Pickles, relish, and jams are used here. The jams go well with belgan waffles too. No snow here yet. Hope the ground stays soft so I can plant a new Pluot tree thats to arrive soon. The tree will have four types of pluots grafted onto it. It will be the pride of my fruit tree collection ir all goes well.

Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Pie Filling, Annie's Salsa, Tomatillo Salsa, Tomato Sauces plus lots of frozen harvest.

Still working oon canning Beans and Chili's for the reaally cold months.

same thing here as a lot of my stuff is frozen but I use lots of salsa because I use it as salsa and as a dip but more often even as a cooking sauce. I use it in beans and chili and any kind of veggie that I want to spice up...even black eyed peas.

Pickles, string beans and tomato sauce.

Made a pickled try for T-Day at brothers house, 3 bean,cauliflwer and 9 day sweet gerkins.
Used chunky style mater sauce with fresh suasage from the nieghbors pig he slaughtered over T-Day weekend.
Jam for toast. This weekend taking the Elderberry Jelly and making a winter cough syrup.
This weekend starts the annual Bake-A thon, so will be using the frozen items.

Green beans, applesauce and pearsauce.

Just a dusting of snow a couple of different times here, but the temps have been a lot lower than average. They've warned us to be prepared for a snow storm on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

All kinds of pickles, especially dilly beans and pickled garlic.

Some of Annie's salsa (gotta make it last all year).

Pumpkin butter from the freezer.

In the last 3 weeks we used:

Three pint jars of tomato sauce, one for chili - along with a quart jar of Roma tomatoes, and two for spaghetti sauce.

Made a really easy one pan cobbler with two pints of peaches.

Pint of apple butter to replace part of oil in an apple bread recipe, wrapped and frozen for Christmas gift giving.

Pint of apple cranberry relish. We love this stuff!

Two pints of strawberry applesauce. Two quarts of dehydrated pears. These satisfy our sweet tooth as a "dessert" after suppers.

Two quart bags of our frozen corn for a Thanksgsiving co-op. Also took a pint jar of canned pickled peppers.

Hubby is on a toast and jam for breakfast kick, going through a couple of half pint jars a week- black raspberry jam and apple butter his favorites.

Gave a jar of apple butter away as a door prize, and gifted a friend a half pint of pear honey.

Used up the last of the tomatoes in fresh salsa(picked green right before frost) so will be getting out the stash of canned salsa soon :)

SOS

Hmm, let's see, I used canned tomatoes with home grown onions and garlic for chili. I took a quart of cherries to my sister's for Tgiving and made pie filling. I'm not sure why but I seem to be the only one in the family who can roll a pie crust. Um, a jar of Black Forest Jam and some cherry syrup as gifts for Sis.

Mine is either from the freezer or dehydrator -

Apple sauce
Cranberry sauce
Various herbs
Squash / rice mix for a summer squash casserole
Butternut squash both plain and for a streusel casserole
Honey spiced apples for my yogurt
Dry apples for a snack
Peach salsa
Freezer pickled onions (yes, my breath reeks but I love them in my turkey salad)
Sheets of roasted poblano peppers
Dehydrated squash for a soup recipe

Wow, I am doing much better than I expected!

I have had lots of emptied jars here. Made green bean casserole with a bechamel sauce, used homecanned green beans, frozen bell peppers and frozen onions in it.
Used canned stew beef, green beans, frozen corn, etc. in stew last night.
I use jams and jellies quite a bit.
I cooked for my neighbor and her family. One day we had near 50 people. Her son died, so I took over the cooking for them and their family. Went through a lot of jars of food for that.
I made spaghetti with homecanned tomatoes last week. Eating homemade dill pickles, too.
Made cream of asparagus soup from my frozen asparagus.
My husband took dried apples to work. Canned peaches, too.
I have had my sugar free applesauce, as well.

I have a somewhat related question for all of you who have or have not used your canned or preserved foods yet.

