so far we've canned well over 100 jars of tomatoes, sauces, relishes, apple butter, jams, and other stuff. we've frozen gallons of strawberries and tons of corn, peas, and other veggies and several loafs of zucchini bread.
anyone got a unique recipe or 2? thought i'd share one here
one of my favorite things to can is something called Lutenitsa. It's a staple in Bulgarian kitchens, and is pretty easy to make
6 lbs of peeled tomatoes
3 lbs of roasted red peppers, skins removed (i used large sweet banana peppers, but any will work)
2 lbs of roasted eggplants, skins removed
if you plop the eggplants and peppers on a grill the skins peel off really easy.
you basically just blitz these in a food processor, add to a large pot with about 2-3 tablespoons of sugar, 2-3 tablespoons of salt, and 3/4 cup of light oil (sunflower is what they use, but light olive or vegetable oil would work).
cook it down by about 1/3 (it should be thick - if it's runny keep cooking!!), pack in jars with 1/2" headspace and process in a water bath for 25min.
there are about 10000000 variations of this recipe but this is how my friend's mom made it when we were there.
they eat it on all sorts of stuff, but traditionally they spread it on bread. we think it's pretty damn good as a spread on instead of mustard/mayo on a sandwich or burgers. it's also excellent on grilled meats! we've also put it on chicken, topped it with feta cheese, and baked it in the oven. some people use it in pasta. not bad in some beans either.
if you leave out the tomatoes, double the amount of peppers and throw in some garlic you have something called Ajvar. you can add some hot chilies to the mix if you prefer it spicy.
and now for pics!
peppers roasting:
roasted peppers (oh man the smell!!!!)
finished Lutenitsa
some of our canned goods
zucchini bread
