Making Strawberry Jelly, Jam, & Syrup

As promised this blog will cover Strawberry Jam, Jelly and Syrup. Hopefully you have enjoyed your Apple Butter and Strawberry Preserves. So lets get started with shopping for the next projects.

If you have any fruit remaining after making preserves, they will work great. We are going to use the less than perfect fruit, medium and small sizes. There is no such thing as a bad Strawberry, just ones that don't work in our Preserves. If no fresh fruit is available or it is just too expensive, you can use frozen berries. Pick the packs that say whole strawberries, they work the best of all the frozen fruit. But use fresh if at all possible. Either way, you are going to enjoy the "fruits" of your labor.

You need 4 or 5 baskets of fresh fruit to work with to make jam, jelly and syrup. If you just want to make just one project, then just a couple of  baskets will do. If you use frozen berries you will needa couple of packs. Check the amount on the package to make sure you have enough for your cooking project. Place all the fruit in a large bowl or pot, then take your potato masher and get busy on the fruit. Don't stop till you have all the strawberries crushed; really the more mashed the better. If you use frozen, wait till it is completely thawed. You can also use a food processor. We are going to use the pulp for our jam. For the jelly and Syrup, we are going to use juice. What? You didn't think you can get juice from strawberries?  Strain the mashed pulp to get juice. It may take 30 minutes to get all the juice. Don't press the berries thru the strainer, this will cause little pieces of fruit in your juice. Many people own juicers. You can put the strawberries thru that and get your juice that way as well.

In a large pot put 6 cups mashed pulp and add 1/4 cup lemon juice (not the little plastic lemon kind), and 1 box of Pectin. Cook till you have a full rolling boil and then add 6 cups sugar. Stir till all the sugar dissolves. When it comes back to a rolling boil, time for 1 minute. Remove from heat or turn off gas. Stir just a little more to make sure nothing is sticking. Skim to remove foam. Prepare your jars, then ladle your jam into the jars til 1/4 inch from top. Clean the rim and place sterile domes and rings. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Let sit over night then check for unsealed jars. They will have to be reprocessed with new domes, or put in fridige to eat now.  You now have Strawberry Jam. That wasn't hard was it? It was pretty straight forward. Cooking award-winning jams and jellies is not hard to do. The only problem is when you try to skip steps or take shortcuts. Remember, Garbage in-Garbage out. Use good fruit and you will come up winners every time. 

Take the juice that you made and measure it. For jelly you will need 4 cups of clear juice, if you do have juice with pieces of fruit, strain it. If you don't have enough, take a freezer baggie and write Strawberry juice, date and amount. Keep working with more berries till you get enough juice. (If your berries turn out to not be very juicy, bring to a boil 2 cups water with the 6 cups crushed fruit. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool then strain.) After you have 4 cups of juice, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 1 box pectin in a large pot. Bring to boil then add 6 cups sugar. Stir till all sugar is dissolved. When you have a rolling boil, time for 1 minute. Remove from heat and let sit for a couple of minutes. Use a skimmer or a spoon and remove any film on the top. This needs to be done before you ladle into jars. Ladle into prepared jars up to 1/4 inch from top. Process 10 minutes and let sit over night. Check for unsealed jars. If you have any, reprocess. You will love the way the jelly looks. So very red. So clear. Be careful, don't be satisfied with just jelly and jam. Now we are going to make syrup.

You are not going to believe how simple it is to make Strawberry Syrup for ice cream or pancakes or waffles. You can also use this to make a Strawberry Coke (or Pepsi or what ever). You will find a way to use your syrup for anything that might use a syrup.

 Take 6 cups of strawberry juice. Add 3 cups sugar and 3 cups light corn syrup. Corn Syrup is on the syrup isle at your grocers. It is clear and very thick. Use a spatula and get as much out of the measuring cup as possible. Combine all the ingredients, boil and then simmer slowly till it is the consistency you like. Remember it is very hot, so be careful. I use bottles to put my syrup in. If you don't have any bottles, you can use a jar. If you use a jar, process it to make sure it stays good. Next time you get a chance, use your syrup and wait for the compliments. If you like pieces of fruit in your syrup, feel free to add some at the start. 

You have now made 4 different things with your strawberries. That is what you might call being frugal. You have no waste except for the core and the stem. You have turned a corner in your home-made work. You can now make Apple Butter, Pepper Jelly, Strawberry Jam, Jelly, Syrup and Preserves.

Our next project has not been decided. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

One suggestion has been to do Pepper Relishes with the leftovers from our Pepper Jelly.

Anyone else? My email is: jellymanga@GMail.com

I will be looking for your suggestions.

STRAWBERRY TIME

It is now springtime, and in some places summer. That means many things to many people.To most it means the kids are on spring break and they want something to do, they are bored. Now is as good a time as any to get them into the kitchen helping make things. It might start them on a path that will surprise you. They just might like working and making canned goods. They might like it as much as I did growing up. Someday they might even have a blog about cooking. You never know where the first steps of something will lead to. Strawberries are a great place to start. They are not expensive. They are easy to work with. The big thing about strawberries is almost everybody loves them. So what a better starting point.

