I think I can

In my quest to save money (my motivation in many undertakings) I decided to learn how to can this year. My first attempt was applesauce. I went to the house of a lady in our church and helped along with 3 other young rookies, and came home with 2 jars.

Annalee gave the batch her smile of approval. Then I started grabbing apples from anywhere I could get them for free. I bought some canning equipment and was given some as well (thanks, Mom!) and decided to make lots of applesauce for free to use as baby food next year. Unfortunately, my energy was not as great as my vision, and in the end I had a laundry basket full of rotting apples that I had to throw away. I did end up with a few jars of applesauce, though.

My next attempt was salsa. Nathan goes through that stuff like a baby goes through applesauce, and it's not cheap! I thought I would grow my own tomatoes and save lots of money, but my two plants didn't make enough (go figure). So I bought 20 lbs of tomatoes and all the ingredients, and got to work. This was my test batch to see if I would like the recipe my sister-in-law Missy gave me.

It was so pretty! And I suddenly realized why the colors of the Mexican flag are red, white and green--they love good food! And boy, was it good. A little sweetness, the right level of heat, and chunky-good. But when I tried to make the stuff in bulk for canning the love went away. Even though I had worn gloves and chopped the jalepenos outside (in the freezing cold) to minimize irritation, it was still there. The onions were unbelievably strong. And my house was way too hot for a pregnant lady. After one grueling batch of salsa (all that work for 6 jars?!!) I canned only stewed tomatoes in the next batch and froze the leftovers of the other vegetables. After THAT batch I was wishing that canning had never been invented; I froze the rest of the tomatoes. Phew!

The lessons I learned from canning:

• Yes, it does taste better when you make it yourself. That's because the arduous process of canning results in a kind of brain-washing as your mind tries to provide a reason for all that self-inflicted suffering.
• Cheaper is not always better.
• Canning when pregnant is mental.
• Pregnant women are known to be mental.
• The next time I do any big canning projects will be when my slaves--uh, I mean, children--have grown old enough to help me. It would be nice to can with a friend to share the work, but then you have to give up half of the food too. That's why I'm waiting for the slaves.
• Freezing is so much easier!

A few weeks later I made plum freezer jam and plum rhubarb freezer jam with free plums from the neighbors and rhubarb from my "garden". (Rhubarb is the only thing that grows without me having to try to hard.) It turned out so yummy, and it was a cinch! Freezer is definitely the way to go.