Canning and Freezing catch up

I know that I wanted to make notes in this blog about all of the canning and freezing we had been doing related to our garden bounty, but life got in the way!  I was asked to serve as the Interim Dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication which was an enormous undertaking.

We still did all of the canning and freezing, but I didn't document it.  For the record.....

What we froze:

• strawberries
• blueberries
• corn cut off the cob (after grilling it first - delicious)
• brussels sprouts
• rhubarb

What we canned:

• jams: blueberry, strawberry rhubarb, strawberry (which became strawberry sauce excellent on ice cream), peach, black raspberry, blackberry
• peach chutney
• sweet and dill pickles
• zucchini relish
• squash pickles
• salsa
• tomatoes

Here's a photo so that you know it's official!

I have yet to break out the jams, but I have used plenty of strawberry sauce on plenty of ice cream.  Delish.  Also, the peach chutney in a crock pot with pork tenderloin or pork roast is wonderful.  That's all you have to do - empty the jar in the crock pot and stick the pork in there and go to work.

The pickles have made excellent sides for sandwiches and the like.  The zucchini relish tastes wonderful on hot dogs.

The salsa is quite hot and might burn your insides, but it is great with guacamole and in any of the Mexican dishes we whip up.

The tomatoes have been used in minestrone soup and, most notably, in our red sauce.  We cooked up a huge batch with Italian sausage, meatballs and pork spare ribs and then froze it for a nice weeknight or weekend meal in the middle of winter.  We also made homemade ravioli - mushroom, cheese, butternut squash.  Marvelous!