A Hot, Sweaty Day

It's official: I am a grownup now. You'd think graduating from college, getting married and having a baby would have brought that point home for me, but it's only just now that it dawned on me. And why? Because I did my canning by myself this year.

Last year, Ruth, Amanda and I canned peaches in Ruth's tiny kitchen, and that was a sight to behold--three pregnant bellies bumping around together! This year I got up my nerve to do it with help from Dave (what a champ!) and it was scarily exciting. I started off the canning season by doing beets, carrots and peaches.

It was a process that started Monday, with Dave helping me pull the beets and carrots, lop the tops off and get them scrubbed and ready to go in the jars. We had a ton of beets and carrots!

Boiling the beets until they were soft enough that the skin slipped off.

Crinkle-cut beets--Dave had so much fun cutting them with this amazing slicer-dicer that a lady in the ward was nice enough to loan us (along with her pressure cooker. Yay Sister Hildreth!)

My first batch of beets all cooked and sealed. Don't they look pretty? I think next year I won't crinkle-cut them though, because they lost a lot of color and I'm a little worried about them being mushy.

The raw carrots (some of them) packed into jars and the rest of the jars just waiting.

The finished carrots!

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After Dave came home from work last night, we had dinner, put Jed down and started peaches at 8:00. What were we thinking? It went pretty quickly with Dave to help. I have been helping my mom can peaches since I was a little girl, but I've never done the whole process on my own, from figuring out when they were ripe to putting them in the jars and pouring the syrup on top. It was good for me to see how much I actually absorbed from my mom's teaching without me realizing it.

Putting the peaches in the jars. Looks like I should have moved the superfluous countertop items, huh?

My favorite part of canning--the sound of the jars sealing and resting so beautifully on the counter. Especially peaches; they're so lovely.

Jed's favorite part? Playing with the beet tops we lopped off! He had a great time and was surrounded by beet tops by the time we were done picking and lopping.

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It was such a fun thing, even if I was a little stressed about the pressure cooker, and all my fears were needless. Now I have 11 pints of beets (one didn't seal), 9 carrots and 23 pints of peaches to line up on my shelves. Later this week I'll do some pears, then wait for my corn to ripen and do it and some potatoes. Oh, hooray!