Gardening, canning, pickling and everything related
-
Well i put the Weston Tomato Strainer to work today and it worked great for making salsa! It beats the heck out of cooking the tomatoes and peeling the skins off.

Tex_77 It works good for baked apples to make apple butter as well! Always great to have multiple uses for a tool.
-
Tex_77 It works good for baked apples to make apple butter as well! Always great to have multiple uses for a tool.
Chef I’ve never made Apple Butter care to share a recipe?
-
Well i put the Weston Tomato Strainer to work today and it worked great for making salsa! It beats the heck out of cooking the tomatoes and peeling the skins off.

Tex_77 I didn’t know such a thing existed. Is it pretty much an electrically powered food mill?
-
Well i put the Weston Tomato Strainer to work today and it worked great for making salsa! It beats the heck out of cooking the tomatoes and peeling the skins off.

Tex_77 I’ll place it our recipe category
-
Tex_77 I didn’t know such a thing existed. Is it pretty much an electrically powered food mill?
TexLaw I would say yes. Walton’s sells them Weston Electric Tomato Strainer
-
I bought the SS version, long before I found Walton’s and love it. I usually can 20 or so quarts of spaghetti sauce and its great.
Hint: run the seeds and skins a 2nd time, you’ll get a lot more goodness.
-
@Fat-Bob what do you use as a bowl to catch the good stuff? It seemed like every bowl i had was either too tall or wide too use with it.
-
The wife has a 9 quart casserole dish (9x11 or so) that’s only about 2" high. Keep the stock right beside it to dump in.
-
Tex_77 It works good for baked apples to make apple butter as well! Always great to have multiple uses for a tool.
Chef We have not made apple butter since the 70’s, maybe the 80’s. It is very good & I like it a lot, more than my wife. I would like to get ahold of some really nice apples in quantity. They used to have apple picking & cherry picking in Southern California, but not sure if they still do any more. That was a good place to be back then to get a really fresh case of apples for canning, etc.
-
Have you ever tried pickled turnips?
calldoctoday pickled turnips - you got my attention. Do you just eat them or use them as an ingredient? My favorite is pickled asparagus.
-
Chef We have not made apple butter since the 70’s, maybe the 80’s. It is very good & I like it a lot, more than my wife. I would like to get ahold of some really nice apples in quantity. They used to have apple picking & cherry picking in Southern California, but not sure if they still do any more. That was a good place to be back then to get a really fresh case of apples for canning, etc.
calldoctoday Love pear preserve and pear butter as well. Just have to have a good fresh biscuit out of the oven waiting…
-
calldoctoday pickled turnips - you got my attention. Do you just eat them or use them as an ingredient? My favorite is pickled asparagus.
Chef Yes, they were interesting & I remember them as being good. We ate them as snacks, like pickles when we did it. Pear sounds very good for a butter too. You are getting my mouth watering & thinking of my Cathead Biscuit & Miracle Biscuit recipes with a good serving of homemade apple butter. Asparagus is especially good, I agree. we have maybe one jar left right now. You are tempting me to go gobble it up. We regularly every year used to do all sorts of peppers that I particularly like for both snacking & recipes along with carrots, celery, onions, okra, etc. I have slowed down a bit as we have had a tremendous stock. However, I am going to have to start thinking about it again with this Corona Business & having given a lot away as gifts (preserves & pickles). But, what about those jars? Oh, I got to thinking the other day when enjoying a few of my Black Mission Figs. I wonder if Fig Leaves would work good to keep the pickles crisp like the Grape Leaf strategy. Does anyone have any idea?
-
Chef Yes, they were interesting & I remember them as being good. We ate them as snacks, like pickles when we did it. Pear sounds very good for a butter too. You are getting my mouth watering & thinking of my Cathead Biscuit & Miracle Biscuit recipes with a good serving of homemade apple butter. Asparagus is especially good, I agree. we have maybe one jar left right now. You are tempting me to go gobble it up. We regularly every year used to do all sorts of peppers that I particularly like for both snacking & recipes along with carrots, celery, onions, okra, etc. I have slowed down a bit as we have had a tremendous stock. However, I am going to have to start thinking about it again with this Corona Business & having given a lot away as gifts (preserves & pickles). But, what about those jars? Oh, I got to thinking the other day when enjoying a few of my Black Mission Figs. I wonder if Fig Leaves would work good to keep the pickles crisp like the Grape Leaf strategy. Does anyone have any idea?
calldoctoday Wow, I am getting about 2 dozen figs a day and about to make some fig preserve as well as a fig glaze for grilled chicken. I was wondering yesterday if a fig leaf would act as a grape for keeping pickles crisp. Guess great minds think alike. Does anyone have experience with this?
-
calldoctoday Wow, I am getting about 2 dozen figs a day and about to make some fig preserve as well as a fig glaze for grilled chicken. I was wondering yesterday if a fig leaf would act as a grape for keeping pickles crisp. Guess great minds think alike. Does anyone have experience with this?
Chef What kind of fig trees do you have? We also have pomegranates, but it can be hit or miss on the quality with the humidity we have here. Chef, I would envy the opportunity to learn a lot from you, if we were not so far apart & by the way, I tried your idea with the fig preserves on the chicken, except I used some fig apricot preserves that I had made & everyone loved it. Thank you.
-
Chef What kind of fig trees do you have? We also have pomegranates, but it can be hit or miss on the quality with the humidity we have here. Chef, I would envy the opportunity to learn a lot from you, if we were not so far apart & by the way, I tried your idea with the fig preserves on the chicken, except I used some fig apricot preserves that I had made & everyone loved it. Thank you.
calldoctoday I don’t know what kind of fig tree it is, the guy that gave me the sprout doesn’t know, although he can’t believe how big or how fast it is growing. In 2 1/2 years it is 10 feet tall and giving us about 16 to 20 figs a day. they are very big and very sweet.
-
calldoctoday Wow, I am getting about 2 dozen figs a day and about to make some fig preserve as well as a fig glaze for grilled chicken. I was wondering yesterday if a fig leaf would act as a grape for keeping pickles crisp. Guess great minds think alike. Does anyone have experience with this?
Chef said in Gardening, canning, pickling and everything related:
I was wondering yesterday if a fig leaf would act as a grape for keeping pickles crisp. Guess great minds think alike. Does anyone have experience with this?
I have no experience with it, but I did a little poking around on the internet and found THIS REFERENCE to using fig leaves in place of grape leaves for pickling. I don’t know the first thing about that blogger except what’s in the blog, but it’s something.
-
Well guy’s, I just joined this group today and it looks quite informative! My wife and I have planted a garden for many years now and this year is no different. Thus far, we have had some Blueberries, 3 pickings of green beans (from a very small row since last year I got 2-3 quarts canned per foot of row) and some green peppers. . The garden is doing pretty well and I am really hoping the corn will produce well. It is my first time planting it but I have tassels and silks so hopefully…
!!
The peppers are the only thing I have taken pics of so here they are.P.S. Also had a pic of the garden but it will not attach to the message. Keep getting an error!
-
Those are some nice looking peppers and good size too.
-
Made some salsa and canned it today.

-
Tex_77 Looks like you are getting a good harvest. No peppers here, due to whitetail taste testing, tomatoes are just starting to get a blush. Congrats
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login