Whenever we grab a can or package of frozen local produce from our home store of last summerÂs bounty, I feel like we should be rationing it so it lasts us until next harvest. I know it kind of defeats the purpose of preserving it to begin with (use it when you need it) but, I always get a hesitant feeling when I crack a jar or open a freezer bag.

Am I alone in my "need to ration" feelings? Am I crazy should I seek help? LOL

Bill

No, you are not alone at all! I sometimes feel like I get to close to my precious preserved harvest! I love to see the shiny jars on my canning shelves, and the full freezers are just gorgeous too! I always get that "help" feeling when I am near running out of things before the next harvest is ready.
That said, this week I used:
2 quarts tomatoe sauce in homemade spaghetti
1 jar banana jam as a gift, (they are begging for more!)
1 quart chicken stock
Dried parsley
Concord Grape Jelly & Chili Sauce for bbq weinies
Hmmmm, today it is snowing again, (darn), so I really feel like being in the kitchen so I'm heading down to my canning shelves and freezers to "shop" for supper and somethings to find to cook or can to fill up this snowy NFL football day! FUN!

The canned fruit - apples, peaches, pears - are disappearing fast. I would prefer the family use more frozen fruit - but it's easier to open the jar, then to hunt in the bottom of the freezer, I guess.

Oh yes, lots of nice soups from the turkey broth - made in the crock pot - easier for us with different hours to eat meals.

Pumpkin waffles - from frozen hubbard squash - I make a batch then freeze them - served with the fruit mentioned above, and a dollop of sour cream.

Made granola "energy" bars - subbing orange marmalade for honey - added lots of dried fruit - plum, pineapple, coconut - great hit with GD's friends.

This a.m. made 4 pints, 5 half-pints lime/mandarin marmalade - will use the same way. It's a bit soft - so may turn out to be syrup for those pumpkin (squash) waffles.

Fresh ground Italian sausage went into last night's spaget sauce - great fennel, garlic flavor - and frozen tomatoes with other spices home-made as well (lemon salt, celery seed, etc.)

Refried beans - cooked down pintos that were canned awhile back - used in pitas and burrito fillers.

My winter garden is almost all in - at least the first inning. Looks like bok choy will be ready next week, and see some blossoms on the snow peas. Still have some green worm damage on the cabbages (white cabbage butterfly - grrr).

We did have a nice rain last week - the first real one in almost a year tho - hope we have more this year. Water rationing would be "the pits."

Bejay

What I've used recently:

- seasoned tomato sauce to make a delicious homemade pizza -- less than fifteen minutes start to finish with a store-bought crust and pre-shredded cheese

- apricot butter spread on waffles that DH made for breakfast yesterday

- a can of mixed peaches and pears, turned into a quick fruit salad by adding some grapes, a sliced banana, and a handful of pecans

- a jar of Madras Pickled Eggplant and one of Indian Cucumber Pickle (the latter drained and mixed with yogurt for a quick raita), making for quick accompaniments to Butter Chicken

- a jar of Annie's salsa to go with tortilla chips, keeping my visiting brother satisfied while we waited for my pot roast to be ready (slight miscalculation of cooking time...)

- several jars of applesauce (some mixed with pears, some mixed with cranberry, some plain), paired with zucchini bread from the freezer as our standard quickie yummy breakfast

As for Bill's question, I know that feeling!

I got it a lot more when I first started canning, however. Every jar seemed so precious, it was hardly ever an occasion "special" enough to crack one open!

But now I've been doing it a few years, I feel that way a lot less, I think because it feels more like a cycle to me---I know (not just intellectually, but in my gut, from several cycles' experience) that there will be a new harvest next year, and so it feels less like using up a precious hoard and more like freeing up a jar for next season!

I think it also helps that as I get more experienced I know more what I like and find useful, so my canning is more efficient---I make larger quantities of fewer things. It's easier to open a jar of salsa if I have 40 of them on the shelf, and by the time I am down to a few and start to feel stingy again, the theory is that I'll already have tomatoes ripening for the next batch, or nearly so....

