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Cannin Maters

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the_jersey_lilly_2000

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Well I spent yesterday evenin and last night till almost 11 pm, blanching and peelin and cuttin up maters. I had two 5 gallon buckets full. I just couldnt bring myself to continue on and cook them and put them in jars last night, soooo they spent the night in the fridge.

This afternoon after gettin home, I tackled the job of cookin em and puttin em in jars, then the water bath. Got em all done. 14 quarts. Whewwww!!!

2006-06-25-Maters.jpg


2006-06-26-007-canned.jpg

I always love how maters look when they are in jars.
 
My wife did over 200 quarts last year.We had 5 bushels we were going to do after the rodeo last August but beings I was in the hospital that night and bed ridden for another 6 weeks I missed out on all the tomato canning "DARN" bet I have to help this year...
 
oh wow lilly, they look beautiful, all our stewed maters are gone and only have 2 qts of spaghetti sauce left... one qt of pickles and one pint, :shock: (have 8 qts apple sauce though, noone really liked it :shock: :wink: makes good applesauce bars though)

I'm jealous I won't really be canning much this year, I didn't plant a real garden. We should be moving in August, that's when we have enough stuff to can... I did pick my first cherry tomato today yoohoo, not gonna share it, just snarf it by myself. :wink: I only have 4 tomato plants, 8 pepper plants, and 2 eggplants. I did plant my potatos (50 lbs and one onion set up where we will be living) but last year had about 8 dozen tomato plants... :shock: so I will be missing all those yummy tomato sandwiches and stuff. hoping someone will share some cucumbers as I love those too :lol:
 
Lilly, those tomatoes look absolutely beautiful.

Canning is work, but it is one thing you can feel really good about
when you're done. Ahhhhh, the satisfaction of seeing the jars of
good stuff.

Wish I was closer to some of you with tomatoes to can. I'd help!!!!!
I'd love to help!!!!
 
Between cuttin hay and balin this week hopefully I'll get the dewberry jam and muscadine jelly made. have about 5 gallons of the dewberry's and prolly 8 gallons of the muscadine grapes.

Oh don't think if you were close you'd get outta helpin. It's way more fun when ya got someone in the kitchen with ya than it is when ya do it by yerself. Plus....then you have someone else to share the goods with when yer all done. :D

This is the first batch outta the garden so far. The vines are still loaded.
I was gettin a lil worried when I was puttin the last of it in jars, was lookin like there's be exactly 14 quarts..and none for me to put in a bowl and eat....but there was about 1/2 cup left over.........tasted so good it made my (sour spots) in my throat lock up and hurt LOL
 
My folks were from the south, Lilly, and they always liked to heat the canned tomatoes, add some cut up bread cubes, a little baking soda and perhaps a little sugar. Simmer for a bit and eat. It was sooooo good and tasted so fresh. I had almost forgotten about that, but seeing your tomatoes reminded me.

Have you ever tried that dish and am I right about how to do it?
 
I don't know...I've never had maters fixed that way. We do make Mater Gravy sometimes, and sometimes we'll can the Maters with okra in it. But then you hafta pressure cook it.
I've been after Mr Lilly to get a deer durin season so I can can deer meat in gravy...oh man that's some good stuff, open a jar of that, and make some rice......makin my mouth water :nod:
 
Lilly----soooo......when can I be expecting my shipment of those fresh tomatoes???? :wink: :wink: :wink: :shock: :shock:
Ain't I a mooch!!?? Sheeeshhhh!!
Anyway, canning was something that mama never got around to teaching me and it is something I would very much love to learn....veggies are way to expensive when you get them from the store and fresh/outta your own garden/picked by your own 2 hands has always tasted better!!!
:D :D :D :D
 
Best advice on learnin how to can if you have no one to show you , is get yourself a Ball Canning cookbook. I have the one that belonged to Mr Lilly's grandmother. comes in real handy when it comes to how to, how long, what temperature, etc.
My mom canned tomatoes alot, and made alot of jellies, but the rest of the garden vegetables were put in them ole square tupperware things that were for freezing. I'd much rather put it in a jar, even if that means pressure cookin it. I haven't got to pressure cook nothin in a good while, since I don't own a pressure cooker. But that's on my wish list. They aren't terribly expensive, but they aint cheap either. Mr Lilly's granny gave hers to her grandaughter.....shucky darn :cry2: I spent many summer days at her house helping and learning to can the things mom always froze. It's not hard to do, time consuming yes, and you hafta be real exact with the directions. But that Ball book is chuck full of info.

I gotta get me a pressure cooker before the peas start makin..................too bad Mr Lilly don't read this LOL....but we did look at them when we went to town the other day. So he knows I want one, he even volunteered to help me. But amazingly had somethin to do last night when I started them, and today when I finished them up LOL Just wait....I'll have him in the kitchen helpin before it's all over with. might even get the shelves built in my pantry to put all them jars on if I play my cards right. :D
 
Hey Jersey, don't be workin' so hard!

I just hate to think of you doin' all that work. Next time, just overnight express all them nasty ol' 'maters up to me and I'll take care of them for you.

Hey, what are friends for? :wink:
 
LOL Jinglebob, come the end of mater season, I might take you up on that deal.

