We Can Can! Part 1 of 3

I sure wish I had a garden.  Luckily, my mom and several friends have great gardens!  And, Ohio is full of flavor and offers a variety of tasty treats.  I love canning.  It’s one of my favorite activities.  This year, I had a few different canning expeditions – each turning out pretty good.

My mom had tomatoes growing in like three different places on the farm.  There were a few vines behind Dad’s shop, several behind the horse barn and a few more by the wood stove shed, I think.  Mom and I picked some tomatoes for a while one day, until I saw a snake skin and fled.  Stupid snake.  Anyway, after we picked about 10 pounds, we got the tomatoes washed up and ready to go for making sauce and ketchup.

The tomato sauce was easy.  The ketchup was a little trickier.  We had to make a spice pouch, which was a little creepy.  But it turned out OK.  We should have let it cook down a little longer, but I think for the first time at bat with ketchup, it's just fine and dandy.  It was lots of fun canning with my mom.  And since we didn’t have to pressure can, I was allowed to stay in the kitchen the whole time, haha.

We entered several of our canned goods in the competition at the Brown County Fair.  And despite not taking the major prize, I think our display of goods looked the best.

A good project for mother and daughter.  What's more wholesome than such
a duo competing with canned goods at the county fair?

The display included corn, tomato sauce, tomato jam, blackberry jelly,
mint jelly, blackberries, ketchup, green beans, peaches, peach jam, tomatoes, etc.
A pretty good variety I think.

We also entered some of our tomato sauce.  We were pretty excited to see this ribbon.
While it's not blue or purple, Bro Co Fair is tough competition, people!

And one of the best parts of this story – Mom got me my OWN canning pot and supplies.  Thanks for empowering me, Mom!  I felt like Forrest Gump when he got his Nike shoes from Jenny.  Like Forrest, I was inspired to use my new treasure.  But unlike Forrest, I have to wait until next season to put my treasure to use.

Can you spot my new precious canner?  I hope she likes her home on
top of my fridge for hibernation. Ten points if you can locate the other
 canning tool in this photo!

Check back soon for more canning stories!