picked and put up 20 quarts this evening.
the last 7 are just about to come out -
they'll be plinking shortly.


songbird

On Monday, 31 August 2015 22:26:23 UTC-4, songbird wrote:
> picked and put up 20 quarts this evening.
> the last 7 are just about to come out -
> they'll be plinking shortly.
>
>
> songbird

I keep hearing now and then about the 1.5 litre (1 1/2 US quart) jars for tomato juice out in Western Canada, but I've never seen one, and Bernardin Guide people say this spring they are dropping support for them -- then the Ball / Bernardin Complete comes out a month later and gives full processing times for them. Go figure.

Do you season the tomato juice in anyway?

Randal Oulton wrote:
....
> I keep hearing now and then about the 1.5 litre (1 1/2 US quart) jars for tomato juice out in Western Canada, but I've never seen one, and Bernardin Guide people say this spring they are dropping support for them -- then the Ball / Bernardin Complete comes out a month later and gives full processing times for them. Go figure.

heh... the book probably took a few years to put
together.


> Do you season the tomato juice in anyway?

not at all. Ma is adverse to spices of most kinds
and we don't salt foods often either. about the only
time she gets spices out is to make any of the Italian
dishes we like.


songbird

another 22 quarts and 1 pint last night.
beautiful tomatoes this year. the house
smelled so wonderful.

yesterday it was an out-an-about run
errands day for a bit and we'd needed some
new pots for a while (the old ones had been
dinged on the sink so many times that the
enamel was mostly flaked off and i was
wondering when they'd spring a leak). as
usual, we hoped to find some white enamel
pots, but first we had some lunch.

while at the restaraunt we asked the
waitress if she knew if a particular store
was still open and she wasn't sure, but we
did know that i wanted to pick up a pair
of shoes to replace the ones i'd been
wearing a long time (to where i'd added
more sole on the bottom and had mostly
worn that off too). so we went to the shoe
store and they had a buy one pair get the
second pair for half price sale and so
that worked out well, but what was really
funny was that the store that we wondered
if it was still open was two doors down
from the shoe place.

we walk in there and see all the kitchen
gadgets and i'm walking down an aisle and
on the clearance rack is a large (8-10
quart) white pot (and lid) and a few feet
over to the side is a rack with the smaller
pots (4-6 quart) matching set of two white
pots on clearance. the last set ran me
$25 total and when i bought them i knew they
were cheap and not likely to last that long
but they were white and so Ma would be happy.
we got about ten years of use out of those.
the new ones have much nicer handles and
the lid is glass so you can see what's up
under there. for about $35 total i consider
it a bargain.

i told Ma that we were going to have to
be more careful with these as they are so
much nicer, that we could use the new sink
hose sprayer to wash them out instead of
banging them against the sink and dinging
them up. we'll see...

they did get broke in really well last
night doing all those tomatoes. we had four
large pots going on the stove but i only
juiced two at a time and we even made it to
bed by 12:30 last night. the plinks were a
nice sound to fall asleep to. or more like
in my case, i think i laid down, rolled over
and was out in an instant.


songbird (in a rambly mood today...

