Home Canning

March 24, 2018 - Jam People

I was talking to a friend the other day about carrot canning recipes. She’d just inherited (for lack of a better term) 10 pounds of carrots from a relative’s house. They’d been moved to a nursing home and had been in possession of a large stash of carrots at the time. Since she cans, everyone...
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November 11, 2015 - Soda Pop Jelly

I make a lot of jellies. I currently have peach banana split, corn cob, apple, watermelon, apple-raspberry, grape, and cherry coke. Not to mention the whiskey-raisin apple butter. And other things! That’s lemon pound cake soap, and lemon pound cake candles. And here is Glory Bee milk soap. And peppermint soap. Some items, I do...
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October 7, 2015 - Whiskey-Raisin Apple Butter, Again

Re-posting this recipe because it’s apple butter time! I just made 37 pints… First, plant an apple tree. Wait five years. (Just kidding.) Start by making applesauce. I recommend my new best friend, a food strainer. If you don’t know how to make applesauce….. Depends on whether you are using a peeler, a food strainer,...
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June 23, 2015 - Making Wildflower Jelly

We made wildflower jelly at the wildflower retreat weekend, but of course all of that jelly went home with the attendees. Yesterday I went flower-picking to make some for me! One of the first questions people always ask me about wildflower jelly is, What does it taste like? It tastes nectar-like. Sort of like a...
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June 3, 2015 - Apple-Blackberry Jelly

Apple-Blackberry Jelly hot out of the canner first thing this morning. Don’t you just love the sound of popping jar lids as the seal hits? I made a batch of blackberry jelly last week from blackberry juice I’d frozen after straining it for jelly–last summer, when I’d gone blackberry picking up on the ridge with...
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September 24, 2013 - Preserving with a Passion

I didn’t grow up around home canning. My mother didn’t can. Both of my parents grew up on farms (my mother in Oklahoma, my father here in West Virginia), and they both escaped the hard labor of life on a farm as soon as they could. Like many of their generation who left rural areas...
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October 10, 2012 - A Passel of Pear Recipes

After I picked five buckets of pears early last week, I put them all through my Squeezo and had a pear canning fiesta. Which was a good thing since so far this week, I haven’t done anything much besides keep the couch company. (I can’t remember the last time I was so sick.) I did...
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October 4, 2012 - Whiskey-Raisin Apple Butter

In response to requests for this recipe, here it is! This has become my favorite way to make apple butter. First, plant an apple tree. Wait five years. (Just kidding.) Start by making applesauce. I recommend my new best friend, a food strainer. If you don’t know how to make applesauce….. Depends on whether you...
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April 20, 2012 - Apple Lilac Jelly

I’ve been enjoying my lilac here. I’ve never had a lilac before. It’s well-established, so I didn’t have to worry about planting it, keeping it growing, or wondering if it will flower. It’s here and happy and I just get to take pleasure in it, cutting off blooms to take inside. Then it occurred to...
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August 29, 2011 - Virtual Retreat: Home-Canning

This post is part of the Virtual Retreat series. If you can’t be there, you can be here! I love canning. It’s self-sustaining, wholesome, practical, and just plain fun. I learned to can at the feet of Georgia a few years ago when I lived in the slanted little house after I moved to the...
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July 22, 2011 - Pickled Out (BBB)

Latest sweet relish production. I believe I have just about canned enough pickles this year. Current count: Bread and Butter Pickles (16 pints and 5 quarts) Sweet Gherkin Pickles (8 pints) Dede’s Sweet Relish (16 pints and one half-pint) Dill Pickles (8 pints) I’ll be canning some more sweet gherkins next week. I’m still saving...
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April 20, 2011 - Violets and Dandelions (BBB)

It’s flower jelly time! I posted about this a few weeks ago, but want to remind you again because if you don’t get the violets right now, they will be gone! Don’t let that happen! I went violet- and dandelion-picking yesterday. Let me just say upfront that this is a project. I picked both violets...
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October 14, 2010 - Making the Most of Green Tomatoes

Night-time temperatures here have been hovering in the 40s, with a possible dip into the 30s this weekend. As the chance of frost grows ever nearer, I’m eyeing those green tomatoes out there and making lists of things to do with them. I got too few tomatoes this year to waste a one, even if...
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October 9, 2010 - Banana Split in a Jar

I came up with this recipe when I realized I had some bananas on the verge of going bad. I can’t remember the last time I ate a banana split, but I love the combination of fruit flavors. And the whipped cream. And the fudge. And the ice cream. And I wondered why I hadn’t...
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October 6, 2010 - Party Pickles

