July 3, 2009

• Now, pay attention ’cause I’m not going to tell you twice.

  Ever since I was little I have been exposed to canning and freezing food.  My grandmother and mother both spent all of the summers of my life preserving the bounty of the harvest for the cold winters to come.  I wouldn’t say that we were poor but we were certainly not rich.  If there was one lesson that I learned from my mother and learned well it is that a wife is charged with making her husbands paycheck go a far as she possibly can no matter how large or small it may be.  So when we were married one of the first things that my husband and I purchased was a freezer and a canner.  I felt like a queen. 

  Then with the generous gift of jars from the ladies who were second mothers to me when growing up, I set about following in the footsteps of other women before me who preserved the harvest in the best way that I knew how.

  

  Here are the tools of the trade.  A bowl to stand my jar in as I fill it, my handy jar lifter that I use to take hot jars from the oven to the canner then from the canner to the counter to cool, my canning ladly, and the canning funnel.

  

  I have had many canners over the years.  With all of the work that they do you can imagine that they don’t last long around here.  A few years ago I invested in an extra pressure canner and now use that for a boiling water bath canner too.

  

  Of course you have to buy new lids each year and replace any rings that are too bent or rusty from over use.

  

  I use my dishwasher for washing and sterizing the jars.  It is good for holding them in while I fill the jars too.

   

  Then, the full jars go into the oven at the lowest heat letting since everything must be kept hot.

   

  The canner holds seven jars at a time for processing.  Here I am making strawberry jam.  It has to process for 15 min. for quarts.

  

  Finally the jam is taken out of the canner and placed in a draft free place and left to sit for 24 hours so that the jars can cool and the seal can complete.  My daughter always locks the back kitchen door so that no one can come in or out that way and cause a draft on the jars that are sitting there.  The next day we will put them all away to be opened when the weather turns cold.

  • 10:35 am
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