On 9/9/2015 9:08 AM, songbird wrote:
> another 22 quarts and 1 pint last night.
> beautiful tomatoes this year. the house
> smelled so wonderful.
>
> yesterday it was an out-an-about run
> errands day for a bit and we'd needed some
> new pots for a while (the old ones had been
> dinged on the sink so many times that the
> enamel was mostly flaked off and i was
> wondering when they'd spring a leak). as
> usual, we hoped to find some white enamel
> pots, but first we had some lunch.
>
> while at the restaraunt we asked the
> waitress if she knew if a particular store
> was still open and she wasn't sure, but we
> did know that i wanted to pick up a pair
> of shoes to replace the ones i'd been
> wearing a long time (to where i'd added
> more sole on the bottom and had mostly
> worn that off too). so we went to the shoe
> store and they had a buy one pair get the
> second pair for half price sale and so
> that worked out well, but what was really
> funny was that the store that we wondered
> if it was still open was two doors down
> from the shoe place.
>
> we walk in there and see all the kitchen
> gadgets and i'm walking down an aisle and
> on the clearance rack is a large (8-10
> quart) white pot (and lid) and a few feet
> over to the side is a rack with the smaller
> pots (4-6 quart) matching set of two white
> pots on clearance. the last set ran me
> $25 total and when i bought them i knew they
> were cheap and not likely to last that long
> but they were white and so Ma would be happy.
> we got about ten years of use out of those.
> the new ones have much nicer handles and
> the lid is glass so you can see what's up
> under there. for about $35 total i consider
> it a bargain.
>
> i told Ma that we were going to have to
> be more careful with these as they are so
> much nicer, that we could use the new sink
> hose sprayer to wash them out instead of
> banging them against the sink and dinging
> them up. we'll see...
>
> they did get broke in really well last
> night doing all those tomatoes. we had four
> large pots going on the stove but i only
> juiced two at a time and we even made it to
> bed by 12:30 last night. the plinks were a
> nice sound to fall asleep to. or more like
> in my case, i think i laid down, rolled over
> and was out in an instant.
>
>
> songbird (in a rambly mood today...
>
We've had the same set of stainless steel pots since the mid-sixties,
they're still holding up and are easy to clean. Run from a six-cup small
pot to a humongous pot (seldom used except for making big lots of soup
or chili) that is big enough to bathe a 2 year old child in. Plus all
the canning pots, etc. My favorite is a big stainless steamer for
juicing, etc.

Sounds like you've been busy as always. Me, today was dentist for
cleaning at 0800, library at 0930, barber shop at 1000, now home with a
cool beverage and an urge to take a nap. I see Tilly Dawg is already
snoring so it must be nap time. Ahh! the joys of retirement and peace.

George

On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 22:19:47 -0400, songbird >
wrote:

> picked and put up 20 quarts this evening.
>the last 7 are just about to come out -
>they'll be plinking shortly.
>
>
> songbird

Without going down to the basement and counting. I think we did about
20 quarts of tomato juice and the same number of Italian tomatoes. I
also made about 25 pints of tomato relish. This is between my visits
to the doctors and hospitals this spring and summer. This morning I
went out and picked about 8 pounds of peppers, bell, jalapenos and an
interesting one named Ashe County Pimento cheese pepper. DH came in
with 8 pounds of scuppernong grapes which are now in the Mehu Liisa
being turned into juice. Thank goodness DH can help with the canning.

Fortunately my brain kicked in as I was thinking about getting the
grape juice for the jelly. Then came the search for the Mehu Liisa.

Next year there will probably be no tomatoes canned or otherwise
preserved. Just some eating varieties. We have so much canned and
otherwise preserved stuff already that we do not need to do much if
any this year or the next 10. If they get here it is only the older
son who wants any of the food. Younger son (single) has a garden,
small freezer and a canner.

In addition to the grapes, I have about 5 pounds of pinto beans that
need to be canned. Maybe I can put them in to soak tonight and get
them cannned tomorrow. Grape juice can wait in the fridge for a day.

Maybe I should get busy and do something with the peppers. Or maybe
take a nap.

Love,
Mom

George Shirley wrote:
....
> We've had the same set of stainless steel pots since the mid-sixties,
> they're still holding up and are easy to clean. Run from a six-cup small
> pot to a humongous pot (seldom used except for making big lots of soup
> or chili) that is big enough to bathe a 2 year old child in. Plus all
> the canning pots, etc. My favorite is a big stainless steamer for
> juicing, etc.

we have about a half dozen other large pots that
we use, but these were replacements for the pots that
sit on the top of the stove even when nothing is
cooking so they have to match the white stuff in use
every place else.

if they'd had another set of these we'd have probably
bought them...

we have one pot that holds about six gallons that she
uses to make bread (six to eight loaves at a time) so
the dough needs some room to raise the first round.
before she was making bread regularly i'd like to use
it for making tomato juice since i could put all the
juice in one pot and keep it warm and then do all the
filling and putting on lids in one shot and not have
to have different smaller batches going. this time we
had four smaller pots going and so i had to use one
while emptying another and then stop to rinse the used
one out before being able to use it to hold juice...


