I have to be honest. I’ve been terrified of canning on my own for quite some time. It just seemed like so much work and so tricky–what if I do all of this only to have it not work?!? Well, having more free and homegrown apples than I know what to do with, and really loving using applesauce in all kinds of baked goods, I decided it would be worth a try.

I borrowed the canning equipment from my mother-in-law–I wasn’t brave enough to make the investment in my own equipment–read up on canning applesauce here, put the baby to bed for the night and went to work. My angel husband was kind enough to help me figure out how to put together and use the strainer, and actually was quite helpful through the whole event. It helped that there was a football game on the radio that we were pretty interested in.

Anyway, it wasn’t bad! We didn’t lose a single jar and felt great about ourselves when we were done.

Here’s what we did:
1. Washed and quartered the apples into slightly salted water.
2. Boiled the apples until they were good and mushy.
3. Ran them through the strainer.
4. Pour the applesauce into quart jars.
5. Put lids on and processed them!

A few things I learned:
1. If you take the boiling apples off the stove, don’t leave the lid on–if it doesn’t have a steam vent, it will make a tight seal closed! We were lucky to get it off!
2. Chances are good the floor is going to be sticky and you’re not going to feel like mopping it after all that work. Mop it. You’ll thank yourself later.
3. Having someone around who can help makes a world of difference.

You can do it! Now I have 17 quarts of applesauce all ready to go.

Because my little garden had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, I’ve been looking for different ways to use them. These are spectacular.

From the cookbook written just for me, The Improvisational Cook has some great ways to make every day foods go above and beyond.

By drizzling oil over sliced tomatoes and sprinkling with a little salt, sugar and pepper, then slow roasting them at 325 for about an hour or until they have lost most of their liquid and are beginning to brown, they develop a delicious rich flavor that is wonderful for pasta and sauces. Be sure to cook a lot though–the first time I did it with four or five tomatoes and we just ate them as they were!

Our next door neighbors invited us to pick all of the apples we could from their tree.  We picked a lot, but they seemed like nothing compared to what was left.  It’s been great–so far any time we need to bring something somewhere, those free apples are the first place we turn.  I also read this about how to store fresh apples through the winter.   I’m pretty happy about this–I was not up to figuring out how to make applesauce and can it.  Maybe next year for that.

But apples will store several months in a cool dry place–all you have to do is wrap them in a quarter sheet of newspaper and leave them in a cardboard box.  More details here.

Well, with snow and cold threatening, I decided it was time to pick all of my remaining tomatoes.  I’d read in this article about a woman who stored hers and used them as they slowly ripened–all the way through March!  I’d also read this on allrecipes.com about how to store them–single layer in a cool dry place.  So I now have over 100 tomatoes chilling out in the basement.  I hope it’s cool enough down here–I can see some of them already starting to turn.  I’m nervous they will all ripen at about the same time, and I’ll have to figure out something quick to use them.