spring 🙂
And here are some pics 🙂 http://www.littlehomesteaders.com/2013/08/fresh-homemade-ketchup.html
I am freezing green beans.
I canned pickles and relish – first time ever. Who knew how many pickles/relish could come from a 5 gal bucket!
So far I have canned some hot yellow pickled peppers, and tomatoes.. The tomatoes will get done as they come in. I also froze peaches and will be getting more this weekend. Oh I also froze sour cherries..but not near enough. I can eat them frozen as a snack at any hour. I usually freeze my beans and broccoli, but I am not having great luck with them this year..
I am thinking we may need another freezer.. and there is only two of us.
i canned pork with bbq sauce and chicken breast it was so easy have done bacon and hamburg before and they are great everyone ho can get a good price on meat should can some of it hust in case all you have to do is heat it up oh i also did beef stew it will be great in the winter to just open and heat when you are busy
Since our garden is small I rarely have anything extra to put up, but our tomato, jalapeno and basil plants have done really well this season, so I put up some stewed tomatoes I can use for stews or salsa later. I also dried lots of basil and then seeded and froze some jalapenos for salsa. Can’t wait to enjoy these over the winter!!
I preserved sauces I made from fresh herbs in my garden, and 3 different pestos from my garden. Even sun-dried my own tomatoes:) Love this challenge!
I want to do everything!! I am new to preserving and homesteading, but the joy I get from doing it myself is second to none. I am interested in learning more!
I am planing on drying last of the veggies and grinding them up and adding them to foods during the winter to add veggies to unknowing children who don’t like a lot of veggies