House Creature #8

Squeezing out summer

Canning progress so far. Multiple boxes under something means I make multiple batches of that item. Expect a full canning report by mid-October!

This is the first year I haven’t had to buy big bushels of tomatoes at the farmer’s market for canning. I’m finally growing enough paste tomatoes at home to make big batches of salsa, pizza sauce, and just plain canned tomatoes (not on this checklist because well… they’re just kind of boring?)

I have two paste tomato plants - a San Marzano and one that was just labeled “Roma” and they cost $5 total. I expect these two plants to save me about $80, which is about what I spent on paste tomatoes at the farmer’s market last year.

A couple harvests from this week and some canning projects from the past few days: pizza sauce, giardiniera, and corn relish.

This is my tenth summer canning, and over time I’ve learned what we eat a lot of, and what jars end up forgotten at the back of the canning shelf. There are so many recipes that look fun and interesting to make, but we get to January and I’m just not sure what to do with them. Here are a few things I’ve made in the past that I’ll never make again because we just don’t eat them:

• Spicy pickled asparagus

• rhubarb chutney

• dill pickle relish

• rosemary rhubarb jelly

• zucchini pickles

Almost half of what I preserve is salsa (my favorite food.) I make about 70 pints every year and I know my recipe by heart, I also know how to *safely* play with it and adjust for different types of peppers, adding roasted corn, etc…

But you’ll see at the bottom of the checklist, not everything is canned, some things end up in the freezer. Today we’re digging into my most used, easiest, and most versatile frozen preserve: chili paste!

A common store-bought comparison might be the Sambal Oelek from Huy Fong foods, but my version doesn’t have potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite, or xanthan gum in it. I keep multiple versions of chili paste in the freezer - some extra hot, some with garlic, some with ginger, some with garlic AND ginger. I use it in every style of cooking and can’t imagine making dinner without it.