Canning Workshop Success.

In preparation for any long-term electrical shortages due to Irene, five of us gathered on Saturday to brush up on our canning skills. Sally McCabe, from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society led the workshop. Shareholders Georgia Kirkpatrick, Nancy Dearden, Kate Pelusi and I attended. I finished cleaning my kitchen (which I share with 7 other housemates!) just in time for the process to get started at 11am. Despite the lack of tomatoes from our farm, we had plenty from other sources. Sally McCabe brought enough pots to can about five times as many jars as we did! After a little less than 4 hours we had canned 19 jars of whole tomatoes. Half were cold packed, and half were hot packed. Cold packed means you put the tomatoes in the jars uncooked, hot packed means you put them in the jars after they have been cooking on the stove for a bit. In the end we noticed very little difference between the two! We used a water bath for all of them. Thanks to the delicious snacks Nancy and Georgia brought, everyone left not only satisfied with an armful of jars for the winter, but also with full bellies. Sally gave us all handouts that I will share with everyone at the next pick-up, next to the sign in sheet. Thanks to everyone who attended and helped make this happen!