*yes I CAN!

Yes I CAN!  You may remember me telling you this before, but I was raised a country girl.  I was raised to work in the garden to renew the land and to "put up" what we grew each year, in order that we could enjoy the fruits of our labor when the crops were no longer in season.  My mother did more freezing than canning, although she did a lot of jam and jelly canning through the years.  Actually I am remembering now, she did can pickles, beets, peppers, and other things as well, but we never did much with a pressure cooker.   I think my grandmother actually had a bad experience with a pressure canner, so my mother always had a more than healthy respect for a pressure cooker/canner.  I don't think I ever developed anything healthy in my mind towards the scary aluminum pot with a funny pressure gauge that rested on top and made an alarming sound, until well, just this past month!

My canning this year started with some pepper jelly, wowza. Pepper jelly is simple to make and does not require a pressure canner, just a hot water bath canner (or a large heavy pot).   We have just a few jalapeno plants in our garden this year, but the production is prolific so we have canned some, given away many, dehydrated some and giving away more! We bought some heirloom seeds early this spring so we could harvest some seeds for next year as well as build our seed stock. 


 
A sweet family on a little country road I travel frequently has pear tree in their front yard which produced some really beautiful pears last year. I found myself wanting to stop and ask if I could buy some, or trade something for some of their fruit. I never did.  But this year when the tree started producing I stopped by and asked.  The sweet couple heartily agreed and was just pleased that someone wanted to do something with them.  They had already canned as many as they were going to can for the year.  I agreed to trade them fresh farm eggs for several weeks, they of course were willing to just give me the pears for nothing at all.  I know that Mrs. K is grateful for the eggs as she has called me on several occasions to say just that, but I still feel like I got the BEST end of that deal. 

My mother makes some of the best pear preserves ever!!! So I got her recipe and did my best to replicate her preserves (of course she doesn't have a recipe...). I suppose I came close enough.  I also made pear relish, pear butter, pear sauce, and cranberry pear chutney, oh and I put some in the freezer for pies as well!

All of these things that I canned did not require that pressure cooker, but I will be talking about that in another post real soon!

When I go to Lowes with my dear husband, this is where I can likely be found. Yes, the canning "stuff".  When we go to Tractor Supply, yep, you guessed it, the canning section. Although both of these places are starting to move these canning items on out so they can make room for CHRISTMAS items. (which totally makes me crazy, but that is another story) It seems I have this new found hobby, desire, love, way to provide for our family , hobby, fix.. whatever you want to call it. I love CANNING!