This is pretty good. In 500ml jars.

Mix until dissolved:
1 - 1.5 cups pineapple juice
3/4 cup whit vinegar
2 - 2.5oz achiote powder

Put in each jar:
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp very generous canning salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
A big pinch oregano
A couple grinds of black pepper
1/2 pineapple ring

Fill each jar with meat

Put 2-3 tbsp of the liquid into each jar (basically distribute evenly).

Pressure can for 75 minutes at 12-15psi at my elevation.

Note: could use a touch of sweetness, or serve with pineapple. Fry in a pan to crisp up and serve.

So far:

Apple sauce, 2 slow cookers of apples on low 12 hours, run through chinois, sugar added to taste (2.5 cups per pot, the pot makes roughly 3.5L)

One each of four kinds of vanilla applesauce, with 2 beans per slow cooker cut up and put in with the raw apples: tahitensis bourbon cure, madagascar boubon cure, madagascar mexican curem ugandan bourbon cure. 500ml jars, 20 min water bath.

Two caramel applesauce: boil sugar until dark brown, let cool slightly, add water to make a syrup, put into slow cooker with apples, finish as above. Roughly 1 cup of caramelized sugar per liter of finished sauce.

Two apple jams:

lime apple marmalade (chop a potful of apples with peel, chop 5 limes with peel, combine with 6-7 cups sugar, let sit so sugar draws the juice out until it's covered in liquid, simmer until it starts to gel, water bath.

saskatoon apple jam: chop whole apples and saskatoons (6 cups total maybe) and cover with 4 cups sugar. Let sit until sugar has drawn juices out and they're sitting in liquid. Simmer until soft. Put through chinois. Simmer until gels. water bath.

Dilly beans:

4 cups vinegar, 4 cups water, salt to taste. Boil to make brine.

Fill jars with 1 head of dill, 1 clove of garlic, 2 peppercorns, a sliver of horseradish, a hot pepper, and green beans (can blanch first). Maybe dill or celery seeds. Pour boiling brine over. Water bath.

Pigs/Geese: winter over in greenhouse and then move through fields

March/early April onto frozen ground as the greenhouse thaws enough to plant: field #1 from frozen ground to 1" thaw: barley, kale, cabbage gets planted when the pigs leave.

April till mid-May into field #2 for and tomatoes, squash, and corn go in after.

Mid-May into field #3, either perennial pasture or fall/very early spring plant of grain (rye?).

Quick sweep through haskap and apple pastures to pick up excess fruit. in summer/late fall as required.

Mid-Sept back into field #2

Oct back into field #1

Nov back into greenhouse.

Put up roughly 10kg of turnips into pickles: matchsticked them, put in a couple sliced beets for colour, filled the container maybe 1/6 full of 7% vinegar, and then added water to cover and salt at 3% of total weight including veg and vinegar (it's a bit more complicated than that, I boiled the brine and poured it over warm, and some calculations needed to be made on that brine).

I also did carrot/jalapeno/garlic pickles (mostly carrots), about 9kg, with a 6% brine poured over boiling (not total veg + water weight, just 6% brine). I'm using vacsealed bags of water for air exclusion in the gallon jars, then there's an airlock on one and the waterlock fermentation crock as well.

I also canned some potatoes but haven't yet opened a can to test; I put in 3/4 tsp of Old Bay seasoning per liter jar.

The carnitas I made has been seeing a bunch of use. That recipe is a keeper even though I find the cumin smell offputting when I open the jar. When fried up and put into a burrito it's really good.

I did a big tomato trial this year. These are the varieties worth mentioning from it.

Note: I planted things very close together with trap rows of promiscuously pollinated lofthouse and exserted orange so I'm not expecting 100% pure seed. What I am expecting is either the known variety, which I like enough to grow again, or a cross between that variety and something else early or tasty. I'm not expecting a high percentage of crosses, maybe 10-20%, but that's going to be based on variety, time of year (earlier flowers had more exserted stigmas), and actual data which I don't have yet.

So the trial is mostly done, we had our first frost on the 15th. Things went out mostly June 10th and were planted indoors March 7th. I brought in a ton of green tomatoes. The early indeterminates Cabot, Cole, Minsk Early, Mikado Black and Katja and Taiga made up a huge % of the harvest, especially of the harvest-when-ripe-or-nearly-ripe. Leaving a fruit on the plant when it was transplanted really did slow the plant down until that fruit was ripe.

Tomatoes and notes:

Alexander B: ripened one fruit, brought in a couple more green ones, not productive.

Ambrosia Red: fairly prolific, some splitting, ripened late Aug. Grow again to test against another red cherry.

