First Canning of the Summer

Have you been canning yet this year?

I have been trying a few new recipes.

I did this Peach Butterscotch Sauce.
It really goes against all my healthy standards, but it looked SO good!
I'll use it for the girls' birthday party where we'll have an ice cream social.

First attempt at grape juice!

I made grape juice for the first time!
We got 2 full bags of globe grapes with seeds.  What do you do with that?
No one around here wants to put in the effort to eat grapes with seeds.
SO LAZY!
I decided to cook them down and try my hand at juice.
I put them in my big enamel pot and covered with water.
I let them simmer for an your or so until the willingly would crush with a potato masher.
Then I strained them through my mesh strainer.
That was a little ridiculous.
Apparently I am in dire need of a food mill.

It worked ok and I ended up with 3 quarts of yummy juice that I hear goes really well with sparkling water!


The last thing I canned last week was this Strawberry Rhubarb Sauce.
I chose this one because it didn't have too much sugar.
We thought it was really good!
It, too, will be served for the ice cream social.
YUM!
I made a second batch, pureed and dehydrated it into fruit leather.
They were good, but the orange got really strong.
Next time, I'll leave it out for the dehydrating portion so we can taste the delicious strawberries and rhubarb.

Cooking down strawberries and rhubarb!

Busy day..... Dehydrating and Juicing

I cut up an enormous sweet potato from our bountiful basket.
Seriously, I wish I had a pic.
It was as big as my face.
Dehydrated that  along with about 20 or so tomatoes.
We love sundries tomatoes.
Sweet potatoes-we're not so sure yet.  I like them, but they are a little hard to eat.  Very hard actually.
Next to e I will try to cut even thinner.  
I guess that's why people buy mandolins?


Juicing news....   Jimmy and I are both down to one a day for now.
I used my purple kale, parsley, a pound of carrots (minus one we had for lunch), 3 apples, and two oranges.
Tastes good to me.


Last, is my sweet baby girl.  She was so stoic and cuddly.
Her 2 bottom  teeth are about to pop through.
I wish they would.
Teething is such a pain.  
She does love the catnip tincture I made to help, though.
Recipe for that to come.....