PDA

View Full Version : Canning with a full time job



cbownesouth
08-24-2009, 10:36 PM
Hello from the beautiful blue ridge mountains in western North Carolina.

I'm canning everyday. Too bad the busiest canning time comes in the fall after I go back to teaching, but I've found the solution. In the morning before school I cut up all of yesterdays tomatoes peppers and add an onion and corn and throw in some dried black beans. WHen I come home the salsa is ready for canning. I do the same for speghetti sauce but put it through either the food mill or the hand crank ginsu food processor (no you can't buy one now :mad: it was a free gift for buying knives in the 80's).
I'm slowly replacing my electric appliances with hand crank versions. I have a vidalia chop wizard (worth every penny) a salad king slicer with 5 slicers (very sturdy tool) pasta maker,old fashoned crank beaters, food mill, :)the ginsu food processor I would love to have all the blades but only have your basic one ( I got it used) Next thing I need I'll have to wait until I visit my relatives in Lancaster the amish sell hand crank blenders. :) I have the plans to build a solar food dehydrator but its too big a project to tackle during canning season. It sounds like a good winter project. The car lot in town has a 3 story golden delicious wild apple tree that they just let fall and rot so we go and pick and make apple sauce apple butter and apple jelly. This year we picked some green and made pectin and my blackberry jam (from plants growing on the side of the road and the golf course) didn't need any sure gell.

Garden Green
08-24-2009, 11:46 PM
Wow, very busy indeed. I know what you mean about canning. While we lived in an apartment a couple of years ago, I paced around the house starting around now until the beginning of November because I didn't know what to do with myself with nothing to can. But it can be a very serious chore to be sure.

Sounds like you've got a neighborhood worth being in with all the freebies! I love apple butter and we've made it homemade a couple of times in the same situation where someone had a tree and they just let them fall (how sad is that?)

Dana

GoldenAcres
08-25-2009, 11:04 AM
I am determined next year I will have the nerve to knock on doors and ask to pick overloaded fruit trees and prickly pear plants. :)