> Sounds like you've been busy as always. Me, today was dentist for
> cleaning at 0800, library at 0930, barber shop at 1000, now home with a
> cool beverage and an urge to take a nap. I see Tilly Dawg is already
> snoring so it must be nap time. Ahh! the joys of retirement and peace.

yeah, it's the busy time here with trying to get
things done when there isn't rains. picked a bucket
of red peppers this morning, not sure what i'm doing
with them yet, picked a few pints of flax seed pods,
going out in a few minutes to pick more dry bean pods.

i was thinking about a nap too right about now, but
i just took a break and was reading stuff on-line and
catching up on some news, weather and water stuff so
that's done and i'm wide awake so i'll go back out and
pick and meditate on the pleasures of others.

as for retirement, i quit full-time work 19 years ago
and haven't missed it a bit (i'm 52 so it's not like i
waited until i was older). i much prefer the gardening
and doing other stuff life i have now as i can fit the
amount of exercise to the weather and how my body is
feeling and for all of that it's doing much better. the
simple life has a lot going for it, but not everyone
can do it.

ah, i see large groundhog has found it's way here,
we'd cleared them out for a while, so this is the
first i've seen in quite some time...

scritch the dawg for me.


songbird

The Cook wrote:
> songbird wrote:
>
>> picked and put up 20 quarts this evening.
>>the last 7 are just about to come out -
>>they'll be plinking shortly.
>
> Without going down to the basement and counting. I think we did about
> 20 quarts of tomato juice and the same number of Italian tomatoes. I
> also made about 25 pints of tomato relish. This is between my visits
> to the doctors and hospitals this spring and summer. This morning I
> went out and picked about 8 pounds of peppers, bell, jalapenos and an
> interesting one named Ashe County Pimento cheese pepper. DH came in
> with 8 pounds of scuppernong grapes which are now in the Mehu Liisa
> being turned into juice. Thank goodness DH can help with the canning.
>
> Fortunately my brain kicked in as I was thinking about getting the
> grape juice for the jelly. Then came the search for the Mehu Liisa.
>
> Next year there will probably be no tomatoes canned or otherwise
> preserved. Just some eating varieties. We have so much canned and
> otherwise preserved stuff already that we do not need to do much if
> any this year or the next 10. If they get here it is only the older
> son who wants any of the food. Younger son (single) has a garden,
> small freezer and a canner.
>
> In addition to the grapes, I have about 5 pounds of pinto beans that
> need to be canned. Maybe I can put them in to soak tonight and get
> them cannned tomorrow. Grape juice can wait in the fridge for a day.
>
> Maybe I should get busy and do something with the peppers. Or maybe
> take a nap.
>
> Love,
> Mom

it is nice to have someone to help out when canning.
our kitchen is not that big so it can be a challenge to
dance around each other.

yeah, we have a lot more than we really need too.

when planting i said we should only grow one or two
cherry tomato plants and a few beefsteaks. i was
overruled and we have eight beefsteaks. thus we'll
be putting up more tomato chunks sometime in the
coming week.

i picked 24 red peppers (most of them pretty huge)
yesterday and turned 15 of them into soup last night
and Ma will take the ones left and turn them into
stuffed red peppers tonight so we can freeze a few
small containers for quick meals. we've both decided
that we aren't going to grow green peppers any more
as we like the red peppers so much better. there are
still quite a few red peppers on the plants but they
may not finish up. depends upon how the frosts/cooler
weather and amounts of sunshine goes for the next few
weeks. we can get frosts in mid-Sept so it's getting
close.

i am just starting to get into the dry bean picking
seasons and the pinto beans are coming along well but
with all the rains we've been having it's going to be
a challenge to get the pods dried. already have had
some rotting and/or sprouting in the pods. will be
out picking in a few as soon as i get done resting and
the last of the dew gets burned off.


songbird