Zabby

Bill - I feel the same way each time I take something out of the freezer. I had a ration mentality when I froze it up - i.e., how many months am I covering and how much do I want each month. I still haven't quite let go of that, but I think by March I'll be saying - I have how much left?

I did put up some extra for the holidays so I wouldn't obsess on thawing those out.

But I think my problem is that I want to eat seasonally and nothing will really be coming back in until about June. So I want to savor it and not eat it all at once.

I have a similar problem, Bill -- I can't seem to open jars when there is still fresh stuff waiting to be used. It's the "use what you have" mentality. We're still getting some brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli and kale greens from the remains of the garden, so I haven't used much of the veggies yet, and there's still a jar of pearsauce in the fridge. The uncalled sweet potatoes are still available but going fast.

Linda Lou -- we've come to the conclusion that home-canned green beans just don't make as good a casserole (the french fried oniones and mushroom soup variety) as store-bought, and it really gripes my soul to have to buy. What are you doing that's different?

I have used some things differently. DH loves Spam but doesn't eat turkey, so we fix him a can of Spam glazed with rhubarb chutney or apricot marmalade. Also use jelly and bbq sauce (together) to sauce sausages for brunch.

IÂm glad to hear IÂm not alone. IÂm also glad to hear Zabby say the feeling should ease over time LOL.

Unfortunately up here in Ottawa, our season in well over so no fresh produce available except imported. Not that we live entirely off of our home stores but, for the products we do preserve, the thought of running out too soon and having to resort to purchasing inferior quality imported produce really drives me nuts.

Hoping everyone has enough to get them through the winter,

Bill

What a clever idea for Spam using Rhubarb or Apricot, I'll have to try that it sounds really good. Have a question for Bejay regarding the granola bars, do you dry your fruit to use in them? Last night, made Chicken and Crab Eggrolls using my frozen snow peas.

Expecting 9" of snow here tonight through mid-morning tomorrow, ugh! Tonight will be a great time to use up more items I have put away for just this reason!

Lots of pickles (we canned about 40 quarts during the summer) and lots of heirloom tomatoes.

We'll probably run out of home-canned tomatoes by February at the rate we're going through them.

We may have canned enough pickles to keep us going through 2015.

Bill

Loquat preserves (jam) with hot oatmeal for breakfast.

Chow chow relish with tuna salad and mock tuna salad. Also some of our pickled peppers.

Pickled beets with green salads. Running low, must plant more beets.

Mixed citrus marmalade with peanut butter sandwiches with our fresh garden grown jalapeno slices.

Some of our smoked dried hot peppers in black bean soup.

Not canned. but I have used some of our frozen mixed green pies (like a savory turnover) and my frozen blue corn tamales (wrapped in banana leaves) to make a good and quick dinner and lunch. Must make more.....

I regularly use green beans, corn (frozen), applesauce, jam/jelly, pickles, salsa.

I've canned off and on for 20+ years and it's still hard to open the jars sometimes. Depends on what it is, how many more there are, how often we use it in our meals, and how much work it was in the first place! As the supply diminishes, it gets harder, unless I'm trying to "use up" because the new season is upon us.

Oh, what a wonderful dilema to have!!

Deanna

Salsa and Pickles are usually the first to go...doesn't matter how many I can.

This week so far I have used 2 quart jars of tomatoe sauce for a pasta dish, 1 pint jar vegetable stock for gravy, (yum). Yesterday I made this dip to take to a Christmas party using a pint jar of my canned Hot Pepper Jelly. My husband and kids, (grown), love this with Club crackers!

Hot Pepper Jelly Dip

1 pint jar hot pepper jelly
2 pkgs cream cheese
2 2 cup bags shredded cheddar cheese
Bring cheese to room temp and mix all together. Can heat up a little in microwave to mix better. Serve with crackers. That's it and it is delicious.

