A Blast from the Past

Years ago, when my girls were little I was the canning queen. Every summer and fall I canned hundreds of jars of applesauce, beans, tomatoes, peaches, pears, grape juice, spaghetti sauce, and pie filling. I think I even once canned potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes together for a soup base.

Then things changed.....I started doing my crafting business and was busy making Christmas items from summer till December. There was just no time for canning.

Then things changed even more.....all my kids grew up.

Well this year our apple trees were loaded. The past few years we have just tried to give the apples away and threw away all the rest that fell off the tree. This year I decided to not be so wasteful. Actually, Heather wanted to make some applesauce and I decided to make a batch myself to practice.

Our Yellow Transparent tree has lots of beautiful, sour apples, with no worms (we had them sprayed this year).



The birds are getting a lot of them, so I knew it was time to start picking. After washing all the apples, it was time to boil them.



The fun (but messy) part is using the Victorio Strainer. It hadn't been out of it's box for around 20 years or so.



Into the jars and out to the Camp Chef in the garage for the hot water bath... This is different from the "old days" when I did it on my stove indoors. It is kind of a pain transporting the jars to and from the house, but it keeps the house so much cooler and cleaner to do it outside.




Finally, the job is finished. It was fun, free (since I had all the supplies), and tastes yummy. I enjoyed doing it so much I decided to purchase some more jars so I could make another batch. Too bad I gave away most of my jars years ago.

I forgot how rewarding canning is. You really get a sense of accomplishment from it!!