So this post is mainly for my over industrious sisters... because lately they have been posting and blogging about canning and doing super industrious stuff. I have an awesome garden... It is big and lots of flowers... EVERY year I plant tomatoes, squash, cucumbers all with the intent of canning them.
I have lived in my house 6 or 7 years and have never canned a single tomato. I love the IDEA of canning but, when it comes to the actual canning of foodstuffs...it never happens. I just can always find something else better to do plus, maybe I dont plant enough tomatoes but, I dont ever seem to have enough to have a true canning experience. I acutally have not done any tomato canning on my own it was always with my super industrious mother who canned everything. I think she acutally made crabapple jam.... have u ever seen a freaking crabapple?? They are supertiny and how many you would have to get and deal with to actually make jam out of seems completely a ridiculous waste of time to me... but maybe that is because she did not have a job "outside the home" until I was about 16 so other than relief society meetings ect..she had to find things to fill her day.
So every year although I know frost is coming.... I dont pick my green tomatoes or cover my plants because i think the time frost comes..im just done and a lazy gardener. I just tore out my tomato plants by the way and made a new resolution that next year I WILL so some canning... Why.... im not sure... will I save alot of money probably not.. I have a bunch of carrots in my garden that i planted and have not done ONE thing with...maybe i need to make some carrot soup....why did i plant so many freaking carrots.? What did i think I was going to do with carrots.? Help canning sisters..
As a side note... my 3 year old just peed all over our trampoline, like on purpose...not an accident... WHY did i have BOYS!
Like a waterfall in slow motion, Part One
2 years ago
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I just canned a bunch of homemade spaghetti sauce--7 quarts--and when all was said and done I doubt I saved very much money. I didn't have anywhere NEAR enough tomatoes from my garden, so I bought two gigantic big-as-your-head cans of tomatoes from the restaurant supply place along with a giant bag of onions in bulk--and still, I think I probably only saved about five dollars or something as opposed to if I had just bought a bunch of jars of prego on sale.
Well, maybe more than that if I really sat down and did the math. But STILL, it took ALL DAY. So I dunno if it was worth it--you pay for convenience, you know? Time is money, blah blah.
I think a lot of people who can do it because they just kind of like to, for some completely weird reason, the same reason people "homemake" anything that you can get at the store--because they just like to say, "I made it myself!" I don't even know why I do it. I actually only do it about every other year or so, truth be told. I always think I'm doing it because I'm being industrious/saving money, but in the end, I'm always doubtful as to whether I really saved that much. I think processed food prices are so much cheaper than they used to be that you really don't save as much as you would have in the 70's, unless you have a peach tree or something and are canning peaches year after year.
I cooked 5 gallons of tomatoes for 2 1/2 days and then added onions, garlic,grated carrots (from my garden instead of sugar), basil (from my garden), oregano (from my neighbor's garden) etc. and all of this yielded 5 quarts of sauce.
Yes, it does seem like a lot of work for very little output but what else would I do with all those tomatoes? Besides I really like my homemade sauce.
This is my second batch of sauce and my first yielded 7 quarts. I have tomatoes still in my freezer and more ripening in the basement so I will make one more batch of sauce before I'm done.
You planted all those carrots in the hope that your kids would like to eat them more because they came from the garden. My 2 year old only likes them when he pulls them up and they aren't washed off, just brushed off. Otherwise, no go, unless they are covered in that sweet orange ginger glaze mom makes. You can put them in a food processor and puree them and then add a cup of carrot puree to regular recipes (like brownies and cookies) and then your family gets the nutritional benefits without having to eat "yucky" veggies.
As a side note...my 2 year old is sitting on the couch with his dad watching Jurassic Park - not what I would chose since my 2 year old has decided that everything these days is "scary".
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