Big hill (lofthouse): several big beefsteak type tomatoes that didn't fully ripen. Brought them indoors to ripen but probably not worth growing again.

Bloody butcher: big vines, early (one of the earliest) with a gap before ripening a bunch more, medium prolific. Sprawling is annoying. Will grow again in indeterminate patch.

Cabot: one of the mid-august producers, slightly less prolific than Minsk Early but not too bad, fairly uniform fruit, not a bad flavour. Grow again against the early reliables.

Carbon: I wasn't expecting to get anything from this and found one ripe-rotten fruit under the plant in mid-Sept and several other green-ripe fruit. Oh well.

Cole: one of the mid-August producers, pretty prolific, reasonably tasty. Grow again against the early reliables.

Cherokee chocolate: big sprawly vine, nothing ripened before frost, reasonably prolific but really takes over.

Czech bush: had some of the very first fruits but didn't ripen any past that before mid-Sept.

Exserted orange: not a heavy producer but somewhat reliable, tasty fruit, early. Grow again. Also probably has some nice crossed fruits in the saved seed.

Galina: didn't start ripening until late August but very tasty yellow cherry. Reasonably productive, probably the most productive cherry. Grow again.

Glacier: another mid-august/early producer but very erratically sized fruit and not much for production. Try a couple again against the early reliables.

Gobstopper: didn't ripen before frost.

JD's special c-tex: didn't ripen before frost. Has in the past.

Jory: some big tomatoes just starting to whiten/blush before frost, prone to blossom end rot.

Karma miracle: started to ripen early Sept, lots of fruit that should ripen indoors so very late for a normal year but sweet and tasty. Hard to see if fruit was ripe. Grow again.

Katja: didn't do much to start, but pumped out a lot of very large slicers that ripen mid-Sept; prolific and tasty enough to try again, may need to ripen indoors on cold years. Definitely do again. Most fruits ripened indoors by Sept 18th.

Kiss the sky: one ripened and tasted amazing, kind of purple/brown/black? Not prolific. Try again for fun.

Lime green salad: Just starting to ripen in mid-Sept this year, compact dwarf plant, prolific for the space it takes up. Try again.

Longhorn: didn't ripen, made a fair amount of fruit that I brought indoors to ripen here. Not worth trying again just for season length constraints.

Manitoba: didn't ripen but lots of big green fruit that will ripen indoors. Neat looking calyx. Mediumish high productive. Grow again in the early indeterminates just to check.

Martino's roma: just starting to turn red in mid-Sept, haven't tasted it yet, maybe try again but it's probably not a keeper.

Maya and Sion's airdrie special: earliest beefsteaks but kind of shut down after that, I was impressed with this last year but barely got anything this year. Maybe try again? Compact indeterminate.

Mikado black: early (late Aug), beautiful, tasty, plant so many of these next year.

Minsk early: productive, early (early Aug), not the greatest taste but ok. Plant lots of these.

Native sun: started ripening early to mid Sept but has done better in the past, was mild then. A fair quantity of fruit to ripen indoors. Try again.

Northern ruby paste: pretty productive but not ripened by frost, brought indoors to ripen. Try again next year.

Old italian pink: a fair number of green fruit on the patio. I just like this one and want it to work but it didn't ripen anything before frost.

Ron's carbon copy: ripened a handful of cherry tomatoes but they were really good. Probably sad to discard or for breeding work? Looked like it would have been more prolific with just a little more time. I did bring in a bunch to ripen and there were some just turning. Try again next year.

Silvery fir tree: big producer, started ripening early Sept but the bulk is coming in green in mid-Sept. I'll always grow this one. It's just pretty.

Sugary pounder: huge tomatoes, didn't ripen by Sept 15 but may ripen indoors.

Stupice: fairly compact indeterminate plant produced a couple clusters of ripe/blushing/white fruit before frost even when planted late. Grow again with indeterminates.

Taiga: ripened or near-ripened 5 big hearts per plant, grow again, tasty and not super productive but relatively compact and very early for a gorgeous bicolour. Definite grow-again.

Store green cherry: we know I love this tomato. A little sprawly, crunchy, sweet-but-good, ripened a bunch fairly early on (mid-late Aug?). Will continue to grow.

Sweet apertif: it ripened some, it's tasty, but it's not prolific. A little sprawly.

Sweet cheriette: not as early as I thought unless it was in a pot indoors, but prolific and very good for patio growing. Fairly determinate indoors. Will grow to the size of container. Tasty. Very small fruit.

Alpharora: didn't ripen but did blush before frost, was planted late, set a couple fruit. Part of the citizen seed trial project.

