yes, I can. do you?

I got a wild hair and decided one day I was going to make jam. I have wanted to can for years. I had most of the canning supplies for months but had done nothing with them. Then I drove 40 minutes to Brentwood for strawberries. I of course bought too many and spent an entire day in the kitchen cutting up strawberries. What I got in return was a lot of strawberry jam. Friday morning I got that same crazy idea and decided to make the drive again. This time I was in search of cucumbers to turn into pickles. I came home with a lot of cucumbers....peaches, zucchini, green beans and enough Ball jars from Target to make Christmas presents for everyone on my list. I hope you all like canned goods.

What was going to be a one day project turned into two.

I have already yielded 9 jars of jalapeño-peach jelly, 12 quarts of pickles and 5 jars of zucchini bread and butter pickles. Add that to the 11 jars of strawberry jam I already have put away I am getting quite a haul. I started the two week process of making 14 day pickles which are delicious and I haven't had them in years. I may not share these.

I hope I can find time to make it to the farms one more time so I can get some tomatoes and make my own sauce and canned tomatoes. I know I will make it up there to get some apples so I can have homemade applesauce. No applesauce is better than the one my mom made. The only applesauce I like is homemade with lots of cinnamon and chunks of apples in it.

I remember watching my mom do all of this when I was little and it has been fun to try my hand at it. I always seem to talk to her more when I start these projects. How many calls and texts does it take make some new recipes? I think I have made 3 calls, and a handful of texts so far.  I don't know how she did it with us running around the house. I had no one tugging on me and I still had a tough time. There were 3 pots that boiled over and caused me to have to clean the entire stove before I could continue. Recipes that should have taken 20 minutes felt like they took hours. At one point I was hopping around the kitchen because I got molten jelly on my leg when it spilled. My mom must be a superhero. It is really the only reasonable explanation. Maybe not the only reasonable one but it is the one that makes me feel better about my struggles at canning and the fact that the kitchen looks like this when I am done.

Even with the struggles this is one of the most rewarding things I do in the kitchen. The thrill of making dinner is gone the moment I eat it and realize I need to wash the dishes. Baking the cookies at Christmas is fun and a challenge to out do myself each year but once they are shipped what is left. Canning is the kitchen project that just keeps giving. You put all of the hard work in and then you squirrel it away. You can bring it out when you have a craving or need a quick hostess gift. It is like a savings account for your ego. Every time you open your pantry and see the fruit of your labor you can beam with pride that you did that.

The biggest things I learned this weekend:

• don't try and do too many recipes in a day
• you can do a batch of jam in the same amount of time you could bake cookies
• canning recipes can be vague and you just have to learn as you go and trust yourself
• jelly is really painful when on your skin
• clean the kitchen and the dishes as you go
• the sound of a jar successfully sealing is extremely satisfying 

Want to learn more about canning try these great sites 

• Ball jars
• Better Homes and Garden Canning 
• Food in Jars
• Headspace
• Punk Domestics

Did you try any new projects this weekend? Do you can? Do you want to try?