Baking, Canning & Freezing.

 The canning (beans) was on my agenda for today. Baking and freezing were not! 

Vince went to pick strawberries. I know he's picked over 50 pounds of then. I've made a triple batch of strawberry syrup, a double batch TWICE of strawberry/rhubarb jam and a double batch of strawberry jalapeno jam. When he left, I said "Please only pick enough for us to eat over the next few days." Nope, he picked 12 pounds. He is 100% sure he never heard me say "don't pick more than we can eat over the next few days!"

The freezers are full; I only have enough jars to can the beans I had planned to get canned this week. I ended up taking a big ham out of the freezer and making room for some strawberries. Vince did the hulling while I was canning beans. Then I chopped the strawberries, kept out 1-1/2 cups for strawberry bread, and put 1-1/2 cups of chopped berries in 15 zipper freezer bags and stuck those in the freezer. I can make strawberry bread, strawberry-rhubarb bread, strawberry ricotta cake - there's all kinds of things I can do with frozen strawberries.

Strawberry Cake before Glaze

Strawberries for the Freezer

For the beans, supposedly 5 pounds of beans will produce 14 pints or 7 quarts of canned beans. Every now and then it works out for me but more often than not, it does not and today . . it did not. When we open a pint of beans, we always leave some - maybe 1/2 cup or 3/4 cup that we don't eat so I thought . . I will use 4 pounds and instead of filling the jar to 1" from the top with soaked and boiled beans, I'll fill the jar 1-1/2" from the top and and extra water. I had 14 pint jars washed and ready. Filled those up and still had beans. There were 2 extra pint jars in the dishwasher (clean) so I filled those. Still had beans so I grabbed a wide mouth pint, filled it; filled another wide mouth pint, and then another! Good grief. I ended up with 19 pints of beans and because three of them were wide mouth, it took two canners to get them all canned. 

Aren't those beautiful canned beans? That's my first batch and it's Anasazi beans. Tomorrow I will can pinto beans and I will use 3.5 pounds and see how that works - hopefully I will end up with 14 pints.

The best news is that strawberry season is winding down. Several of the local farms have already closed so I don't think Vince will be picking more berries. We can hope!