Canning Chili - All in the Sauce

For first time gardeners our little garden did very well at the beginning of summer, my son and I were able to freeze a lot of green beans and can a ton of banana peppers. I'm not sure why everyone says 'canning' when they go in jars but that just shows my lack of experience. I'm sure there is a good reason, I just don't know it. Anyway, our tomatoes seemed to be just flourishing at the beginning of summer, lots and lots of green tomatoes, the vines seemed to be growing quickly, and both my husband and I thought we would get too many. Ok, that's not exactly true, I was afraid we'd get too many and I would be juicing them for chili for many, many hours without much help. Well as summer progressed the tomatoes didn't seem to be ripening and no matter how many time we tied the vines to stakes they always seemed to collapse. Now I became a little disappointed because I did want to have some chili sauce stored for fall and winter.

The worry of too many tomatoes comes from when I had juiced them once before when my son was just a baby. It was my first time, it took me all day, did I mention my son was a baby (2 months old) and I was a first time mom and my father-in-law set it up for me in my kitchen with a carpeted dining room attached and I don't like huge messes. I knew I had to do it but I really didn't enjoy it. I remember crying.

After that first experience I was a little hesitant to be excited about doing it again, five years later. I knew it would be great to have the chili but wasn't exactly looking forward to the process. Well this time was completely different - it was FUN!

My husband and I picked as many as we could and he had guessed that we had at least 20 pounds and they should give us a couple quarts. I washed and cut the tomatoes while he put the juicer and table together OUTSIDE! If you can do this outside, do it outside; the tomatoes and juicer make such a mess.

Once we juiced all of them, we brought the pot inside to mix the chili seasoning and bring to a boil. I boiled the chili sauce for about 15 minutes while I brought the cold water bath up to a boil. As you can see from the pictures we don't have the correct pot for the cold water bath. I put the chili sauce into the quart mason jars and my husband lowered, kind of dropped the jars into the water. I boiled the jars for about 20 minutes and then he lifted them out. We also don't have the jar lifters to lift them out so he used mining gloves and a set of tongs. I highly recommend buying the necessary equipment if you do this because we both burned our hands and splashed boiling water everywhere. He guessed from the pot of sauce we'd get six jars, I guessed seven - we were able to successfully get 7 quarts of chili out of our little garden.

Takeaways from today's process:
1. Juice tomatoes outside
2. Have help
3. Get the right equipment

Previous gardening posts
Momma's Little Gardner
First Garden, First Peppers

PreK Interview Round 2

Today was the first day of PreK and last week I interviewed him again. I'm going to try to do this each year until he's a senior. Honestly at this age the answers are so cute and so much fun.

Baby sister thought she'd go too.

Insanity Program - 2 Weeks Left

Well only two full weeks left of our Insanity workout program and I'm feeling a little sad that it's almost over. Now, don't get me wrong, there are many days that I dread taking the time to do the workouts but I always feel better after I've finished. I looked a little like a drowned rat with all of the sweat pouring off of me but I feel like I can do anything after getting a butt kicking workout.

The second month is a lot more difficult that the first and it also takes a lot more time to complete the dvd but it's also fun, especially when my husband and I do one together. This past week my husband was on a tough work shift for us to complete together so some days we worked out separately, it's not as much fun to do by yourself so if you want to do the workouts and stick with them, try to find a partner or friend that wants to participate. A special bonus - the workouts seem to go much faster when you can talk to someone, or at least try to talk after catching your breath.

While working out today, my husband asked me what I'd like for my birthday (we have the same birthday but he's a year older) and I said I thought about asking him to purchase and do another workout program with me. I figured he would be completely against this but surprisingly he was into the idea. So does anyone recommend another workout program? Or should we just repeat Insanity?

Previous Insanity Posts
Insanity Exercise - Update
Body After Baby

Pre-Baptism Photos

Let me be the first to say I am not a wonderful photographer. I have taken a couple great pictures of my son and my husband but hey, every once in awhile a blind squirrel finds an acorn. 

I wanted to take some photos of our little girl in her baptism dress because it's absolutely adorable and I was trying to take a couple outside with the 'right' light, that natural light in the evening - according to a few photographers blogs I have read. Our little one is extremely fidgety so I knew I'd have a little bit of an issue but was hoping I could at least get a couple photos that weren't blurry. Well, I grabbed pillows, a pink sheet, her little chair, a burp cloth, a blanket, and both kids to get these photos. I was keeping my fingers crossed that she didn't spit up all over the dress and luckily that didn't happen. I really didn't even have the movement problem. However, this is the progression to absolute meltdown. 

She's not really thrilled
to be laying this way.

She's not really
liking this way either. 

Starting to get really furious
that no one is picking her up. 

Yes, we are now at meltdown. 

I will need to try again, but her best time of the day is in the morning and that's not the best light outside, lots of hard shadows. Although, for someone that isn't a good photographer I figure if she's happy, no matter the light or the surroundings, and I can get a few decent pictures, I should consider it a win. 

And yes, she was picked up right after the last picture and calmed down instantly but would not lay back down on the pillows for more pictures. She was finished.

Finished the Flying Monkey 5K

We finished the Flying Monkey 5K in under 50 minutes!!! Yes, I know that doesn't sound like anything impressive, but we walked and he's only 5!

After the race! He did it!

Enjoying a chocolate donut
before the race.

Giving his sister a pep talk.