Canning Camp

(The picture above will take you to the complete set of pictures from canning camp, but I've posted a few below.)

Canning Camp with Grandma was a complete success this year. Patricia and I drove up from Tennessee and stopped to load up the car with more tomatoes than we could possibly use during the time we were at Grandma's. After one and a half days of work, we left with 102 jars (a total of 33 gallons) of tomato juice, diced tomatoes, salsa, spaghetti sauce, and ripe tomato catsup. There was a lot more prep work than I was expecting - all of the recipes except the tomato juice called for skinned, de-seeded, and diced tomatoes. Additionally, the salsa and sauce needed lots and lots of diced veggies.

All we had to do for the juice was to put cored tomatoes (skins and all) through the sauce grinder and add salt. We canned a few quarts of juice that were left over from other recipes but the majority of the juice was produced with the grinder.


By the end of the first day we had 20 jars of juice and had prepped the ingredients for two batches of salsa. We worked all day on the second day and spent the morning of the third day splitting up the jars and packing up.


This is the part where I would brag about how good everything tastes and about how my pantry is stocked with jars to last until next year. Unfortunately, everything is in Tennessee and we're trying to figure a way to get it to North Carolina without paying an arm and a leg. I may have to give in and have Patricia pack it up and ship it because I can only go so long using the precious jars of juice and sauce I saved from last year.