This Summer's Canning Summary

This year I decided that I wanted to somehow preserve more of summer's bounty to bless my family all year round. Even though we live in California we have essentially the same selection of fruit as the rest of the country, which is to say it is the best in the summer. So canning started in July with Million Dollar Relish, and ended Friday with a marathon canning pears when they all of a sudden all started ripening at once in the fridge!

Friday's work was the big day and at the end our kitchen counter and bar looked like this:

For those of you wondering that is:

• 2 pint jars
• 17 half pint jars of diced pear
• 46 quarter pints of diced pear (for special snacks for the girls who love fruit cups).

Which explains why there is no picture of the rest of the kitchen after this was complete! Although I am proud to admit that I did not order take out for supper after this...I pulled a frozen pizza out of the freezer instead!

The final count of what we canned this year is:

1. Million Dollar Relish (2 batches): 18 pints, 4 half pints (this is approximate, we have eaten some, so I am guessing.)
2. Bread and Butter Pickles: 8 quarts
3. 7 Day Pickles: 8 quarts...but I think I missed counting 1....so possibly 9
4. Peaches: 22 pints (we also dried a ton and froze 8 pie fillings)
   
5. Salsa: 3 quarts
6. Tomatoes: 8 quarts (plus we dried and pureed some to use in soups and in substitution of tomato sauce and paste, it was a trial to see how it goes)
7. Pears: 59 quarter pints, 17 half pints, 56 pints (plus froze 2 apple pear crisp fillings)

We were officially done canning when I ran out of canning jars! Since Friday 2 quart jars have become available, but they can just wait for either more tomatoes to ripen if we don't eat them or next year.

The only casualty we had was one brand new jar developed hair line cracks while it was processing. It sealed beautifully, but it will be eaten first!

Now we are into apple season so I am making apple chips (dehydrated apple slices) and am planning on freezing apple pie filling and apple crisp filling.

What do you love to freeze/can/dry or preserve some other way to help you in the winter?