Weekend plans

Garden Update: 16 tomatoes, 3 jalapeños, 40+ snap peas, and who knows how many cucumbers!

With it being summer here in the midwest, it is officially fresh canning season (aka I must find an excuse to can at least once a week…oh darn, ha!). Yesterday, just the excuse came up – a local grocery store (Sprouts) had Pineapple and Blueberries on sale for 98c each. For reference (they were both just over $2 off each – plus I get a friends and family discount on-top of the already awesome deal). With that being said I became that crazy lady in the math problems (as my boyfriend would say) and purchased 6 pineapples and 12 containers of blueberries.

Now, its time to figure out what to do with it all- I already have roughly 10pint jars of cubed pineapple in extra light syrup from early this year and berry jams coming out my ears.

My goal with this next canning session is to utilize as much of the fruit as possible with minimal waste. With that being said – we will utilize 2 recipes for each item. For example, the blueberries will be used to make a syrup and the remaining pulp will be used to create a blueberry butter. As for the pineapple, we are looking to make caramelized pineapple-habanero salsa with the fruit ‘meat’ and the cores and skins will be used to make Tepache (a fermented pineapple drink).

I’ll be sure to take as many pictures as possible and post updates after I finish!