First Canning of the Year - And Beyond

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I had 2 bags of sweet potatoes that I harvested 2 or 3 months ago. I hung them in the utility closet in vented bags while I was busy doing other things (like planting my spring garden). Today I pulled out the pressure canner, boiled and peeled the potatoes, and got them canned in simple syrup. I was surprised how well they held up.

I love pressure canning because all I have to do is heat up the jars (probably not required but just to be safe), pack in the food in hot liquid, and get my canner up to pressure. I will be doing plenty of it later this growing season, but it was good practice for the real thing coming up. In the interim, I'll can some chicken that's in the freezer, and make some soup and chili to put up for whenever.

[surviort_wwdnet]

I love canning, so I got another canning rack so I can double-stack pint jars. I have some beef bones in the freezer, so I'll roast them and make beef broth, then do a double-stack pressure canning. Seems I'm always buying broth at the store when it's BOGO.

I have chicken and cubed beef all canned, but I just can't wait until I have ripe tomatoes that I can use for sauce. With 25 plants, I should have plenty, and I have a super simple marinara recipe that I love.

As soon as the lima beans are ready to pick, they'll also get cooked and into the canner. My ham and black bean soup recipe is sitting on my desk waiting for me to get a round tuit.

[surviort_wwdnet]

I picked just over 7 lbs of tomatoes, so tomorrow I'll go out to see if I can snag another 2 lbs, give or take. It takes about 3 lbs/canned quart, so I will do 3 quarts in my stockpot with a canner insert I purchased several years ago. At 3 or 4 qts/canning session, I may even be able to find room for my canned tomatoes in the pantry! Otherwise, they'll have to go under the bed.


Last year I "saved" tomatoes in the freezer until I had enough to do full-sized water bath canners of quarts, plus I used some of the tomatoes to make marinara and meat sauce in the pressure canner. My plan is to do all water bath quarts of whole tomatoes as I harvest enough to use the stockpot-canner, and make sauces as I need them. This will simplify my life and give me more versatility with my tomato crop, plus make fairly quick canning sessions. Also, when I did a season's worth of tomatoes all at once, it was quite a project. With whole tomatoes, I can crush them and strain to remove the seeds, or dice them to use in chili and other recipes.

I still have 4 Roma tomato plants that are filling out and are loaded with green Romas. I may use the Romas to can as sauce, or just water bath them and make the sauce later. I have my husband's Italian nona's red sauce recipe and it's so good, and it doesn't start with fresh tomatoes; it uses crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. I have a lot of tomato paste in the pantry so I probably won't make my own unless I get an insane moment of inspiration.