Absolutely not, I am perfectly sane. Well, some people might dispute that, but winter is a great time to can food.

When August hits, my house is way too hot to do any more canning. Eventually I end up tossing the rest of the ripe, whole tomatoes into gallon-size freezer bags and stuffing them in the freezer until winter.

My house is chilly in the winter and the warmth from an all-day canning session is very welcome. That's when I make and can tomato sauce. Another advantage of using frozen tomatoes is that the skin slips right off when you submerge the tomato in water for a few minutes. You don't have to blanch and then chill them first.

Winter is when I take bags of berries out of the freezer and make jelly and jam. Whether it's blackberry jam or fruit scrap jelly, it's easy to dump the bags of fruit into the kettle and cook them down to make jelly or jam and can it. Besides, the different kinds of berries aren't all ripe at the same time in summer, so freezing them until winter is a nice way to make jam from several different kinds, such as triple berry jam.

If you froze bags of apple peels and cores after making applesauce, you could use them to make harvest apple jelly.

Tomatoes, jelly and jam can all be waterbath canned. Vegetables and meats must be pressure-canned. So that big five-pound bag of carrots hubby bought, not knowing we already had three pounds in the crisper drawer? I need to pressure can those carrots.

If you're like us and are tired of turkey leftovers now, use those bones to make turkey broth and then pressure-can it along with any leftover turkey. No turkey carcass? Use chicken bones and make chicken broth instead.

Mason jars of chili or soup are quick and easy to heat up for lunch or for dinner on hectic nights, so why not make a big batch and pressure can some? Soups with noodles or potatoes are best canned without those ingredients, then add them when you open the jar and heat the soup for dinner.

You can even can dry beans. Canning your own means you have ready-to-use beans on your shelves and they're so much less expensive than buying canned beans from the grocery store. If you grow shell beans in your garden, canning them means you can use them at the last minute instead of having to soak and simmer them for hours.

Just remember that while fruit can be waterbath canned, vegetables and meat - anything other than fruit - has to be pressure-canned.

You don't have to stop canning food just because gardening season is over. Take advantage of winter vegetables, frozen fruit, homemade broth, and sales on dry beans to fill your pantry with Mason jars of delicious food.

Related Post:
Canning Tips and Tricks
Frugal Canning



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