At the party, Dede (aka wvhomecanner) provided a pickle-making demonstration. Traditional pickle recipes must be placed in a brine for days if not weeks. This recipe for refrigerator pickles is what Dede calls instant picklefication. If you missed the party, you don’t have to miss the pickles! (There are still good cucumbers out there at...
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September 2, 2010 - How to Make Corn Cob Jelly

Corn cob jelly is a perfect example of the “waste not, want not” spirit of our ancestors who knew how to use everything, and I mean everything. Most of us are accustomed to tossing corn cobs in the trash or the compost pile, but there are actually many, many ways to utilize them. Corn cob...
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February 1, 2010 - Orange Marmalade

I’ve always been fascinated with orange marmalade. I grew up reading English-flavored books, from Paddington Bear to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series. English stories are sprinkled with references to orange marmalade. What was that stuff? I didn’t grow up eating marmalade. Just the word is exotic. Marmalade. My mother grew up in Oklahoma and my...
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December 16, 2009 - Pear Ambrosia Conserve

When I got ready to can one last batch for gift-giving this year, I wanted to use some of the fruit I put by this summer and fall. I found a lovely ambrosia conserve recipe in my Ball Book, but it called for pineapple. We don’t grow pineapple around here. But I’ve got pints and...
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November 29, 2009 - Peach Conserve with Rum

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…. Like, last summer in my kitchen…. I put away more bags of sliced peaches in the freezer than I can count. (Actually, I can’t remember now how many bags of peaches I put away. Almost as many as pears, though.) I was far too busy...
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November 14, 2009 - Making Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce for the Holidays

I roast turkeys all year, but there’s nothing like the Thanksgiving turkey and the Norman Rockwell moment when the huge steaming platter of turkey is placed on the table. Of course, you need some cranberry sauce, and once you’ve had home-canned cranberry sauce, you’ll never go back to cranberry sauce from the store. Why, if...
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September 16, 2009 - How to Can: Pressure Method

Try home preserving using a steam-pressure canner! A pressure canner must be used to process low-acid foods including vegetables, meats, poultry, and seafood as well as soups, stews, and sauces containing those foods. The bacterial spores and toxins produced by low-acid foods are destroyed by the higher temperature reached by this method. Following proper procedures...
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March 4, 2009 - Strawberry Jam and Fruity Jam Cake Glaze

I was lucky enough to get hooked up with one of those people who drive up from Florida with hundreds of pounds of fresh strawberries late every winter and I got about 20 pounds of them. I turned them into 11 pints and 7 half-pints of strawberry jam, with enough leftover for sliced strawberries for...
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October 15, 2008 - Caramel Apple Jam & Spiced Applesauce

I’ve got your toast ready! That would be your fresh-baked slice of Grandmother Bread toasted and buttered and slathered with the sweet brown sugary goodness of Caramel Apple Jam! I got this recipe from Shumom, who posted it on the forum. Apples, brown sugar, cinnamon……. Yum! I love apples. And brown sugar. And cinnamon. (Is...
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October 9, 2008 - Making Pear Butter at the Old Farmhouse

I spent a sweet autumn afternoon this week over at the old farmhouse making pear butter. I didn’t really have time to make pear butter. I didn’t have a particular hankering for pear butter. In fact, I didn’t have any pears. But Georgia did. She had a big old bunch of them she’d gotten through...
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September 19, 2008 - Rum-Raisin Apple Butter & Easy Apple Butter Coffee Cake

Apple butter in autumn is an Appalachian tradition. Historically, it’s a day-long event. Whole families would join together to simmer apple butter in copper kettles as big as wash tubs. This tradition is largely lost, but you can still find communities coming together over apple butter. The little church in town is making apple butter...
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August 3, 2008 - Blackberry Jam and Fruit Crumble

It’s blackberry time! I love all things blackberry. This year, we trekked over to the goat farm because we’d heard about their fabulous, magical blackberries, hoardes of them that just fell into your bucket. Okay, they didn’t say that, but they said they had a lot of blackberries, and wow, was that true. As with...
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July 20, 2008 - Peach Jam, Fruit Dip, and More!

It’s peach jammin’ time! First, make some biscuits, because there’s just about nothing better than fresh, warm jam on a biscuit. There’s always that little bit extra leftover that won’t fit in the last jar and you want to be ready. It’s so disappointing to me if I finish up some jam then look around...
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July 8, 2008 - Brandied Apricots

Yeah, I’m still on my apricot kick here. But! I see no reason this recipe wouldn’t work with various fruits such as peaches, pears, and apples, and probably others as well. I’ll be trying this out with other things because I loved how this came out. I had to do some experimenting to get it...
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