Canning Pizza Sauce Fail

Not an epic fail but still a fail. 

I peeled and chopped the tomatoes, added an onion, a bunch of garlic, some spices, and some red wine vinegar. I let it simmer for three hours. I even used the submersion blender to get a nice even consistency. It tasted great. It was going to be pure awesomeness. I got everything sterilized and ready to go. I had enough sauce for seven half pint jars. (I figured a half pint was the perfect amount for one pizza. That way there would be no extra sauce hanging in the fridge growing green and white fuzz)
 I was cautious when I arranged the jars on the canning rack and filled in the open spaces with empty jars. I submerged everything for the fifteen minute water bath. 

When the timer buzzed and I lifted the lid. Not good. One of the jars tipped. And no, not one of the empty ones. It had to be one with the sauce. Sauce all up in my water. When I pulled up the rack three of my jars pinged, they sealed ok. The other three didn't. I knew even if I let them sit over night they wouldn't. When the other tipped it knocked them off balance, and they were angled in the pot.

At least none of the canning water got in them. They were still savable. I could refrigerate until use, but they would only last a few weeks in the fridge. I like pizza, but not that much. 

I consulted my mother-in-law, the woman who taught me the basics. We devised a plan to save the three unsealed jars. The next day I reheated the sauce and put in sterile jars. I used new lids and gave them another water bath. They sealed perfectly.

It wasn't a complete loss. It was just extra work.

We can't be canning goddesses all the time.

So what we learned form this:

• You can re-can stuff (new lids are a must, the seals on the old ones are shot. I would also wait until the next day and let everything cool down and reheat it.)
• You want a nice rolling boil for your water bath, but not too violent. (I'm positive that's why my jar tipped. Those of you with a gas stove have it good, much easier to bring the temp down)
• If I had a cuss jar in my kitchen, a quarter a cuss, I would be able to take that beach vacation in no time.

Dilly Beans

Despite being shook up from almost burning down the house, I managed to pull it together and finish what I set out to do. I canned. Green beans. More actually I pickled them.

Mr. B picked one row of beans. We were able to make 9 pints of dilly beans and freeze one gallon. We only pickled the nice straighish beans, the rejects were frozen. I wanted them looking pretty in the jars.

In a few weeks these babies will be ready to complete the perfect bloody mary or make a great snack.

A few months ago I splurged and had theses made.

Custom labels. They have a goose on them. A GOOSE!

Since we end up giving a bit our our canned produce away i thought these would be a nice touch.

They make me happy.

Freezing Green Beans

The green beans are ready. I don't know what I was thinking when I planted four rows this year. That's three more than I had last year. Despite the drought they are doing marvelous and I need to start harvesting and doing some thing with them. These are just the tip of the ice berg.

I decided to freeze these ones. Easy, simple, and far less time consuming than canning.

 Fist I cut the ends off and washed them.

 

(Please ignore my disgusting sink, it's old and pealing paint. We are not going to get into why someone would want to try and paint an enamel sink right now. I have a replacement sink in the basement. We just need to install it. Let's  pretend it's  nice shiny white sink for now.)

 Then I blanched them in boiling water for about three minutes. They will turn a deeper green color as they start to cook.

Immediately put them in ice water to stop the cooking.

I laid them out on towels once they were cool to absorb some of the water.

I laid them on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for about a half hour. Then transferred to gallon freezer bags. I hate it when you just dump things in a bag and toss in the freezer. Then when you want to use it, what ever it is, it is frozen in a big lump. By starting the freezing process with the beans laid flat on a cookie sheet we can avoid the nasty clump.  I can simply pull out however many handfuls I want to use.