OT -Canning Day- OT

kl8ton

Saturday 10-4 we scheduled an applesauce canning day. The entire weekend was rainy, windy, and Sunday was power outage-y.  This is the first canning run with the new kitchen.  This is a day we had in mind when deciding kitchen size and layout.  My mom came over to help.  From start to finish, we were working for 12 hours.  We did five and a half bushels of apples and one and a half bushels of tomatoes.


I bought 4 bushels of honeycrisp and 1.5 bushels of "luck of the draw" to mix in.  Honeycrisps were $10 for a half bushel.  Tomatoes were $8 for half a bushel.  I think the mixed apples were $5 for a half bushel.


1.5 bushels waiting to be washed.  Mom filling the sink.  Don't mind fence, it is in process of being removed.





4 Bushels of apples and 1.5 bushels of tomatoes on deck.




Cooking pots in front row and canning pots in the back row, ready for action.  Don't mind the jacked up back-splash.  Builder fixing someday. . . Cayenne pepper was not used, but did manage to photobomb this pic.




Some clean quart jars (both dishwashers cleaning the rest of the jars), bowls, and pans ready for processing apples.  Victoria Food Mill clamped to the counter.  In years past, no counter or surface had the correct thickness or overhang to clamp this thing to.  I was always cobbling something together with scrap wood or using a bench and setting the bench on a table.  This was  a huge victory.




Close up of food mill.



Daughter apple washing.  That is not a pumpkin spice late in the background.




Quartered apples cooking





Food mill being run by the kids.  Apparently this is a job worth fighting for.  Some of the kids in the background doing school work.





Jar filling


Into the canning pot.


Repeat.




Finished.  I did not help at all with tomatoes, therefore, no pics of that process.  I was helping my dad (who was helping me) gut the old basement.





Thanks for looking!

fishlessman

good looking food. did about 2 dozen quarts tomaters a few weeks back, took a few days for my back to recoup. i dont think i could do 12 hours

kl8ton

fishlessman said:

good looking food. did about 2 dozen quarts tomaters a few weeks back, took a few days for my back to recoup. i dont think i could do 12 hours

Thanks @fishlessman We did not stand in one spot long.  Lots of job rotating.  The kids couldn't get enough until cleanup started.  At that point, I couldn't find them anywhere.

WeberWho

Awesome post! It looked like everyone had a great time. What a fun way to spend with the fam/extended fam

blasting

I nominate this to be post of the year.  Looks like a great time.  The kids are adorable. The pictures are terrific.  Way to go @kl8ton.

kl8ton

Thanks @blasting

JohnnyTarheel

Awesome family time and results!!  Enjoy your bounty!!

YEMTrey

My great grandmother used to can applesauce, jellies and jams.  I remember eating them as a child and complaining because they were “chunkier” than the store bought brands I was used to.  Boy, what I would give to have her and those around again.

Thanks for posting and allowing me to remember my Grandma Haley this afternoon.

kl8ton

YEMTrey said:

My great grandmother used to can applesauce, jellies and jams.  I remember eating them as a child and complaining because they were “chunkier” than the store bought brands I was used to.  Boy, what I would give to have her and those around again.

Thanks for posting and allowing me to remember my Grandma Haley this afternoon.

We certainly are creating memories.  The kids are starting to look forward to these days. 

nolaegghead

Looks like a blast.  I love stuff like this.

I've done group projects revolving around food prep like sausage, tamales, etc, although the one with Kim Chi drove SWMBO out of the house on account of the aromatic effluents.

Sea2Ski

What a great day!!! You guys must really like applesauce.  I think I have about 2 tablespoons of it a year. I do not know why. I like it, just never think about buying it.

lkapigian

Great Project!!

WeberWho

Sea2Ski said:

What a great day!!! You guys must really like applesauce.  I think I have about 2 tablespoons of it a year. I do not know why. I like it, just never think about buying it.

Homemade apple sauce is legit. Stuff you buy in the jar at the grocery store is maybe why you only have it a couple tablespoons a year. I only found out a few months ago what I'm missing with homemade. A bbq restaurant down in St. Louis showed me the light. I'm quite jealous of this post. 

kl8ton

WeberWho said:

Sea2Ski said:

What a great day!!! You guys must really like applesauce.  I think I have about 2 tablespoons of it a year. I do not know why. I like it, just never think about buying it.

Homemade apple sauce is legit. Stuff you buy in the jar at the grocery store is maybe why you only have it a couple tablespoons a year. I only found out a few months ago what I'm missing with homemade. A bbq restaurant down in St. Louis showed me the light. I'm quite jealous of this post. 

I also feel that using Honeycrisp apples takes it up another notch.  I would be satisfied with this stuff as a desert.  My kids could take down a quart each in one sitting.  That is not an exaggeration.  

kl8ton

nolaegghead said:

Looks like a blast.  I love stuff like this.

I've done group projects revolving around food prep like sausage, tamales, etc, although the one with Kim Chi drove SWMBO out of the house on account of the aromatic effluents.

Yes, I like day long food fest things like this.  We had breakfast lunch and dinner during the whole operation.  Lunch was brats and onions, dinner was some lasagnas my mom brought.  Great day!

gmac

How did you keep a kitchen that white so clean?  I can't even get the tomatoes into the pot without making a mess everywhere. 
Not sure what was wrong with with backsplash either. 
Great job. 

20stone

It is great seeing the process, and you took some fantastic pictures (really cute kids help.

@nola said:
I've done group projects revolving around food prep like sausage, tamales, etc, although the one with Kim Chi drove SWMBO out of the house on account of the aromatic effluents.

We've done a lot of the same. I need a garden to justify the canning.  Time to get to work. 

kl8ton

gmac said:

How did you keep a kitchen that white so clean?  I can't even get the tomatoes into the pot without making a mess everywhere. 
Not sure what was wrong with with backsplash either. 
Great job. 

@gmac My mother is 100% Dutch.  "Dutch Clean" is a thing.  Somehow, she can multitask and clean while she works.  

thetrim

Wow!  That's a lot of canning!