Canning? NO SWEAT!!!

What did you do yesterday?

Me?... I spent my afternoon (into the evening- 6 hours to be exact) CANNING! Never done that before. Guess now I can mark it off my "things to do before I die" list. HAHA

But really. Jennifer came over and we spent the whole afternoon canning her 40 lbs (actually 36) & my 20lbs (give or take) of apples. We had planned on making all kinds of stuff. Applesauce, fruit leather, apple butter, apple pie filling.... But by the time we got into the job, we decided to only do applesauce. It was easier that way. And since neither of us had ANY experience at this we decided to keep it as simple as possible. (Not that it's that complicated to begin with)

So we got the peeling, slicing, coring, cooking, & blending down just fine. But when it came to actually canning the stuff we weren't quite sure how to do it. We knew the part about putting it in the hot water bath and letting it come to a boil. But could the jars touch each other? Could they touch the side of the pan? Did the water need to be a rapid boil? How do you keep the jars off the bottom of the pan and still have room for the water not to boil over? Actually we didn't know that the jars couldn't touch the bottom. We had to call my mom and ask her about the first question and found out the answers to the others as well. Mom P suggested using a pie tin on the bottom to keep the jars off. But wasn't sure since she had only ever used a canner. We were only using a stock pot. So later I called my mother-in-law to ask her about it. (I thought maybe she had done it in a stock pot before... she had.)

Mom C said to be creative. She actually offered to run her canner, jars, etc out that evening. But knew we were doing it right then. So she made a couple of suggestions about what to do. Because see, the first time we put the jars in, on top of the pie tin, and it started to boil, the water would make a big "GLURP" and go over the side and put out the burner (I have a gas range). After trying to restart the flame, twice, I called Mom C.

Then we got a little smarter. We took the pie tin & bent the sides out so it would be shorter and not take up so much room at the bottom. Then we punched holes in it so the water could go through it and not have to "lift" it up to boil. We were going to bend wire hangers and attach them to the sides to use as a handle to lift the thing out with, but I didn't have any. We ultimately were able to use my tongs. It was hard but we made it through.

It was a fun day. Jennifer got 9 jars of applesauce out of her 36 (supposed to be 40) lbs. And I got about 6 jars out of mine. But I only canned 3. The rest I put in the freezer. It would have taken a lot longer if I had canned all of mine. And by that point (6:00pm) we were done! We thought 9 jars, for a whole box of apples, looked kind of shabby. Mom P said that was a pretty good amount. And to quote her, "But just wait 'till you get them all on the shelf. When you stand back and look at them you will feel such a sense of accomplishment." Well, that kind of became our joke for the rest of the evening. (SORRY MOM) It just didn't seem that great to us. I didn't talk to Jennifer today. Guess I'll have to ask her, next time I talk to her, if she feels any differently about it now that the moment has passed.

What is our next adventure in being domestic you wonder?...............CHICKEN!!!!! We are going to get pressure cookers and can chicken. So stay tuned to hear all about that one! But in the mean time here are a few pictures taken yesterday while canning........