Can we can?

Yesterday we made a spontaneous trip back to Portland to learn how to can from Zach's mom. It's something we've been wanting to do for a long time, and having a bountiful garden this year only increased that desire.

Even though I've started reading up on canning, I was still a little hesitant and much too afraid of botulism to start doing it on our own. Since I am a visual learner, I needed to see my mother-in-law can her tomatoes before I am confident enough to start doing our own. And as it turns out, canning is just hard work; it is neither impossible nor scary.

the first thing you have to do is harvest!

and then you wash and prep the tomatoes ...

... by soaking them in boiling water before peeling and seeding every single tomato. This is tedious work!

Then you cook them tomatoes down and fill the jars up,

before plunging them into a water bath and cooking them once more!

When your garden provides you with more than you can eat and you still have plenty left after sharing your harvest with friends and family, the only responsible thing to do is to find ways to preserve your "leftovers." We've dabbled in drying and freezing, and while we like the relative ease of those two methods, we wanted to find a different way to preserve the flavors of summer. Zach has also been on a pickling kick, so it makes perfect sense to find a way to make our pickled veggies store longer (without overcrowding the refrigerator). Canning sounds like such an old-fashioned and fussy thing to do, especially in light of all the modern-day conveniences. But we're committed to eating better and healthier,  and we're always looking for ways to cut down on processed foods. Canning not only provides us control over what we feed ourselves but also helps us avoid unnecessary exposure to BPA (that is present in the lining of metal cans)!