Canning Jars Have Arrived

All my canning jars have arrived. I have some more 8 oz and 4 oz ones, but I have a plan for this next month that will be canning heavy.

My canning list is as follows:

• Blueberry Jam
• Blueberry Syrup – for pancakes!
• Blackberry Jam
• Raspberry Jam
• Strawberry Jam
• Marmalade
• Pickles – from the garden.
• Tomato sauce/paste/in general – from the garden. I don’t know what form this will be in, but boy howdy! will there be a lot of tomatoes this year!

The raspberry and strawberry are on the end of the jam list because I still have some from the last time.

We eat a lot of jam, though. We have it on toast, with peanut butter, and on waffles and pancakes. It’s also good with crackers on a cheese plate. Discovering home canned jam was like a doorway into accelerated jam use. From my estimate we have probably doubled how much we eat now. I’m cool with that. It’s easy and fun to make.

My plan is to maybe do some this weekend, and then try for two jams at a time until we are done with the jam and syrup list for the year.

Marmalade is new to me, so I have to figure that out. My wife loves orange marmalade. I have a recipe and will figure it out. I use pretty exclusively Ball recipes because there are some very dangerous canning directions online, and I am not really okay with sources that are not Ball or the US government preservation sites. Botulism is not the end I want, so I am going to stick to safe recipes.

I have never done pickles or tomatoes. I just have them growing in my garden, and wanted to water bath can some for the year.

That’s super ambitious, but I am into it. We will see how far I get on my plan, but I am all set up and ready to go.