I hadda go diggin for jars too. In the crib behind the barn. I was keepin my eye peeled for spiders and other creepy crawly critters.....ewwwwwww
 
Lilly,good lookin "maters" are you sure the papa N law would'nt the one who raised em LOL,kinda looks like "maters" an ole man grew :wink: ...............good luck

PS How is he getting along?
 
The two things in life that money can't buy are true love and homegrown tomatoes. And you know I am not sure which one I like better. But if forced I would sure hate to give up tomatoes. This is a great time of year while the tomatoes and other vegetables are coming in. We put us sweet corn and yellow squash before and after "Broken Trails" last night. We did not have time to get to the tomatoes. I use to can a lot of this stuff but now it almost all goes in the freezer. To freeze tomatoes you cook them just like canning but put in a zip lock bag and stack in the freezer and they taste just the same as caned. I still can green beans, as the frozen ones just don't taste the same.
My vegetables this year are not much. This drought has devastated my garden. The sweet corn is two feet tall with 6-inch ears. We are trying to salvage enough to enjoy some good eating when the weather gets cold. Don't you just love a big pot of chili made with homegrown tomatoes on those cold 33 degrees and misting rain in January.
I think we may get a few buckets of butter peas this weekend but I don't see how they made with no rain since I planted them.
 
Haymaker,
The green thumb around here belongs to our son, he's responsible for tillin the garden, and plantin everthang except the peas this year(I planted those). But.......he forgets to water it, so that's my job I guess, oh and pickin. He will bring in a squash or a mater ever now n then, but for the most part I do the pickin and waterin, and hoin.

Dad n Law is doin great.....He went back for his first run of tests after 6 weeks and everthang came back clear. He's still a bit sore sometimes where they cut him open, but that's to be expected. Hasn't slowed him down much. He's back on the dozer, harley, and perdy much whatever he wants to do, He put a new rearend 4x4 under his 96 ford the other day. He's been shreadin here in the woods around the house some too. And just as ornery as ever :D (his ole self) He has a small garden, but it's only got about 4 mater bushes, and a few pepper plants.

I don't know if our corn is gonna make or not, it has a few ears on it, but they don't feel real solid. I've never had luck growin corn. I remember our very first garden after we got married, the corn tosseled at about a ft tall. and the ground was hard as a rock (west texas) Nothin in the garden did much of anything because our water had so much salt in it. You couldnt drink it, it was so bad. After about 6 mo of livin in that place we drilled our own water well, and had good water.
 
Lilly, the maters look luscious!!!!!! Wish it was warm enough here for long enough, that I could grow some. I've given up on having a garden, though.......if the freezes don't get the plants, then all the critters we got runnin around do! :roll:

I would have been watching for snakes like this one, more than spiders, though...........

TexasRattler.jpg


I think they said this one was 9'1" long, and weighed 97#.........one big rattler. It was somewhere around Amarillo, I'm thinking.

Makes me shudder just to see the picture............ :shock:
 
Ranchy----sounds like you have a growing season similar to ours!! In this valley, folks can't grow corn, melons or tomatoes (unless started in a nice greenhouse...hmmmm....now, there's an idea!!).......when I go to get seeds, cowboyup reminds me to watch the number to days til the plants are ready....usually about 70 here!!! Makes it tough when you know that things around here are still prone to frost til the first of june and again come first of september at the latest!! Folks just a few miles away (but a few hundred feet lower in sea level) grow the most beautiful rows of corn!! Makes me hungry whenever I drive by them!!

Jinglebob-----I believe, young man, that I have dibs on any leftover tomatoes....don't make me arm-wrestle ya for them!!! :wink: :wink:
 
My mother in law printed out an email she got about a whole den of rattlers that were found under part of a drillin rig somewhere here in Texas.....OH MAN there was just a huge big wad of em and they looked to be some of them that big too.
I got to go to the Sweetwater Rattlesnake round up many times while visitin my grandaddy. They do have some big ones. That's a strange feelin tho. walkin into the colosium where they have pits (kinda like above ground pools) that are fulla rattlers......the buzz is deafenin. Makes the hair stand up on yer arms, and the back of yer neck.......
 
Ranchwife, in one of the seed catalogs I get (and never use :roll: ) I saw some corn that only takes 58 days!!!!!! I think it's Burpee, but not real sure......you might try some of those. :D

Lilly, I got the heebie-jeebies just from reading about your snake experiences.........I'm deathly afraid of any and all snakes........ :shock:
 
ranchwife said:
Jinglebob-----I believe, young man, that I have dibs on any leftover tomatoes....don't make me arm-wrestle ya for them!!! :wink: :wink:
Click to expand...

Well young lady, next time I see you, you've got an arm wrestlin' match and if I can't beat you at that, then we'll go to leg wrasslin', or as some call it indian wrasslin'.

I just love 'maters! :lol:

All thought we have some tomato plants in a small garden, there are never enough, when they get ripe.

To paraphrase Bubba, from Forrest Gump, "You kin slice 'em, you can salt 'em, you can eat 'em whole, etc.......... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Good job, Lily! Those tomatoes are beautiful. Can't get over how far ahead your growing season is. All we have so far are little green cherry tomatoes- pretty pitiful and just flowers on the big plants. I'm thinking of trying some of that red plastic under them that is supposed to speed ripening because it reflects the red light waves (or do I have that backwards?) Has anyone out there tried the red plastic??
 

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