Uralskiy ranniy: this one may have got mixed up with some others, I think it ripened some. Grow again.

Van Wert Ohio: super bushy, just very lush indeterminate bush of tons of foliage. Started to ripen by frost, not tasted yet. Grow again. It just has so many more leaves than other tomato plants.

Violet noir: I didn't have a sign for this one, did I even plant it?

Wildling polyamorous needs its own post.

Siberian: This ripened well and set lots of fruit but is a bit sprawly indeterminate. Grow again.

Rozovaya bella: first black to ripen, had a ton of weird crazing/russetting on the surface, not sure what's up with that? Waiting on the second flush for serious tasting. I liked this a lot last year and it ripened so it's in for next year.

Lofthouse promiscuous: I got a landrace/grex of assorted promiscuous tomatoes from the experimental farm network. I planted these between rows of named tomatoes to capture pollen from them and saved seed into two categories: "A" tasted good and had good qualities, "B" did ripen but was nothing to write home about (but may also have captured pollen from other varieties). I didn't separate out the individual plants for seed collecting, just went by flavor of fruit. There were regular and potato leaf plants in there, and fruits were beefsteak to large cherry size.

Currently making liverwurst. It went like this:

1kg pork liver, soaked for an hour in cold water
1.1kg belly trim

28g salt (1.6%)
5g cure #1 (0.25%, I think I went a little lower than this)
4g pepper
1g nutmeg (again, a little lower)
1g dried ginger
2g dried marjoram

I forgot to put in 120g onion, and liquid smoke

I liquified the liver in the food processor until it was bubbly, and added the spices and mixed it until they were evenly distributed

Then I put the fat in the food processor until fluffy and homogenous

Mixed liver and fat in food processor in two batches (because it wouldn't fit in one) until homogenous, and put in 250ml jars

Currently sous vide-ing jars at 160 until the centre comes to at least 155, I'm giving it 2 hours

This made 10 cups.

Okay, let's see. Last I had done canned carrots.

I canned a lot of the tomatoes as just tomatoes: roasted at 400 for long enough to get the skin to come off, fill jars, pressure can.

I also worked on ready-to-eat meals:

Chili con carne:

3kg ground pork, 1kg dried beans, 300g chopped onion, 400g chopped jalapeno, 4L tomatoes (mostly ones I'd canned but also a can of store bought whole), 1/4 cup lime juice, some cilantro (more next year), some berbere powder, a trace of cocoa powder, and some salt

Soak beans overnight, rinse, cover with fresh water, simmer for half an hour until firm but not crunchy, discard water.

Brown pork and add veggies till soft.

Mix everything into a (very large) pot, bring to a boil then simmer 5min. I added 2L of pork stock.

500ml jars, 1" headspace, 11lbs for 75min.

This needs a hit of... sugar? Umami? Cilantro? But it's perfectly servicable.

Bean soup Edit: I don't like this, it's too dense and beany and not soupy or bacon-y
1kg dry beans, soaked ovenight
2 ham hocks
2 small carrots
1 onion
Bay leaves

Put in a pot wih fresh water or water/stock covering the beans by 2" (should be 3-4"). Cook everything together until the beans are soft (should be relatively firm). Cut meat off bones and put back into soup. Boil, then into jars: 500ml jars, 1" headspace, 15(?)lbs pressure for 75 min. This is a bernardin recipe and the pressure is missing. The beans ended up being a little too soft in the jars, they should be more firm when canned.

Salted caramel pears

Cook the pears in a little water until they are soft and can go through the food mill or chinois. Add some brown sugar and a little salt to the sauce. Mine was pretty liquid and needed to be cooked down by 2/3. Water bath.

Really really tasty.

Pulled the lacto cucumber pickles out of the crock. They're really great, not too salty, lots of flavour, not hard-sour and a little bit fizzy. The recipe was: a handful of garlic cloves, several bay leaves, some black peppercorns, and many dill heads. Brine poured hot (just not boiling) over them at (half cup canning salt to 3 quarts water, imperial measurements bother me, what % brine is this?). They were in the crock 2 weeks at fairly warm (woodstove heated) temps.

I made a brandied applesauce, just applesauce with brandy and a trace more sugar than usual.

I also made an apple muffin recipe out of applesauce:
Cream 1/2 cup butter and 3/4 cup sugar. Add an egg and vanilla. Add 1 cup applesauce. Add 1/2 tsp soda, a bit of salt, some nutmeg and 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 2 cups flour (I used whole whear). 350F for 20-25 minutes. They're pretty good, even without baking powder. This is a half recipe, the whole recipe made something like 30 muffins.

