I know the world is strange right now, but these last three months has really helped me. March and April helped me realize how much I work, and perhaps different priorities I want to focus on.
I have always found it relaxing to go to the grocery store, cook, and meal prep. It has been part of my routine for 15 or so years. My routine has changed since I am not going to the grocery store weekly or Saturday mornings anymore – but I am still cooking and baking and trying new recipes and foods. We have a lot of kitchen gadgets, spices and serving dishes. Our kitchen isn’t huge and I am quickly running out of room. However, that isn’t stopping me from wanting to use some of my new home time by trying something even more different.
With Bucket Hat Rose working on a small urban garden this year, I thought I would try canning using the water bath method. Originally hopeful we would have a harvest to preserve, I am now thinking canning would be more of home made goodies we would want to use all year, but not necessarily from items we grew.
There is a small investment involved. I had to purchase different size jars, bands and lids. It turns out that you can reuse the jars and bands, but not the lids – my last order this averaged $0.77 per lid. I also purchased the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving for $17.70 and a Norpro 6 piece canning essentials for $16.99, 2 pack of pickling salt ($14.99), pectin ($9.09), citric acid ($4.30) and a circle rack (2 pack $13.99) for a pot I already owned.
Attempt #1 – Canned tomatoes. Thinking we would have more tomatoes than the two of us could eat, we may want to preserve some. I purchased 5 pounds of Roma tomatoes at Sprouts for 88 cents/pounds ($4.69). We followed the directions to clean and prepare the jars, lids and bands, and began blanching the tomatoes, pealing, quartering, and crushing the tomatoes. The 5 pounds yielded 2 pints jars.
Attempt #2 – Strawberry Jam. Strawberries were on sale, I got 3 pounds for $6. Actually that doesn’t sound like a good sale! Anyway, I had 3 pounds. I prepared the jars, and made the jam. I got 6 half-pint/eight-ounce jars. The jam separated, but after we googled this, found it was a common occurrence for strawberries. We opened a jar a few days later, mixed it up and tried it. Really good, a bit sweeter than I would have liked, but overall a keeper! Aside from toast we think it would be good on ice cream, over cheesecake, angel food cake, short cake or other places jelly/jam is used.
Attempt #3. Pickled Vegetables. The same day I made the jam, I prepared 2 pint jars of pickled vegetables. I can’t tall you how much I love pickled vegetables. I even remember the first time I had something pickled that wasn’t a pickle, it was a string bean that my friend Anne’s mother made. I was there with them on Thanksgiving in 2010. After that I didn’t have picked anything for a while, but always remembered how delicious it was, the last few years I’ve had more picked things and so I am hopeful this will be good. I used the jardine recipe in the book.
I look forward to trying even more!
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