This year has been very busy in my life, so where do you fit in canning? Normally I have an organized process for canning. If you where looking for this on Thursday something went wrong in the auto post. It is here now for you to read!
Sort out my jars, match them with the right sized snap lids and rings, wash everything but the snap lids. This year I almost thought canning should be put on hold because we are trying to pack up to move. My logic was empty or full the jars will be moved. I do need to eat this fall and winter. Then a market had salsa ingredients on sale and a friend shared garden food. Soon I will be canning spicy pickles and making grape jelly.
Well no time for my fancy methods of matching jars the right size for the right substance. It was more like buying cheap ingredients and scrambling to find 6 or more jars, just grabbing what I can get my hands on or moving boxes out of the way to get into the place where I keep some of the canning jars. Then find a few unused snap lids and dig in a few places and boxes for rings. I had recently bought an induction burner from Ikea, which I used for this as it puts less heat out into my kitchen than using the burner on the stove, it’s been way too hot for that.
Canning has a few simple principles. You need a few basics. Preserving agents like salt, sugar or something with higher acid content. Clean and sterile supplies including jar snap lids and rings. Then you add heat (water bath or pressure) to kill bacteria and to create a bond between the seal lid and jar.
If you’re in a pickle just use mismatched jars like I did. The one thing to note: If you use a pint jar (470ml or 16 oz) then stick with the same size in a water bath to make sure they are covered by the water. Set aside 1 to 3 hours depending on what you are canning. In another blog I will go into more. For now here is a canning basics link This is a 1 hour canning video. It has great tips.
If you have preserved food or would like to try something, I would love to read what you would like to try or what you love to make. Something I love about canning is you can modify recipes and avoid things you might not like or that fit your diets.
This is where it starts 