Mixed Nuts: A Canning we will go

Quotes

"There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark." - Helen Keller
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." ~Erma Bombeck
You may never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.- Unknown
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow' ~Helen Keller
Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."- Dr. Seuss
"Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it."
"God doesn't give children with disabilities to strong people: He gives them to ordinary, everyday people, then He helps the parents to grow stronger through the journey. Raising a child with special needs doesn't TAKE a special family, it MAKES a special family."Author Unknown
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go – Abraham Lincoln
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. ~ Benjamin Franklin
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle - Albert Einstein
The journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step
Sometimes in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives you a fairy tale
Where there is great love, there are always miracles - Willa Cather
The Difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer
Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness
There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings.
Be the change you want to see in the world
Don't tell God how big the storm is, tell the storm how big Your God is..........
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it
Fall down seven times - get up eight - unknown
Despite our differences, we sink or swim together
Life may not be the party we expected, but while we are here, we might as well dance
"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones." -Confucius

Sunday, October 2, 2011

A Canning we will go

A few weeks ago, the male head of house* in our household decided that canning my grandmother's unbelieveably good pasta sauce would be a great fundraiser for the Holiday Bazaar we are going to participating in.

*name has been with held to protect the crazy.

I looked at him and thought this was a great idea in theory, but not in practice. I know it takes about 3 hours to make one batch of sauce, and so, I wasn't sure this would be a path we would like to take.

I talked to my grandma who has canned tomatoes, but never her sauce, and she too was not sure it was going to be a good idea. Would it work? Yes, she said. But she gave me some other suggestions that might be better choices time wise.

Why did I not listen to the wisest person I know?

Today, I gave into said male head of house and told him we would try it. I started the adventure at 11am, reading the instruction on canning before getting started on making the sauce.

I made one batch of sauce. To me, this always seems like a lot of sauce. At 3pm, I was finished with the sauce, had the other pots filled with the two cans I was going to practice with heating away (you have to heat the cans before you put hot sauce in them) the sauce on another burner, and the biggest pot in the world - the canner - on the 4th burner (and part of the 1,2, 3 burners as well. Sucker was huge). We were ready.

We put the sauce into jar number one. My plan was to fill 2 jars and keep the rest for us to eat on our dinner that night. Mat filled the first jar and said "um.....that is almost all the sauce". I turned around in disbelief. How could this be? This recipe makes a huge amount of sauce! Or at least it did in my head.

In reality, I bought quart jars and the recipe is about 1 1/2 quarts. Huh. I spent 4 hours on this little canning job, and this is what I got.

Seriously. 1 full can of sauce. I had to boil it for 45 minutes to "seal" the jar. Now it sits on my counter - lonely and sad.

I called my grandmother afterwards and we had a good chuckle about the whole thing. Not sure if this will be something we try again. We are going to let the sauce sit on our shelf for a week or two, and then taste it. Hopefully we won't die.

Canning seemed like a fun idea to bottle a product that my grandmother should have sold to the retailers years ago so that we could all be millionares and retire early. If it was successful, we will be proud of us. But 4 hours for one can? That isn't going to bring in much profit for our RDH12 Fund for Sight.

Ah well. We will have fun again with it, I am sure. I think I might stick to my grandmother's suggestions for bottling her sauce and leave canning for other things.

In other news:

Kids broke out the playdough today. Doesn't happen often because I hate the mess. But it has been a rainy and cold weekend, and they were bored. They had a good time with it.

We made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins this morning. Yum.

I made 5 braille shirts tonight. I have one more to go tomorrow and then I will be caught up. Remember - if you would like to order one, please go to:

https://sites.google.com/site/brailleshirts/

Print out and mail to me!

Here are the pictures of the ones I made today. The pink one - this is the back - it is drying, so I couldn't turn it over. And the green one has a wet spot - I was wiping it up - so forgive that.

This one says:Steelers