Believe it or not, if you’re going to live like a yuppie homesteader, you have to have a canning plan. Or at least, I do. Otherwise, you won’t be prepared for when all of the vegetables and fruits start rolling in and you’re not sure what to do with them and what to prioritize into that hot water bath.
So, on my way back and forth from Buffalo, I loosely outlined my canning plan to maximize my canning time and storage space, particularly freezer space. The plan – always subject to change – goes a little like this…
In July, cherries come in and I want at least three gallon bags of frozen cherries. It may be four. Reason? I like cherry pies and I make pies in the fall and winter months. This will be the year I finally put up cherries. End of July also brings in blueberries. I actually just finished last year’s blueberries. Getting stocked up is going to be important. I make this killer blueberry muffins. One of these and a cup of coffee in the morning and I’ve got breakfast.
Early August and the plums come in. I am ridiculously excited to make plum jelly this year. So, that’s the plan. And while I am a bigger fan of freezer jam for strawberry jelly – the flavor is just amazing! – I think I’ll go with the hot water bath for the plum jelly. We’ll see. I’m waiting for my canning book to come in before I completely decide. However, I am running out of freezer space.
To make some room in the freezer, we had to pull out about 20 pounds of frozen tomatoes and make marinara sauce with them. That freed up a little space and gave me 10 quarts of fresh marinara (although two are already gone).
Beginning in early August, I can also start making pickles. That means I may need to distribute some of the jars I have in the basement to make room for a fresh crop. I typically do anywhere from 2-3 batches of pickles. I’d like to see myself get the full 18 jars as the canner holds six jars per batch.
While the frozen corn hasn’t been the greatest of family favorites over the past two years – my husband is low carb, remember? – I’m still going to go ahead and do two dozen ears of corn for the freezer. That will give me six “meal bags” with about two ears each. That makes for a quick-and-easy side dish on days when I’m running behind in the winter.
In August, I’ve got big plans. This is why I have Friday’s off. Outside of more spaghetti sauce and the plum jelly, I want to freeze some fresh broccoli and some riced cauliflower. Again, those make future meals planning super easy. Whip up a quick cheese sauce for the broccoli and it’s an easy side dish; pull out the riced cauliflower and we’ve got nearly instant rice for gumbo, red beans or teriyaki.
Also in August, I’ll begin processing tomatoes to make sure we save all of that wonderful goodness from our gardens.
My husband is a huge canned beets fan, so I’ll also need to work in 48-60 pint jars of beets for him to have in his salads from this fall through next summer. So, there will be multiple beet canning days throughout August and September and even into October.
And finally, there is my other piece de resistance – my mom’s homemade apple sauce. Or, as my nephew calls it, “Gramma’s loving apple sauce.” Now, that was a pure plea to strike at the heart of my mom to make her apple sauce and, of course, it worked. (Clever kid!) But it’s also pretty darned good apple sauce. The key to it is similar to the strawberry jelly. Freeze it – don’t hot water bath it – and the apple sauce tastes incredible. So, I’ll do 10-12 pint bags of apple sauce and then one gallon bag for Thanksgiving. There’s nothing like a little fresh applesauce with a roasted pork tenderloin and mashed potatoes in winter.
There’s a couple of other things that I’m still toying with trying. Homemade salsa being one of them. I’d also like to try making a blueberry sauce that my husband could use in his yogurt and that we could put on pancakes. I still have to also make time to go picking wild blackberries because that’s just a family tradition I won’t let die and we need to put up 10-12 gallon bags of spy apples to make apple pies. And I think I want to steal my sister’s trick of cooking her acorn squash and freezing it so it doesn’t go bad in what amounts to our “root cellar.” In our case, I think I want to do that with both sweet potatoes and acorn squash. Finally, I dream of making my own pumpkin for pumpkin pies. (Hint: a recipe for this was in the canning book coming I ordered via Amazon prime – we ARE yuppie homesteaders, after all.)
All in all, it’s going to be a busy canning season, but I am so excited for it. I just love the idea of preserving my own food and when winter rolls around, I am always so, so grateful for my little store of summer hiding out in the basement.
The Yuppie Homesteader 