Canned Goodies

It's such a fun time of the year when we are up to our ears in home grown treats! Fresh apples straight from the tree, cucumber from the backyard garden and all kinds of other yummy things. Unfortunately this doesn't last year long, but with a few jars and a little work, we get to keep these treats coming in different forms throughout the winter season.

A few weeks ago we had a surplus amount of small apples from Mark's cousin's apple trees. Mark's sweet Aunt also picked some from a tree she came across, so we had more than enough to make a good bit of applesauce. I have always LOVED applesauce, so this learning experience was right up my alley!

Aren't those the cutest little apples you have ever seen?! Grandma Mary shared her recipe and skills on how to make a very tasty applesauce, and I went home right away and tried it for myself. I canned two jars out of the apples that I had, and then a few weeks later when we had some more, my mother-in-law and I canned quite a few more jars of it. We should definitely be go to go with applesauce for the next little bit!

I forgot to take a picture at the beginning of the process, I guess I was a bit excited! So...here is one of me scraping the last little bit out of the bowl and into a jar.

Last year around this time my mother-in-law also taught me how to pickle and can cucumbers. This has got to be one of my favorite things to do! Recently we went to the local farmer's market and bought two 10 pound bags of small cucumbers. We have some in out garden as well, be we are really enjoying just eating those fresh as we pick them.

We spent a Saturday watching the Olympics while filling our jars full of crisp cucumbers. Not even a week later we were given a ton more cucumbers, so we went right back to work and pickled those as well! We definitely have enough to enjoy all winter long and even share with friends.

With all of these yummy treats on hand I knew that I would need a place to store them. Something new to me is having a basement in our home. In Texas not many people had basements, so this is very different. It stays pretty cool down there and is the perfect place to store all kinds of things:)
We have a shelf that we keep all of our canned goods on and they stay nice and cool down there. We are currently loaded down, and I love it! It's our little cold room:)

I forgot to mention, when we pickled we used fresh dill from Mark and my little garden! It's all doing so great out in the garden right now. We even give the garden keeper a few snacks straight from the vine from time to time:)



Have a great week!