Washington, My Home

One of my favorite parts about summer in Washington State is all the fresh fruits and vegetables. A person would be foolish to ignore all the variety of things we can grow in Washington. As I age, I have learned to preserve these lovely flavors of summer.

When the kids were little, my friends Dorrie and Nancy introduced me to canning. They canned green beans and invited me to help. Dorrie's son, Tanner, was a rather picky toddler who actually liked green beans, so Dorrie and Nancy would can them because it was cheaper than buying them all winter. Especially since Tanner wouldn't really eat any other vegetables, so Dorrie found herself opening beans every night.

I grew beans in my own garden, so that summer I experimented with Dorrie's pressure-canner and my garden beans. They were amazing and I felt so healthy and confident, knowing where those beans were grown and how they were canned. I also canned some peas - what a lot of work that is! And carrots, beets, and squash. Guess how Robby ate his green beans when he was a toddler? Yes! With ketchup.

As the years have passed, my canning skills have grown. I now own a water bath and a pressure-canner (thanks to my mother-in-law's excellent ability to choose gifts for me). I not only can vegetables from my garden, but when the roadside fruit stand goes up, I can fruit, too.

This week the lovely strawberries are out from Spooner Farms. Yum. I bought a flat and started down my jam road. My first batch never seems to turn out as I expect it to, so I will make at least one more. Here are my steps, according to the Ball Blue Book.

Set everything up! I love the canning tools. Such a sucker.

After washing and hulling and mashing, boil the strawberries, pectin, and lemon juice.

Add the sugar and bring back to a boil for 1 minute.

Ladle into clean and sterile jars, wipe the rims and place warmed lids and bands on them.

Boil in covered water bath for allotted time (see the Ball Blue Book).

I'm not happy with this batch because the fruit is floating which probably means I boiled too long or my fruit acidity did not match the amount of pectin I used. Tomorrow I am going to try my recipe with no pectin. It takes longer and makes a darker jam, but I usually don't have trouble with floating fruit with it.

I will make jam with raspberries and blackberries. We will actually go pick the little wild blackberries because they make wonderful jam. Gives us a chance to explore the back roads and spend time as a family, too. Mostly we just make jam and then give it away as gifts all year long. We, of course eat some of it, but we make way more than we can eat. Teachers, coaches, neighbors, and family all receive jams and applesauce on holidays. I forgot about applesauce. How could I live in Washington State and not can applesauce? I don't just gift the applesauce. We eat it and cook with it as well.

I still can my green beans and my beets out of the garden, but now I freeze the peas and carrots. We all think they taste better that way. I will freeze some of the green beans, too. I buy fewer frozen vegetables in the middle of winter this way. The whole family has come to appreciate the nights that the summer garden ends up on the table in the middle of winter. Both kids have said they now know when they are served store-bought canned vegetables. They are pretty good vegetable eaters after all these years of growing our own.

I will also order small pickling cucumbers from a local farm and make old fashioned dill pickles with garlic, dill, and vinegar. So good. My friend, Yvette's husband, and I both eat the garlic when the pickles are all gone. I love pickling time. The vinegar and dill permeate the house for days.

The only meats I can are tuna and salmon. Dorrie and Nancy and I did tuna together. We buy it fresh off the "Tuna Hustler" in Westport, whisk it home and can it that day. Every summer we replenish our tuna. I tried salmon on my own when a friend brought us two enormous Chinook one year. We ate some, froze some, and can some. Yum. Well, I could go on. Instead, I will share more canning experiences in later blogs. If anyone has canning tips and tricks, I'd love to hear them. I'm always looking to expand my repertoire.