adventures in canning.

So canning is something I have been DYING to do for a long long time now. However, I live in an apartment with a small kitchen and little storage space which has made it hard to do (not impossible if that had been my only option though). Luckily my cousin Rachel has wanted to can for sometime and already had some of the equipment and moved into a beautiful new house this summer with an ample kitchen! We did it all in one day, planning, shopping, prepping, canning, cooling, etc. It was a LONG day but fun. We have decided to make canning our Labor Day tradition and spend two days doing it next year....because it is a LOT of work :) So, what did we end up with you ask???
Brine for making pickled green tomatoes...













Only using pint jars because we lacked the
equipment for quart jars (this is on our list for next year :)











Garden fresh green peppers to be added to cauliflower, carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, and radishes for pickling (we ended up with 20 pints of this stuff, hope it is goooood)...











No broken jars, burns, or cuts....


















Six pints of pickled green tomatoes


















60+ tomatoes that had to be boiled, peeled, seeded, and cored (this was the most difficult and messy job EVER !)











Only to produce 8 pints of salsa (Our tomatoes weren't meaty enough) but the salsa is GOOD!!












So in total we ended up with 35 pints of food, all of which sealed properly... now we only have to wait 3 months until it is all pickled and primed to eat to see if it all turned out good!!