Then mom came up and I canned 25 lbs of tomatoes: roast at 400 for 40 minutes, slip skins off, pack, add citric acid, pressure can @ 5lbs for 40 mins or 10 for 25. They don't seem to have separated, which is nice. There was a little siphoning.

I also was given a bunch of peeled garlic. I put a jar of it to ferment with 10% salt brine. Again brined hot, it's bubbling away.

Then I put up three jars (2 1.5L and one gallon jar) of carrots, jalapenos, and some garlic in a 5% brine (note this is a pickling 5% brine which does not factor in the weight of the veggies). Hopefully they'll start bubbling away soon.

My intention with the fermented things is to pasteurize them at 180F if I run out of fridge room.

Then I have 25 kgs of cabbage and another 6lbs of jalapenos, I'm going to mix cabbage and "some" jalapenos for my sauerkraut. I'll definitely have cabbage left over.

I also will have a bunch of carrots left over, the plan is to eventually can them as glazed carrots (2 cups brown sugar, 2 cups water, 1 cup orange juice, carrots go into the jars cold, pour the syrup over them hot, pressure can 11lbs for 30min.

Desert Hills, the farm market I've been buying from, makes me pretty happy.

Then this coming weekend will be a butcher, so I'll be canning some chili and some pork in wine sauce (adapted from beef in wine sauce) or Italian sausage and putting up more bacon, coppa, and prosciutto. I have a bit of spruce syrup to go in that. I also should do some pork jerky with the syrup from cowboy candy. That would be amazing smoked.

I don't seem to have recorded these in Oct 2019 but:

15 kilos of sauerkraut is crocked. 2.2% brine, a small batch with jalapenos and a larger bath mostly plain.

2 kilos of jalapenos are crocked, 5% brine with a couple onions.

Both VERY successful.

Planning to get as follows from Desert Hills in Ashcroft:

Poblano - 1 box like tomatoes and eggplants come in ($40)
Green jalapeno - 1 box like tomatoes and eggplants come in ($20)
Roma tomato - 3 cases ($16 ea = $50)
Eggplant - 1 case ($10)
Pickling cucumbers - 1 case ($40)
Carrots - 20lb bag ($10)
Red onions - 20lb bag ($10)
Cantaloupe melons 3 large or 4 small ($4)
Garlic 2lbs ($4)

=$190

If it won't fit in the car, remove:
1 case tomatoes
Pickling cucumbers

The goal is to make a bunch of things that can:
1) go on no-cook charcuterie plates (marinaded eggplant, peppers, mixed jalapeno-carrot pickles, sauerkraut, cucumber pickles)
2) pretty close to open-and-serve or open-put-on-pasta-serve (ranchero sauce, pasta sauce, eggplant puttanesca)
3) Hot peppers to go with every meal (pickled jalapenos)
4) Assuage my curiosity (cantaloupe jam, apple ketchup)
5) Tomatoes as a staple
5) Jars of something I can throw in the instant pot with a chunk of meat

Planning to make:
Canned:
Marinated peppers (nchfp site) from a mix of anchos and jalapenos
Pickled eggplant (healthy canning site, recorded here)
Pickled mixed jalapenos and carrots (zesty pickle brine)
Eggplant puttanesca (healthy canning site, recorded here)
Ranchero salsa (healthy canning site)
Pasta sauce (Homemade Italian sausage, tomatoes, pressure canned)
Tomato sauce (tomatoes, acidified and cooked down)
Cantaloupe jam
Zesty pickles (my old recipe recorded here)
Chicken wing sauce
Cajun sauce?

Fermented:
Jalapenos and carrots
Jalapenos
Cucumber pickles

Plus, from home stuff later in the month:
Apple ketchup
Apple rhubarb sauce
Fermented sauerkraut with jalapenos
Canned potatoes (maybe lemon-oregano or with jalapenos)

Already made this year
Pizza sauce
Veggie pasta sauce
Tons of apple sauce (I can dehydrate it and make fruit leather! It's free from my tree) including flavoured apple sauce
Candied jalapenos (delicious but a little too hot for everyday hot peppering, great for making pork jerky or in instant potted meats)
Chicken stock
Pork stock
Canned chicken
Grape jam
Spruce rhubarb orange marmalade
Rose rhubarb orange marmalade
Lemon curd
Asian plum sauce
Tomato jam (replaces ketchup, I don't like homemade ketchup normally)
Turnip pickles
Peach BBQ sauce
Rhubarb caramel sauce
Candied rhubarb (canned)
Sweet ciciley syrup and candied seeds
Pickled spruce tips