Busy Preserving

We've spent a lot of time over the last week canning and preserving!  First we started with the peaches, then tomatoes, and then green beans.  Preserving isn't a terribly difficult process, it's just time-consuming.  However, it's completely worth it!

 

Getting ready

 

Last year, we just peeled the peaches without blanching them.  This year, we dropped them in boiling water and then cold water to loosen the skins for peeling.  It helped prevent losing any of the peach when removing the skin.

 

After peeling, they looked like this.  Red Havens are so beautiful!

 

Getting ready to process in the water-bath canner.

 

14 quarts and 14 pints total!  We still had about 20 peaches left over, but I plan to use them to make a cobbler this week and also to just have as a snack.

 

Our tomatoes have finally begun to ripen, and we were able to get 7 quarts. 

 

We had a little leftover, which we froze.  These are good to use when a recipe calls for a can of diced tomatoes.

 

We had so many green beans ready at one time that we were able to can 7 quarts of them with a little leftover for dinner this week!  We have never had this many green beans before!

 

Our basement shelf is filling up!  Tomatoes, peaches, green beans, and strawberry-rhubarb jam.