Much to my surprise canning in our little kitchen works great! Friday night after the wee ones were off to bed, a tired hubby and I started our first canning at home adventure! Pickled beets were on the agenda, as some dear friends let Jeromy pick a huge bag from their garden on his way home from work last week. Mama's not a huge beet fan... but when the recipe calls for cinnamon, all spice and lots of sugar... I might have a change of heart, we'll see.
It went smoothly, what a fun evening spent with my best friend preserving food.
The Beets fresh from processing...
So funny how the best sound in the world to hear after pulling them jars out of the canner is the sweet sound of those lids poppin!
Two batches of beets later.... it's almost 11:30pm... our eyes are burning and we keep yawning... time to call it a night! Better rest up because tomorrow would be a full day of apple canning...
It's offical we are NUTS! We canned while the kids were awake... I'm not sure I would ever do that again! Ben was hangin on my leg and Colten was asking for something to eat every 10 minutes! It was sooooo very chaotic!
The Spiced Apple Moons turned out amazing... somehow!
Spiced Apple Moons-- (Moons because we used regular mouth jars and were unable to fit "rings" in the jars! haha)
Jeromy just getting started on apple peelin..
Oh my... doesn't even look like we made a dent... The kids were napping at this point and we were able to whip out a batch of applesauce... Each batch required 24 cups of peeled and sliced apples... wowza!
Colten was super excited to peel apples when he woke up to help with applesauce batch #2
The next morning... 6 Pints Spiced Apple Moons, 12 1/2 pints Pickled Beets, 6 Quarts Spiced Applesauce... and well we had no idea but you can use your apple peels to make Homemade Apple Peel Vinegar.... so we have a Gallon and a half fermenting that will be ready next month....(Thank Kellie for the idea!)
I had a wonderful time... kind of have the "Canning Bug" now and can't wait to do some more.... which is a good thing because there's still more beets and a whole lot more apples... we're planning to do a ton more applesauce since we buy so much of it... next we'll can it in 1/2 pints so they are travel size.
Apple Pie filling is still a plan too, just need to pick up some more ingredients before we can tackle that one.
Ok so fears laid to rest... it's not scary! And even in my tiny kitchen we made it happen!
Happy Canning!
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