Kitchen fun

Standing in what is quickly becoming my favorite spot in the house.

My stove covered in pots :)

Today I added 12 quarts of applesauce to the pantry. I also have about 1/2 a gallon of pumpkin puree cooling in the fridge and will put it into the freezer tomorrow. I definitely have a big learning curve with all of this...most of my enlightenment comes AFTER the fact when I realize "oohhh...maybe it would have worked better the other way!"

The hubby striking a pose...this was our first joint canning adventure. Who would think this tattooed biker would be into canning and cooking?

My baby pumpkins! I did learn that if you go to the pumpking patch, check the side that has been laying on the ground for any soft spots...when I was washing the dirt off, I found two mushy areas that we had to cut away.

Part of my mess...I think my grandma was enjoying the view of this from heaven :) We always managed to blow the kitchen apart when we canned together.

Tasting the apple butter...definitely want a sieve to press this through next year...the food processor just didn't get it quite as smooth as I would like it.

Apples! I love me some fall

No matter how some of these endeavors turn out, I'm so happy with being able to work on my "wife skills." I feel like a lot of things from our grandparents' generation are disappearing, be it canning, sewing, gardening, etc, and want to make sure that I do my part to keep those arts alive.
The next "foodie" thing I want to try out is making yogurt. I looked at the old way of using a jar and keeping it warm and wrapping it in a towel in a cooler that has warm water in it...yea whatever. I found one on Amazon for less than 30 bucks that is thermostatically controlled and has a timer, so you don't have to worry about losing a batch. Modern conveniences exist for a reason, right? ;)