Rhubarb & Strawberry Pie Filling and “Signature Strawberry Salsa” Results

June 13 - Production canning results for: Rhubarb & Strawberry Pie Filling and “Signature Strawberry Salsa”

Thursday evening we canned “Signature Strawberry Salsa” and rhubarb-strawberry pie- filling.

Input: Three flats of strawberries (24 quarts), about 30 stalks of rhubarb, and a lot of the lesser ingredients including  jalapeño peppers, green and red peppers,  lime juice, cilantro, mint, sugar, vinegar and onions. We quadrupled the recipes from www.canningdiva.com  

• The hard part was prepping the strawberries, rhubarb, onions and peppers. It took almost 3 hours to wash and chop everything for a quadruple batch of each recipe. Fortunately it is enjoyable prepping and talking while drinking margaritas.
• The easy part was cooking the pie filling mixture and salsa mixture on the range tops for about 15 minutes.
• The really fun part was filing the jars. It takes some time and is my personal high-pressure part of canning.
• Both recipes only need to be water-bathed for a short time, and we were done!

Output: Rhubarb Strawberry Pie Filling - 4 quarts and 11 pints; “Signature Strawberry Salsa”- 17 pints;

Strawberry Salsa marinade – 3 pints processed and 3 quarts unprocessed to be refrigerated for quick consumption; strawberries frozen – 5 bags

Total: 43 units and they are lovely on the shelf, all pink.

What did we learn?  Three flats of strawberries is a lot of strawberries and having Diane Devereaux running the session cuts ingredient waste and reduces failures. Thanks again Diane!

Next week we will again can “Signature Strawberry Salsa” and a canned strawberry – lemon drink concentrate.