Sort of Like Grandma!

   Following my paternal grandmother's lead, I do a lot of home canning of fruits and vegetables...a LOT of home canning.  Grandma's was out of necessity as she had Grandpa, six strapping sons and a lovely daughter to feed and "running" to a grocery store was out of the question back in those days.  Mom, on the other hand, had no idea how to do these things when she and Pop got married.  She was never taught since she had not grown up as a "farm girl".  That soon became a problem as just a mere week after their marriage, Pop brought several bushels of green beans from the fields and then proudly presented her with a brand new pressure canner!  She sat down and wept because she knew the task had to be done but had no idea how to begin.  Pop tried to explain and but to no avail.  Thankfully, his sister came to the rescue and taught Mom the fine art of home canning that summer.  Mom passed that along to me as a teenager and I have been doing it since. 

  The Saturday before Mother's Day, Mark and I came up with a plan to bring four of our elderly lady friends some fresh vegetables as gifts.  Even though these ladies are in their late 80s, they still appreciate good foods and still do their own cooking.  Mark went to a local farm and stocked up on a variety of veggies and berries, we made lovely boxes and then he headed out to visit each of the ladies.  They were thrilled.  I stayed behind and started prepping the remaining fruit and vegetables to be canned.  He had scored a great deal on a bushel of green beans and half bushels each of strawberries and blueberries.  My work was cut out for me! For the next few days, we canned the green beans and made jams and jellies from the berries.

  The only troubling part of this whole venture is the quality of mason jars that are sold today.  I refuse to put any jar with even a tiny, hairline crack in my canner and some of the new jars have plenty of those.  Plus, several of the lids were messed up coming straight from a new box!  Then!  Then, imagine my surprise when one of the canning rings from a new jar had a lovely cut in the metal.  Wow!  Workmanship has gone down the tubes, it seems.  That should have never, ever left the factory!  Who inspects these things?  Anyone?  Doubtful.  I am so thankful that Mark did not cut his hand as he was removing the rings from the new jars.

  That aside, I now need to find shelf space for the nigh on eighty more jars of goodies.  This brings the total back to over nine hundred jars on the pantry shelves...which, by the way, are my dining room shelves that span the entirety of one wall.  Grandma would be proud, I think!

In a jam!

Oh, what a blustery day on the Bayou! And finally we saw some rain!!! The winds have been blowing a steady gale for quite some time now which makes it nice since I keep the windows open. Weather like this is not exactly conducive to working in the garden although I did manage to sneak out and poke a little fertilizer under the tomato plants. I am sure that the rain will do them more good than my feeble attempts at feeding them. There is just something about a nice shower that sends plants into a growth spurt!

With the drippy day outside, I worked inside. Cleaning house is not on my "favorite things to do" list, but occasionally I do go through the motions. A little dusting here, vacuuming there and that is usually sufficient for me! Today, though, my best intentions were thwarted by Hubby's trip to the store. He called me from the produce aisle.."Hey..want some strawberries?" Now that is probably the most preposterous question that anyone could possibly ask me. Do I want strawberries? Ha! "Sure!" I answered enthusiastically. "Great! They are on sale!" Well, I should have known..Hubby, the shopper, can spot a sale on aisle 7 when he enters the parking lot! He has a nose for a bargain! I must say that I was delighted to hear that strawberries would be on the menu today..I love strawberries! A bit later, I heard him at the door. Strawberries! Lots of strawberries! Ummm...a WHOLE LOT OF STRAWBERRIES! Thirty-two quart baskets of strawberries were carted into the kitchen. WOW!

I guess you know where I spent the rest of this rainy, windy day..yep..in the kitchen. Son and I stemmed and washed strawberries. We bagged and froze five gallons of strawberries. Still there were strawberries sitting on my kitchen table. Then..I was in a jam for the rest of the afternoon. After stemming, washing and crushing the remaining berries, I tossed them all in a huge pot and started cooking them. My, oh, my how delicious that smelled! I added the bare minimum of sugar and some of the homemade apple pectin that I made last week. This will be the test of the pectin! I cooked the jam until it was thick and bubbly, ladled it into the sterilized jars and sealed each. My, oh, my how delicious that looked! There was just enough left in the pot (accidentally, I am sure!) for me to have a taste-test! You know that the cook always has to taste-test every thing she makes! My, oh, my how delicious that tasted!!!!

The strawberries have all been frozen, canned or eaten! What a way to spend the afternoon!