Expecting 8-12" snow tonight starting within the next hour and continuing all weekend, so I am going to have a fun weekend finding things to cook from all my canned foods in the pantry and frozen items from the freezer! What is it with us that we can be excited over the prospect of canning and using our canned foods cooking on a snowy or rainy weekend!

Oh, we also used 2 pint jars of salsa, 1 jar Banana Jam, and 2 pint jars Voo Doo BBQ sauce so far this week! I guess when you write everything down you realize just how much canned items you use each week! And the weeks not even over yet!

I'm with Deanna...it's always the salsa and the pickles, oh, and the dilly beans. Those go the fastest every year. I also glaze a lot of roast chickens with pepper jelly. Have you tried that? Roast the chicken about halfway, then take it out, glaze it liberally with the pepper jelly, then finish roasting it. DELISH! And then I used one of my very few jars of whole tomatoes to make a rockin' pasta alla vodka the other night. I blogged about it if anyone wants the recipe. (Scroll to the bottom of the post.)

Here is a link that might be useful: Lindsey's Luscious Pasta alla Vodka

There are 13 hungry mouths (7 of them teenagers, remember that?) around our table this week, and I'm so very grateful for those shelves full of jars. Three quarts of green beans barely make it around the table. We're averaging emptying 5 jars per meal, and the jams are a big hit with lots of biscuits and breads. I think I've gained 5 pounds just since Friday. I am forever glad to be using from our stash instead of supporting the groceries!

Oh, roast chicken with hot pepper jelly! That sounds delicious! I haven't tried that! I'm putting it on my menu for this week now! Thanks for sharing that one! I have so many different kinds of jams and jellies on my canning shelves and always feel like there is another really good recipe out there that I just haven't heard about to use them in.

Had apple-blackberry sauce this a.m. with breakfast, and used Ellie Topp's Thai Chili Sauce over fish for dinner, with some of her Indian Cucumber Relish on the side.

Zabby

This was our first year for gardening and as my husband was laid off from his job he planted a huge garden and we are so glad he did. My mom helped me get started canning as I hadnt done this in a long time. Heres what we canned and froze

Canned Green Beans
Canned Pickeled Beans with Pickled Corn
Tomatoes
Homemade soup
Saurkraut
Home made Grape Juice
Pickles
Pickled Beets
Green tomato relish
Frozen Corn
frozen Okra
Frozen Blackberries, strawberries, peaches and Cherries
Frozen zucchini
Apple Butter, Grape Jam, Plum Jam Apple pie filling
Pumpkin amd Butternut Squash
And of course, Annies salsa

Im loving it!

Just ate some of the canned chili today, got the go ahead from the other half to do more of that (I had to prove to him that pressure canned foods were not all mush.)

Tangerine marmalade and kumquat marmalade/syrup have both gotten use.

This was my first time ever canning (previously I've only frozen my vegetables). I was tentative about canning and only put up 14 pint jars of tomatoes and 2 kinds of jelly. Friends and I have been enjoying the jelly, but finally a couple of weeks ago I opened a jar of tomatoes to make chili. They looked wonderful and smelled like summer! I doubt the rest of my stash will last long now...but I'll have to pace myself. ;-) This winter seems endless.
Kris

A few jars of my 2003 tomato sauces for pizza. Thy are still chunky and thick, as well as the same bright red color and good flavor when they were first made. That goes to show you that home canning is not something that can spoil or go out of date like commercial tin cans do.

We're going through a dozen quarts a week - peaches for peach pie, tomato sauce for pizza, pasta, and beef stew, dilly beans, dill cucumber pickles, and I dunno what all. I re-fill an empty qt jar box every sunday and take it out to the pantry. And then maybe 2 or 3 pints of jams/jellies.

If you mix a pint of cinnamon-peach jam with two quarts of strained, canned peaches, or a pint of apple butter with half/gallon of thawed apple slices, and make a deep dish pie, it goes quickly.....

