Adventures in canning

Oh my goodness!!!

My mother in law (from here on out to save my fingers I will call her Mom) came up this weekend for a few reasons

1) it was Zach's birthday and she does not miss her grand children's birthdays

2) she comes to visit once a month

3) she was coming up to teach me canning

several things could have gone very bad with this. Mom and I have very different attitudes towards cooking and us working in the kitchen can at times be either a pure joy or VERY volatile

this time it was hectic but fun

First to coordinate this mess we have to remember we had a kids birthday party on Saturday

one kid spent the night

the boys all had homework

and I am still nursing the 16 month old

We got started early in the morning trying to get everything cleaned up good and get breakfast for the crowd of people
(my 5 kids plus the extra kid Dave myself and mom it was pancakes)

then clean up that mess

Then Dave and I had to go to the store cause we did not have the canning jars we thought we did

we got home by now it is afternoon

the kitchen is clean Mom started the crock pickles she was going to make us and I headed out to the garden to start picking things

I picked her 10 good cucumbers and a whole bunch of tomatoes and some onions and celery

I then went out to pick some more berries cause I really want to make jam out of the berries I have been picking and freezing I figure once I get enough of them it should not be too bad to make a bunch of jam and freeze it

RIIiiiiiiiGHT!!

well at this point I had a crying toddler who wanted to take his so I had to sit down and nurse him

while I was doing this mom started the sauce

I BTW make a great sauce I have done this part before I just have never canned it I usually make it and use it fresh

she cut up all of the tomatoes including some that could have waited a few days before being cooked they were not quite ripe but fell off the plants

she left the seeds in which is not what I do no big deal but again not what I do

after all the chopping and work the jars were sterilized but the sauce was not fully done

and then by the time the sauce was done the jars were cooled off

this happened to us twice by the end of the night she and I were giggling thinking we would be canning these 2 lousy jars of sauce till next weekend!

by 11:30pm the jars were full and all processed the lids sealed properly and her boiling water canner was left on the stove to cool

we said goodnight to each other and I promised her those two precious cans of spaghetti sauce would cherished

I am thinking of having them bronzed