I Did It!

I finally broke down and tried my hand at canning today.  Usually I just freeze everything that I want to preserve, but I'm starting to realize that without a deep freeze, that's just not going to be possible this year, you know, with having a garden and all.

I bought all my necessary items at Wally World and a ton of berries at Costco and got started today during naptime!  I was able to make 2 batches, which resulted in just under 2 dozen jars of homemade strawberry jelly!  I would have made a third and possibly fourth batch, but ran out of jars!

I grew up with a mom who canned everything out of our garden.  When I was old enough to really learn how to make jelly, mom had packed away the canning equipment and settled into freezing everything.  Andy was worried about the investment cost to start canning instead of freezing.  Well, it's a no brainer when you have a garden such as ours this year.  I'm growing 3 different kinds of tomatoes, lots of peppers - bell, habanero and jalapeno, strawberries, carrots, eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, cantaloupe, some herbs and even 2 pumpkins!  I'd like to be able to make some yummy salsa and can that so I always have it on hand.  I am also investigating some good spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce recipes to prepare fresh from our garden.  If anyone has some tried and true pasta sauces to share, I'd love to try them!

If any of you are nervous about trying canning, the Pioneer Woman has some tips and advice as well as step-by-step instructions on how to can strawberry jelly.  You can also find the instructions inside the pectin box, but I always get confused when I read them...it's how I make my freezer jelly, but I use the cooked recipe and then put it in freezer containers.

Best of luck!