Look What I've been canning!

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       If you have followed 3 Winks Design very much, you know that Helen loves to can!  (That's me!)  The best time to can in Phoenix is of course in the winter months when the summer heat is not making you feel like killing anyone who turns on a stove.  The problem with canning in winter is knowing where to get the produce to can!  Well, I've had some adventures with that this week and lucky for me, I've been able to keep my canners busy! 

      Actually, before I talk about THIS week, let me tell you about the week and a half before this week.  
      Well, let's back up even further and talk about my Christmas gifts.  I've mentioned to you that my son and dil gave me a steam canner for Christmas.  I used it to process my pomegranate jelly.  My dear friend Rhonda gave me a fermenting kit because she knows that I am very interested in
lacto fermentation. (Similar kit here)I have been on the lookout ever since for the right type of cucumbers for fermenting dill pickles.  I finally found some acceptable ones and started that process about a week and a half ago!  I'll be sharing that recipe and experience with you soon. 

         Then, last Friday, Anita messaged me and told me that the wholesale produce place we go to for good deals had Snapdragon apples on sale-72 of them for $25 and did I want to split a box? (We hadn't heard of that variety of apples before so we wanted to give them  a try with just half a box each).  Also, they had chopped carrots in a bag of 5lbs for $5!  I said certainly I wanted those things and while I was working at the foodbank on Saturday morning, Anita went and picked them up and brought them to me.  She also gave me a huge bag of blood oranges from her tree!  Sunday I made April J. Harris' recipe for Blood Orange Pound Cake, which was delicious.   I shared it with my church choir. Then, I started planning out my Monday and how I was going to process this bounty of fruit and veggies! 
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Here is the plan I made: 

• Can the carrots in pint jars in the pressure canner.  If there are enough left, maybe pickle some.
• Juice the apples in the steam juicer and then use the left-over pulp for apple butter! 
• Process the apple butter in the steam canner.
• Juice the blood oranges in the centrifugal juicer and freeze some. 

     I love this plan!

1. On Monday, I started the steam juicer going and then began getting jars readyl 
2. When my jars were ready, I filled 8 pint jars with carrots, 1/4 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of citric acid and then covered them all with water leaving about an inch of head space.  Then, I put them in the pressure canner and began to process them.  Since I did pints, they needed to process for 25 minutes at 10 lbs. of pressure. 
3. I checked to see if any juice was coming out of the apples.  It took about 40 minutes to start getting juice and the apples were all done by the time an hour was up.  I was able to get 3 pints of juice.  This juice was much more successful than the pomegranate juice! I am putting the juice in the refrigerator because I know that we will drink it up in no time! 
4. I dumped the pulp from the juiced apples into a large pot.  They were already so mushy that I just added the other ingredients and used my immersion blender to make them into an apple butter texture.  Then, I basically added the same spices that Linsey added to her Crock Pot Apple Butter, just changing the amounts a bit for the quantity of apples that I had.  Watch for a full post about how I made the apple butter soon!  
5. I jarred the apple butter and put it into the steam canner to process.  
6. I pulled my carrots out of the pressure canner.  They all started pinging and that is always music to my ears!  They are going to be so great to have on the shelf to add to soups and stews.  Come to think of it, they are a perfect size for pot pies!
7. Finished processing the apple butter. They all sealed and look delicious.

     You will notice that I haven't mentioned the blood oranges yet.  By the time I had finished the apple butter, I was getting pretty tired and it was lunchtime.  I decided to take a break, make some labels for my carrots and apple butter and probably juice the oranges tomorrow!  Plus, I do have some left-over carrots so I am researching how I want to pickle them.  
      This is so much fun! There is nothing like the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of my labors lined up on my pantry shelves! 

       Be sure to watch for the recipes to come! Pickles,  Juicing Pulp Apple Butter (that sounds weird, I'll come up with a better name, lol), things to do with blood oranges and pickled carrots! 
     If you are interested in any of the equipment that I have been using, click on the pictures below! ​