Walking the walk

(a post from a couple of months ago that I never actually published, but that makes sense to post before I write about my more recent canning adventures)

After all of this writing and talking about canned food, I decided it was time to actually try my hand at this home canning business.

Two instances came together perfectly to enable me to do just that: (1) Last week, I saw a box sitting by the dumpster outside our house. People often put things there when they no longer want them, but they're not exactly trash. I looked inside the box and what should I find, but 8 perfect quart-size Mason jars! and (2) After my recent place-based workshop [end of May 2010, focused on energy in the upper Midwest], there was lots of food left over from the snacks that had been purchased for the trip, among them many, many apples. We gave away as much of this food as possible, but I still ended upcoming home with several bags of apples. So, though they weren't garden fresh or even local, these apples seemed like a perfect first canning project.

So, I washed them and I peeled them:

Then I chopped them and I cooked them:

Then, while the apples cooked, I sterilized and heated those mason jars in a big boiling water canner, courtesy of Mom Horn:

And after the apples were hot (and I helped along their puree-ing with an immersion blender) and the jars were sterilized, I filled up the jars, wiped the rims with a clean towel, put on the new lids and sterilized screw-caps, and put the filled jars back in the boiling water for 20 minutes. Afterwards, I removed the filled jars with a jar-lifter, and voila! canned applesauce, ready for winter eating. Yum.

Stay tuned for August pickles and corn relish...