Strong Women Eat Well

Since having the time and energy to have a big garden, I can hardly stand to eat store-bought canned goods any more.  With gardening season upon us, I decided to clear out some of my excess canned tomatoes and juice and make a wonderful marinara sauce with our new pressure canner.  I also wanted to try out my newest kitchen gadget, a canning lid separator, shown on the lower right of the picture.  If you've ever struggled with fishing those lids out of the boiling water, this is the gadget to have!

As I thought about doing this, I wondered what the difference was between marinara sauce and spaghetti sauce.  Without knowing the difference, I knew I wanted to make marinara sauce because I ran across a wonderful recipe years ago in the book, "Strong Women Eat Well."  As I did my research, I found out that marinara is just another type of sauce for spaghetti or pasta.  However, outside the U.S., it's typically a sauce that contains seafood.  I think the marinara recipe I use would make a great Shrimp Etouffee by adding a roux, some green pepper and some Cajun seasoning, served over rice with some sliced green onions sprinkled over the top.  Yum!  And I just happen to have some of the wonderful frozen shrimp that we brought back in March from Panama City Beach.

I've never had or used a pressure canner before so I decided to document the process and therefore, document the explosion when and if it happened.  Before we get started, I've got to show you a few pictures of my gardens.  We've had so much rain the past month that everything is growing better than it ever has.

Looking Out the Kitchen Window

A Closer Look at the Rhododendron

Part of the Front Yard

Hostas That We'll Be Splitting with a Chainsaw Next Spring

Japanese Maple

I bought the Japanese Maple last summer after we finished the flagstone patio.  I didn't want any permanent trees in the area of the septic system so I decided to pot a tree.  I agonized over what to do with the tree while we went to Florida for 4 months in the winter.  I debated whether or not to wrap it, i.e., enclose the base with straw or some other protection.  In the end I decided that if it wasn't going to make it through the winter without care, I didn't want to bother with it.  Good decision!  It looked great when we got home.  

I just thought I'd throw this next picture in here to show you what I would have bought if I had won the lottery last night.  Isn't it beautiful?

So back to the canning....

Here's another kitchen gadget I wouldn't be without.  It's a Vidalia chopper.  Electric choppers make onions too juicy and being the OCD-affected person I am, I like the nice, neat little squares of chopped vegetables.  It also makes quick work of the chore, especially in this case where I was making a double batch and had about 8 cups of chopped vegetables.

Red Pepper Flakes and Plenty of Garlic

Simmering Until Reduced by a Third

Rudy is always enthusiastic about helping me can and he's a big help.  Plus we needed to use his propane beer stove to heat the canner.  Glass-topped stoves either don't get hot enough for the large, 22-quart canners or they don't keep the heat regulated well enough.  I've read that they have a sensor that lets the heat drop down to a certain point before it's heated up again.  When you're canning with a pressure canner, you need a consistent heat.  So it was off to the garage with our canner loaded with 13 pints of rich marinara sauce.  

Here's Rudy having a beer while he waits for the canner to blow.

Rudy invited the neighbor boys over to see how bombs were made.

While the canner does it's thing, I'll show you some Curly cuteness.

Bringing a Bone to Share

Waiting for a Belly Scratch

Well, the canner didn't blow up and we've got 13 pints of rich, red marinara sauce to use for Shrimp Etouffee or whatever.

Now I must be off to the fabric store to get some interfacing for a maternity dress I'm making for Wendy.  I think it's going to be really cute but I need to get it done before December!