My Dusty Ol' Canning Cellar.

This is what I managed to can the weekend before I began working. In order from left to right: slow burn relish, tomato sauce, plum jam, plum butter, and pear ketchup. It seems like everyone in town grew peppers this year and people kept dropping them by. I don't really like spicy/hot foods and I wasn't sure what to do with them but I didn't want them to go to waste. I saw a recipe for slow burn relish and thought it might be something Jake and my brothers and sister might like. 

I chopped all the peppers by hand but you can definitely grate them or use a food processor. No matter how you do it, you're likely to get pepper juice all over your hands and it is going to burn. I asked one of my friends who is a chef what I could do to get the burning to go away and he told me to wash my hands in extremely hot water with soap and a good amount of vinegar. It worked beautifully and will be my go to method for the rest of my life. I was able to blow my nose and use the restroom without fear. Just a note, I followed the recipe fairly exactly except I subbed apple cider vinegar for the red wine vinegar. I bought apple cider vinegar in bulk during cucumber season so that's what I went ahead and used. 

I wanted to share a photo of my canning cellar with you guys. I'm still adding to it as I have a fridge full of pureed tomato waiting to be turned into ketchup and a box of apples to work through yet. Just to give you a quick rundown of what you see here:

* Four different kinds of pickles (dill, bread & butter, sweet, and super sweet which I totally made up, canned in 3 different cuts each, spears, chips and whole)
* Corn Relish
* Pickled Asparagus (next year I'm going to can a lot more asparagus, Jake ate almost all of it already)
* Pickled Garlic
* Dilly Beans
* Pickled Carrots
* Whole Peaches
* Whole Pears
* Peach Sauce (can't be seen in the photo but it's there)
* Pear Butter
* Pear Jam
* Plum Jam
* Plum Butter
* Apple Butter
* Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
* Strawberry Rhubarb Vanilla Butter
* Sour Cherry Jam
* Raspberry Jam
* Pickled Watermelon Rinds
* Pear Ketchup
* Vanilla Extract
* Salsa Verde
* Tomato Sauce
* Whole Tomatoes
* Slow Burn Relish

Soon I'll be adding many pounds of white, yellow, and red onions to the cellar. Onions keep really well if stored properly (they need to breathe).

In my freezer I have a medium sized flat rate box full of frozen grapes. I also have frozen slow roasted tomatoes, shredded zucchini, and frozen plum halves.

I can't wait for next year so I can use my new pressure canner to can all kinds of vegetables without having to pickle them. I'm going to use it way before then though. I have plans to make up a nice big batch of chili for Jake to munch on when I'm at work, otherwise I'll have to buy him a bunch of top ramen or something and I'm trying to avoid products like that.