Every time I have tried to can things recently, I have been thwarted by life! It’s been very frustrating. I’m hoping to get some more of the jams canned this Friday. We have a house work weekend planned, so then I won’t mind too much if the kitchen gets a little sticky. We can just clean it right up!

Some of the fruits I have waiting to be jam are strawberries, rhubarb, and apricots. I might pick up some more pomegranate juice too and try some jellies. I meant to make Jasmine Tea Jelly for my FIL for Father’s Day, but it never quite got made. Maybe I can get it done for Christmas.

I have made one jam so far and it was the Plum Cardamom jam that I fell in love with last year. This year I tripled the batch and didn’t bother straining it, just blended it with a stick blender. I think it worked just fine. The original recipe is from the Small Jars, Big Flavors book, but I only sort of followed it. I ended up using the old school method for one cup sugar to one cup fruit. It was still so good, that I was licking the ladle. 🙂 I ended up with 13 half pints of jam. I might not be as possessive this year. Last year I only had 8 jars and I had 4 of them myself. 🙂 Here is the jam, pictured with my next two canning experiments.

I ran out of cucumbers for my pickles, so may make some more. Some of them went bad before I could get to them. These are Hot Garlic Pickles from the Taste of Home Canning magazine. I made them last year and they were a hit. I want to make some plain garlic pickles too and some more squash pickles. (Don’t tell anyone, but my Dad ate zucchini voluntarily!! Oops…. 😉 ) I have to have enough pickles for future pickle trays, after all. I ended up with two jars of pickles.

The third other jar is pickled red onions! I love them on sandwiches, so thought I should have some. I haven’t tried them yet, but I think they look super pretty!

My friend K and I got together and made the Husbands play video games and snuggle the dog while we canned tomatoes over Labor Day. We ended up with probably 40 lbs of tomatoes? We made Zesty Salsa from the Ball Blue Book, and Roasted Garlic Pasta/Pizza sauce and Spicy Sicilian Pasta/Pizza sauce, I believe from the Better Homes canning magazine.

K took home half of them and some of the tomatoes. The salsa had some garden peppers and tomatoes. She brought a whole bag of mixed hot peppers, including habeneros and cherry bomb peppers, so it might be super spicy again. I’m excited to try it!

She canned the rest of her tomatoes, and I tried out our new dehydrator to make sundried tomatoes for the freezer. I cover them in olive oil and they keep for about 6 months in the freezer? To be honest, I have kept them for longer than that and they do fine. I didn’t quite get the consistency right, as I didn’t quite know how to make the temperature increase in the machine. Now I know and I want to try to dry some herbs next.

Don’t they look so pretty? I added some basil, oregano, and garlic too them before they were dried. The house smelled amazing!

My garden hasn’t been as successful as I wish it was. It looks pretty sad right now. I have to try digging the radishes and carrots. They were both small when I tried before. I was sad. Next year, we’ll have to try some different things.

My strawberries are still producing though and if the squirrels haven’t stolen my poblano peppers yet, I should have two out there. We also have some more purple peppers started. I think I might need to read some more garden planning books or something to figure out how to be more productive with it. Next year, I would also like to add the third bed, which might be partially herbs, and actually cage the tomatoes. They were unwieldy again this year and it was very annoying.

Back to canning talk… I have a new canning magazine (Better Homes and Gardens- Can It! Freeze It!) which has some very interesting looking recipes in it, such as Vanilla-Caramel Butter, Vanilla Citrus Plums, Brandied Strawberry jam, Roasted Tomatillo-Corn Salsa, and Sage Peach Jam.

I’m not sure exactly how many more things I will get done. I want to try some wine jelly and a whiskey ginger jelly too, but those I can really do any time.

I’m going to take Fancy’s example and go to bed to dream of new and interesting canning options though. I’ll leave you with a picture of my prized possession: a large jar of Penzey’s Sandwich Sprinkle! The Husband just shook his head, but I know he’s excited about it too. 😉