Canning - What have you gotten into this winter.

I don't have a garden here, but I have a few grape vines, raspberry and rhubarb plants. I've put up quite a bit of jellies and jams over the past few years. This morning I'm part way into a strawberry-rhubarb jam. I have a blueberry jam on deck next.

 

We have been using corn, pickles, salsa and pasta sauce. Oh, and peppers!

 

Didn't get to do that last year, but we have lots left over from the prior year that is still very good.

 

I used the last of my salsa a few weeks ago. I still have pickles, and a few jars of peppers and tomatoes yet. We're making rotel queso dip today and I'll put in a pickled chopped up cayenne pepper in it to spice it up some more.

 

All winter I have been using canned tomatoes, cherries and plums. Plus we have been using marmalade, blackberry and salal berry jam. Canned sockeye has also been used in casseroles and sandwiches. I can't wait for the rhubarb to come up. It has been so warm it won't be long now.

 

We use a little of everything every winter. Still have some potatoes left; tomato sauce; wax beans; corn; various flavors of pickles; blackberry, strawberry and peach preserves; plum jelly; peach and pear halves; had some apple butter on my pancakes this morning.

Then there's all the dehydrated stuff.

 

Canned a couple pints of spicy pickled beans and a few quarts of pickled carrots last fall. We also make about a dozen pints of strawberry freezer jam a year. The wife (XS) likes to bake so there's always apples, strawberries and rhubarb in the freezer. We had a rhubarb cake this weekend. Yummy!

 

I forgot about the sun dried (smoker dried actually) tomatoes I made last summer. A flavorful treat when added to soups, pizzas, omelettes, sauces etc. What we didn't make into dried tomatoes got made into pasta sauce. Here's a few after a little while in the smoker. Only took several more hours to finish up...but well worth it

 

How do you keep these and how long will they last (assuming you don't eat them all up )

 

Deer, beans, peppers, pickles, pickled beans..

 

Got into the canned spaghetti sauce and frozen venison burger yesterday. We've got lot of tomatoes, plain, marinara, Mexican spiced, etc. Lot's of green salsas, jams and jellies. We even got enough quinces from our tree to make a few pints of jelly. Quarts of chilli for quick meals... the wife really likes canning. I'm not getting in the way.

 

I broke into some more canned tomatoes sauce this weekend and made a homemade chili. If I remember right we are down to about 8 quarts of sauce left. That was the only thing we canned this year. We froze a bunch of vegetables in convenient size bags. Just enough to cook for a meal and have enough for the five of us.

 

I'm in that cupboard daily....tomatoes, sauce, paste, green salsa, beans, pickles of all sorts, sweet pepper relish, tuna, salmon, and on and on. I'm getting my rotation figured out finally after years, and have been feeding chickens 2010 cans for a while now, making room for next summers "stacks." Great thread!

 

If we`re talking about frozen farm butchered animals then I`m going to have to get in on this one, too. We do a decent amount of butchering ourselves.
Chickens - I raise and butcher hundreds of meat chickens a year. Fresh chicken is great!
Venison - Bucks? Can`t eat them antlers! Cubed, burger, tenderloin, roasts, jerky.
Beef - Steak, burger, roasts, loin, etc.
Pork - Sausage, roasts, bacon, chops, ham!

 

Keeping from eating them like potato chips is tough. I flavor the tomatoes with a little salt, pepper and oregano before drying. Once done, I just place them in a couple of zip lock bags and keep them in the freezer. Take what you need out of the bag when cooking, then seal it up and back to the freezer. I also made some flavored olive oil by adding some dried tomatoes and garlic.

 

It doesn't grow through the snow and up into the -10º cold Sav?!