Fall Harvest

The week before last, I went up and picked grapes with my mom and Raeme. We had attempted to make grape juice by boiling the grapes and then putting them through a food mill. Our grape juice came out really pulpy but very sweet. My mom and dad picked more grapes over the weekend and perfected our grape juice technique. They got significantly less pulp in their juice. Once we made the juice we canned it.

Last week I went to my parents house to help with the fall harvest. My mom and I made apple sauce, more grape juice and canned tomatoes. We also tried making grape jelly. However, I used a packet of expired pectin so the jelly did not set up right. It is more of a grape syrup.

After helping my mom I got really inspired to try my own hand at canning and preserving. I have one tomato plant, one cherry tomato plant and four green pepper plants. My tomato plant was loaded with tomatoes and waited all summer for them to turn red, but the darn things insist on staying little green rocks. The other night I picked one and made fried green tomatoes. They are pretty tart, but edible. Erik, however, did not care for them. It has been getting pretty cold at night dropping down to the low forties, so I decided to harvest my garden.
I picked all of my tomatoes and peppers and then looked up recipes for green tomatoes. I found more than I was expecting. Three caught my fancy: pickled green tomatoes, green tomato salsa, and green tomato relish.

Fall Garden Harvest!

So many green!Tomatoes sorted by color

Peppers from my garden

Yesterday I went to the store and bought a canning water bath along with the ingredients to make pickled green tomatoes. Here is the recipe that I tried: http://www.andreasrecipes.com/2008/10/27/pickled-green-tomatoes/. It was really fun making the pickles. I hope they turn out good!

Some of the ingredients

Getting ready to add the brine

All of their lids sealed!

Then I made a fresh tomato soup out of the few red tomatoes that I had along with garlic, onion, eggplant from my mom's garden, and zucchini from Erik's aunt Heidi's garden. It turned out surprisingly good. I am looking forward to tackling my next two canning projects!

Soup made from my garden tomatoes!