Family Canning Time

Last weekend my little sister Jenna was planning to be home in Morgan and so naturally, David, Lydia, and I packed up and headed that way ourselves. Any time we can spend with family is golden in our book and we make an effort to go up anytime Jenna is able to come down from Idaho. The original plan was to hang out on Friday and bottle apples on Saturday. (Yay for fall canning!)  Unfortunately, when we went to the fruit stands on Saturday morning - we were informed that apples weren't "on" yet and that we needed to come back in a couple of weeks. Boo. We were so disappointed. It seems like every year we go at the end of the apple season and have slim pickings, so this year when we tried to go a little earlier - we missed it altogether. Not to be deterred from our canning plans, we switched gears and decide to make salsa. The fruit stand that we were at had a "Salsa Special": 1/2 bushel tomatoes, 2 green peppers, 2 onions, and $5 worth of hot peppers. We jumped on that deal (twice) and headed home with a massive amount of produce. 

Do you know how many hot peppers $5 will buy? A lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. They were having a buy one get one free deal on buckets of anaheim peppers that they layered on top of the salsa deal so we had peppers coming out of our ears. They said we didn't have to take all of them - but if we were going to pay for them, we were going to take them!

We got an assembly line going, and started scoring, blanching, peeling, and dicing the tomatoes. Our bushel of tomatoes measured out to be 90 cups of tomatoes. Holy cow! I don't think we realized how much salsa a bushel was going to make. We had a great time chatting as we diced, even if it was a bit stressful for a while trying to decide which recipe to use. (The Utah State Extension recipe that is supposedly tested for food safety called for like 20 onions and a million peppers. It was super intimidating. So we found one online that professed to be safe as far as the acidity of the tomatoes was concerned and prayed that it wouldn't give our family botulism. 

 

(Don't judge this picture. We had a line of people cutting tomatoes at the counter and no place for our giant pot, so I had it next to the counter where I could dump the diced tomatoes. We didn't think about how it was the perfect location for Lydia to snitch out of. After this picture, we made room for it up on the counter. We really are sanitary people.)

 

Meanwhile, Lydia was having the time of her life playing with Grandma and Grandpa's toys. They set up the princess tent, which she loved. I can't believe we didn't get a picture of her in it - she played in there all day. She also found this flag and she walked around like a professional flag dancer, waving and spinning it around. 

This is how many peppers we had left. SO many. However, we found out that you can chop and freeze them and then use them as a replacement for the little cans of chopped green chilis. I'm so excited to try it out. Honestly. I think that I may be just as excited for the chilis as I am for the salsa. 

And here is the final result! I'll be honest. I'm surprised at how few bottles our 90 cups of tomatoes actually ended up filling. However, we had a great time and I am SO so excited for all of the yummy salsa we made.  

Honestly, I just love spending time with my family and love making memories like this. I hope that my kids love each other as much as I love my siblings and that we make an effort to do fun things like this as a family. It's important and wonderful.