Preserving the Harvest | Canning salsa, homemade baby food and more

I love the beginning of fall because of all of the fresh produce pouring in from the home garden And today I'm going to be preserving tomatoes, peppers, carrots, and more with my five-month-old daughter So things take a little longer than they used to. If you don't know me, my name is Hannah I am a registered dietitian and new mama Living in Colorado and growing and preserving some of my own food So come and join me as I turn this mountain of produce into food that my family can enjoy all winter long Good morning. So we are gonna be doing a lot of preserving today. It's about mid-september, September 19th today So this is the season where the tomatoes are just rolling in I've had a really good crop of tomatoes this year and I know this because last year I did some canning But I've had to order new mason jars twice this year. So while I didn't necessarily Remember how much canning I did last year. I know that this year is a lot more So I've been making some diced tomatoes, some marinara sauce, and today I have a good crop of green peppers So I'm gonna be making some salsa and I'm gonna put those in sort of smaller jars because we only use a little bit At a time and we want to sort of save them in smaller batches, but take a look at this So I've got all of my peppers some of them anyways that are Already harvested here. Those look great. Got jalapenos, poblano peppers, Anaheim chili peppers, and then all of these tomatoes are gonna go in the salsa as well. I found that the best amount to Can with at any given time is about 15 pounds It's not too much that it's overwhelming and I can still do it within a couple of hours But it's enough that it makes the canning batch worth it All right, I'm heading out to the garden now because I'm gonna harvest up the basil as well That's another thing that I really need to make today I've been kind of neglecting it and it's starting to bolt or blossom And so we want to cut that back to keep it growing for as long as possible before the frost We're gonna get our first frost here in Colorado probably in a couple of weeks. Last year it already happened at this time So we're getting a little bit of a longer season this time But harvesting up all the basil gonna grab a couple of more tomatoes that look ripe and any other peppers that look ripe as well So that we can can those into salsa Okay, so I finally dealt with all of that basil we just had so much basil I think we got like four cups of pesto which was a lot But I just kind of froze it in half cup portions and then also one ounce portion So I can just take a little ounce portion and drop it into pasta or whatever. I'm making for lunch Sometimes it's nice just to have a little burst of flavor so I like to freeze it in small amounts too and then I did give two jars away to my mother-in-law and my mom because They came and helped me with Juni a couple of hours today And that was really nice to be able to have them play with her while I'm doing this giant batch of preserving and you know Usually I I kind of preserve as I go. I take 15 pounds of tomatoes here I take a little batch of pesto there today. I just had so much produce We've been gone the week before in the mountains. And so I just had so much produce It was nice to help some help with Juni during that time and just sort of do a marathon session So finished with the pesto. I have done the tomatoes too. They're kind of just there and I haven't Processed them yet. I will probably chop them today, but I don't think I'm gonna get to the salsa I'm just gonna have to do that tomorrow because I think I just over committed to what I could possibly do in one day But what I do want to finish up with is Juni's baby food So I bought some apples from a local farm stand and they are I think that they're honey crisp apples and they come from the western slope in Colorado So they're as local as you get for fruit where I am not a lot of fruit orchards or trees around here In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, but over on the western slope of Colorado they have amazing peaches and apples and so I do like to grab a lot of those whenever I can in the fall and Either preserve them By drying them we do that with peaches or I really wanted to use it in Juni's baby food this year some organic local apples So I did a peach puree for her baby food the other day and now I'm doing apples combined with carrots from my garden And I actually used those carrots or I harvested those carrots Over the summer and my first batch of carrots and I've got more growing out there But I froze them and now I'm gonna combine them both with some cinnamon for Juni's baby food So I do want to do that today and that is what I will do now So Now this was day three of trying to can this salsa I'd really only gotten through chopping the tomatoes the day before because that's just life with a five-month-old You tend to get interrupted quite a bit, but that's okay. We're gonna finish up canning today So I grabbed the peppers that I had kept in the fridge for that time Chopped them up DC did them to not make the salsa too hot And then I also decided to use some local onions, which I am so glad that I discovered these I'd never even thought to really buy onions locally But I ran out of onions in the middle of canning and I needed to go grab some and the closest open place was actually A farm store that is not far from us and they had amazing onions and garlic. So I used those for the canning All right. Now that all our veggies are prepped. Let's get to the actual salsa making You