Will the canning EVER END????

OK, not that I am complaining, but FOR REAL... when this time of the year comes, I sometimes wish things would can themselves. (of course we still have many MANY quarts of Apple sauce to do..... OK, I need to stop complaining! GOD IS GOOD!)

Lastnight my husband and I canned 19 pints of diced tomatoes. I am so excited and exausted in the same sentence..... here is how we do it!

FYI: I LOVE ROMA TOMATOES TO CAN,

they have so much nice meat to them!

First you wash up all your tomatoes and bring a pot of water to a boil. Then throw in some tomatoes and scald them for 30-45 seconds. Then remove them to a cold ice water soak!

Next skin them (make sure to compost the skins!). Then dice them up and put them into clean jars! Make sure to leave the head space. Add 1T. of lemon juice to each pint. (last year I did not do this and my tomatoes have been fine, but I thought this year WHY RISK IT!)

Then you line them up all and put the lids that were in boiling water, and the ring on them.

Next you put them into a canner with boiling water (we use 3 quarts of water and a splash of vinegar.) Our canner holds 20 pints OR 7 quarts. You then do your pressure cooker according to the book.... Steam for 10 min.... put pressure stopper thingy on..... then wait for it to get to 10 pounds of pressure. Set timer for 25 min and regulate 10 pounds of pressure. When timer goes off, shut of heat and take a shower.... TO WASTE TIME!

Last but not least, when it hits ZERO pounds of pressure, take off the stopper thingy and open the canner.... Take our your beautiful cans of tomatoes and admire them!

What do you do when you get a saturday off????

Ok, here is what I do.... I pack up my kids and husband and drive to where we used to rent while we were building out house.... they have an apple orchard they do NOTHING with... NOT KIDDING... NOTHING!!! They don't spray and they don't pick....

SOOO, we go and pick 140+ POUNDS of apples (red barron and paula reds... becaue they are the ones ripe right now!)

AND we also pick 35+ pounds of Pears (their pear trees are SAD this season due to a bad spring in MN!)

SHOWN in the sink above is just 1/4 of the apples and in the bag below are 1/2 the pears

SOOOO.... what do you do with all of these apples????

OF course, MAKE APPLESAUCE! and LOTS of it!

First you recruit your husband to do all of the cutting and throw them in to a boiling pot of water

NEXT... Get your kids to help you send them through your Kitchen Aid Strainer (they love watching the WASTE come out the end!)

THEN.... you keep the apple sauce VERY WARM in a pot until it is almost to the top (that equals 7 quarts in my pot)

NEXT..... Fill Jars leaving head space and put the lids and rings one.

THEN.... Put them in to the boiling hot canner for 25 min.

AND there you have it 28 quarts of yummy apple sauce (the 28th is in the fridge, we didn't seal it, we wanted to eat it the next day!)

This equals only 1/2 of the apples and pears we picked. The rest is out in the garage WAITING to be made into yummy apple sauce!

NOTE: I know the apple sauce looks PINK! The Paula Reds were REALLY pink inside! Also, the very thick pink syrupy looking water that the apples were boiled in, is in 2 quart jars in the fridge, I am going to experiment with using it to make SOMETHING with... maybe cake!!!???

How many hours in a day???

How much can a person do in 24 hrs????

To answer that question, I will tell you about my past 24 hours.....

Here is my family cutting up 20 quarts worth of green beans

We ended up canning 14 quarts of them to make a total of 81 quarts so far this year (I think we will be done canning them now....) I blanched and froze the rest of the beans.

We cleaned up the canning mess and headed to bed about 22 hours ago!

Here is the canning I did today...

11 pints of pickles and 4 pints of tomatoes (small picking of the red things huh???!!!)

And for our baked chicken with tomatoes (canned last season) I made 18 Honey muffins. They are more like a roll than a muffin!!! Perfect for lots of meals! (recipe will be posted in the future!) We also ate a quart of those GREEN beans we canned last night... after TONS AND TONS of jars of green beans, ONE didn't seal.... Don't ask, Don't tell!!! OH, and yummy cuccumber that didn't get pickled!

Right as we were sitting down to dinner, I popped these 35 SUPER YUMMY 'Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins' into the hot oven (hey while it's hot from cooking dinner, WHY NOT???) These are now in the freezer since We still have some blueberry crumb top muffins in the fridge! BECAUSE: Hey, muffins make a great SNACK food for the kids!

Last but not least.....

4 dozen Peanut Butter Cookies!

These are my oldest Sons favorite cookies and he has been begging for them for WEEKS! SOOOO you guessed it, while the oven was still hot, WHY NOT???!!!

I did manage to find some time while the tomatoes where in the canner to sew 3 boys aprons for my ETSY SHOP !!!! I also washed and hung out to dry 2 loads of laundry (super size!), Drove into town (yes, I live in the boonies) to run to the bank and post office, folded 2 loads of laundry, and picked up the house about 25 times (ok, that is a joke, my kids had to pick up their toys, but I did help the girls clean their room, does that count????) NOW, since it is ONLY 9pm here, I am going to head off to my sewing room to sew up a few more items before I FALL into bed for the night!

SOOOOOO How many hours are in a day???? And how will you fit everything in????