Now, I can...

CAN!

My parents came to spend the weekend with us this past weekend. Not only to visit, but for my mom to teach me to "can" vegetables.

For as long as I can remember, we would always spend a few days in the summertime canning and putting up vegetables. From my Granny Lea to Nana, and great grandmother Ninnie, my mom had some great teachers! And this past weekend, she was my teacher!

As a kid, I remember my Papaw Lea and his love for the garden. He was such a sweet man and I wish that we would have had more time with him. He went to be with Jesus when I was only 5. Though, I am so grateful my dad has the same love for a garden and providing for his family just like Papaw Lea always did!



My parent's awesome garden

My parents brought us a lot of vegetables from their garden to mix with some vegetables that some of Brant's patients had given us. We were able to can vegetable soup, peas, squash relish and pepper relish. We also "put up" (prepared to freeze) corn, okra, and zucchini. I have no doubt we are going to have a lot of delicious meals this fall and winter!

The canning process literally takes all day! You first begin with preparing your vegetables. We shelled the peas on Friday night and kept them in the refrigerator all night. We then washed them really well Saturday morning and then boiled them until they were cooked. After they cooked, we filled up 9 quarts full of peas and about a tsp. of salt.  We then put them in the canner for about thirty minutes to cook. When they were finished, we got them out and let them cool on a dish towel. Then the "popping" of the seals began! (apparently the trick to really getting your jars to seal is to boil your seals in a little bit of water prior to putting them on your jars!)

While the peas were cooking, we started the process for the veggies for the soup (corn, potatoes, onions, tomato juice, and a few peppers). My parents have a juicer and we were able to use that to make our tomato juice which saved a ton of time! We then chopped/diced/cut up all of the vegetables to cook in the tomato juice. We let the soup cook on low for several hours before starting the canning process for it.

After all of our jars were full, we put up corn and okra. To do the corn: you cut the corn off the cob, cook it in the microwave for a total of 12 minutes(we did 6 minute increments) with a little salt and butter, put it out to cool in a large pyrex, then bag about 2 and 1/2 cups in each ziploc freezer bag.

We also made squash and pepper relish. I don't have the recipes on hand, nor can I remember all the ingredients, but if you are interested I can get them from my mom! They are recipes of my grandmother's. While we were busy inside the house, Brant and my dad were working hard outside on some projects that needed to be completed. They finished this flower bed that lines our back deck. And they also built and painted a box for our outside TV!



We can't wait for cooler weather and football on TV!



A big THANKS to my parents who helped with so much this weekend! I'm so thankful for their help and teachings!