Am getting very low on the greenbeans w/jalepenos as I am eating those at a rate of 3 pints a week.. the zucchini relish is a huge hit at the local VFW bingo games and we are the sole suppliers of that.. tomatoes of course are used frequently in the goulash, fresh rosemary out of the basement greenhouse for the baked chicken, jelly and jams are low as we mailed them to the kids and friends and supply the neighbors who no longer can or garden, pickled green tomatoes were given to the daughter-in-law but we have a large supply of regular dill pickles I chop up in tuna.. the dried parsley is used on everything from scrambled eggs to noodles, used up my last onion a couple weeks ago and must plant many, many more of them this season, the fresh Maine blueberries out of the freezer are going into muffins and pancakes and cakes, the frozen peaches are still being hoarded for something special I have not come across just yet, and the garlic is so pretty I don't want to eat it although I do dice some into various meat dishes. All the dried fruit and roll-ups were shipped to the grandkids.

I've made:
Sharon's Dill Pickles - Cukes from local store ordered just for me. Will be ready first week in March
Ann's Salsa - had tomatoes frozen from summer
Apricot Jam - frozen apricot pulp...

Linda

I made a soup on Saturday and used canned tomatoes, grated carrots, grated turnip, dried okra and dried green beans. I regularly eat my canned peaches and applesauce, and jams yum. I try and use something every meal. I do feel the need to ratio but there are only the two of us and I'm running out of room. My DH added another raised bed for me and this next year we should have strawberries and blackberries plus the asparagus should be plentiful.

I found something new! Got a "Ball's Complete Book --- " for Christmas and made the pear-raisin sauce. I've made ham balls for some time - huge recipe - and put them in the freezer for later meals. It's basically a ham loaf made into meatballs, baked, then frozen individually. That pear-raisin sauce was great just opening the jar and dropping in 10 meatballs, simmer until hot through and serve over noodles. This one's a keeper.

I've been lovin' my home canned tomato sauce.

As someone said previously, it smells like summer.

Also enjoying apple butter.

Cream

I just had a slice of homemade honey wheat toast with some homemade tangerine marmalade, it was yummy.

In the past week or so I've used 3 or 4 jars of beef broth, about that much chicken broth, both were canned in the fall. I've used some applesauce in baking and I just finished off a jar of pickled beets.

Lunch yesterday included some homecanned collard greens and we always have a jar of salsa open in the refrigerator, right next to the open jar of sweet relish.

Oh, and Elery finished off a quart of hot dill pickles just last weekend all by himself. I'm not a huge fan of pickles (other than beets), so they are all his.

I've also used half a dozen jars of tomatoes, some green beans and some sauerkraut.

I love having my homecanned stuff in the basement.

Annie

Just catching up on this post - and noted I failed to answer bonicarose question about the granola bars. Yes - I use dried fruit - any that I happen to have available. One thing I noted - the bars are best made with dried granola (which I have for breakfast anyway), rather than the original recipes for using the oats as it comes from the box.

The oat recipe turns the bars quite hard - whereas, if dried oats (as in granola) keeps the bars from baking too hard. Also don't pack the mixture in the pan too hard before baking. (Ye gads, learn something new everyday).

My pantry is quite bare, with filled jars being replaced by many, many empty ones - mostly all my summer fruits in simple syrup - nectarine, apple, peach, pear, plum - now almost all gone (sob!).

The freezer, tho - now that is different - it is so loaded that I can hardly squeeze any more in it.

No snow - yet - (rain forcasted) - eating stir fries and lots of green salads. Planted quite a few onions and garlics that are coming along well. Never enough - and so must supplement cooking onions before the season is over.

My chardonnay grapes arrived today (ordered in Dec) and now today's project is to get em in - hopefully will grow on a south-facing arbor - should be an ideal spot. Three other grapes - Thompson is one, the others shall remain nameless -are doing quite well - about 3 years old, and my first lesson on how to prune them (hope I didn't kill the poor things).

Must can more fruit next year (then hide it!)

Bejay