25 pounds of green beans later

It's the end of the growing season, the country's descent into hell in a hand basket is speeding up, and I have a bit too much free time due to not enough clients this month. All of that together is a recipe for me to engage in an obsessive canning and making fest. The making end I shared yesterday, so today it's canning. The direct correlation between my existential dread and preserving food continues. 

Yesterday, I popped over to my favorite family run farm stand where I know they sell in punta suitable for canning. (Remember the corn? Same place.) I wanted to see what was on offer because the pantry was bare of Dilly beans and dill pickles, with the bread and butter pickles running low. I was in luck and bought 25 pounds of beans and two packs of pickling cucumbers. With G.'s help, we did all the beans today.

Those 25 pounds of beans ended up making 13 pints of Dilly beans with enough fresh beans leftover to have with dinner. 


Only one out of the thirteen didn't seal, but it will just go in the refrigerator and we'll eat it first. They are heavy on vinegar so will be just fine there until they are ready to eat. 

The cucumbers we'll turn into pickles on Thursday, Friday will be applesauce (finally), and squeezed in here and there are the nearly 50 cups of choke berries that our eye doctor gives us every year. I've been working on cooking them for juice to make jelly, but because each batch has to drain through a jelly bag for two hours, it's not a speedy process. Once I have the juice, I'll be able to make jelly. I'm also going to try to puree the fruit left after juicing, add it to some applesauce, and dry it in the dehydrator to make fruit leather. I've made fruit leather before, just not this particular combination. 

At least avoidance canning and making create nice products.

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