Impossible to resist.
They make every dish a little better.

The first of the summer run of this delicious fruit starts with Florida and doesn’t end till the New Jersey and Great Lakes berries make their appearance. Growing up in Florida gave me the first shot at the berries. My father and I went to Plant City which is just up from Tampa on I-4. They had miles and miles of the plump, juicy fruit. We used to stop at a U-Pick ‘Em farm. They had gallon size buckets to use for picking. You could pile the fruit as high as you could and still just pay for the gallon. I carried big ice chests to keep the fruit in good condition on the trip home. I always managed to eat about 2 gallons while I picked. You know, the berry that got a little damaged while you picked. If I needed a strawberry fix, I would always tug too hard on the next strawberry and have to eat it. If I left it, it would just spoil, so I had to do what I had to do. Afterwards we always looked for a place to eat while in the Plant City area. They all would have Strawberry Shortcake for one of their deserts. I would be careful not to over-eat, saving room for desert. I also remember that when they brought me my Strawberry Shortcake, I would just look at it for a few moments thinking about the trunk full of berries and how much they would make. Coming back to my senses I would enjoy every spoonful of my desert then we would head home to start work. I would always make Strawberry Jam, because that was one of my favorites growing up. I also made other things with my Strawberries, but nothing like the things Mary Lynn developed at our business. She always had something new cooking or waiting to be tried out on our customers.

Your children or grandchildren, or even nieces and nephews will always remember working with you making something that everyone loves. They will feel proud every time someone eats the product. Just think of how they will feel when you give the things they worked with you on as a gift.

Christopher, Brandon, Ashley and Kyle working on some of the many things they made with us.

In our canning business it took plenty of help to do all the things that had to be done. From picking the fruit all the way to making and sticking on the labels, we brought our grand kids into the picture. Mary Lynn and I wanted to pass on to our grand kids the knowledge that our grandmothers gave us. I hope someday that maybe one of them would write a story or blog about what we taught them. We were lucky enough to have 4 great kids to work with, Christopher, Brandon, Ashley and Kyle Hendrick (Ashley and Kyle are twins). We took them to a U-Pick-Em lot and let them pick berries like I had done. At this time we found out that picking the fruit on hands and knees was not for us, so we went to the State Farmers Market and they had rows of people who had already done that  back-breaking job. We also found other fruit to mix with our Strawberries for a bigger variety of flavors. We found that if we bought in any type of volume, we could get a better price. This made me wonder just how good of a deal we were getting.

The next Saturday we stopped on the way to the farmers market and picked a gallon of Strawberries. I filled the bucket all the way to the handle so I would have a mark to measure with. At the market we bought our batch of berries and headed back to the store to start processing.I emptied the bucket of Strawberries that I picked while crawling on my hands and knees, under the hot sun of spring and dumped them in the water to wash off anything unwanted, like sand and dead leaves. With the empty bucket I filled it from a flat of berries I had bought at the market. A flat has12 baskets of Strawberries, like you see in your grocery. I filled the bucket to the same place as before and looked at my flat; it still had 4 baskets left. My gallon of hand-picked fruit cost $9. My flat at the farmers market cost me $5. It did not take me long to realize that I could be lazy and still get my berries and save money.

Huller, less than $1.
Worth a lot more,
because of the time it saves.

After washing our fruit we would start to sort them. The bigger berries we saved for preserves; the medium and small for jam and jelly and syrup. Mary Lynn liked to use the large berries because they looked best in the jars. All of the fruit had to be hulled. The stem and core of the berries had to be removed.
At some stores that sell canning supplies you might find hullers. They don’t look like much but they really do keep the fruit looking best.
If you don’t have a huller, you can use a small knife. Strawberries that were used for the preserves were cut into large pieces or in half.

Next step was to sugar the fruit. This is putting the fruit in a large bowl and just covering them in sugar. Slightly mix the combination and cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge. Leave them overnight; then sugar them again. You will notice that the fruit has given off lots of juice. This juice should be poured off and saved. After you have done this for a couple of times the liquid drops to just a little. What has happened is the sugar is now saturating the fruit and making it ready to cook.

Take the liquid you have saved, add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (not from the little plastic lemon). This helps stabilize the mixture and will keep it from browning (oxidizing). Slowly cook the liquid till it reduces itself by about half. Add your berries and slowly stir and cook until you get a thick mixture.

This is what foam looks like. That is why you need to remove before putting into jars. 

Carefully remove the berries with a slotted spoon, and put into your jars. Don’t fill the jars more than ¾ because you still need room for the juice. The juice in the pot has to continue cooking. Bring the juice back to a low boil and stir till you get bubbles forming on top and sticking to each other. You may need to add an extra cup of sugar for this to happen. Skim the top, removing the foam.

 Now carefully add this juice to your jars, filling to within ¼ inch of the top. After all the jars are filled save the extra liquid. It may be needed after you take a very thin spatula and push it down inside the jars. This helps get rid of air bubbles that may be there. If you still have extra liquid save it and we will use it in Strawberry Syrup.

After all the jars are done it is time clean the rim and to top the jars with cleaned rings and sterilized domes. Process in a boiling water bath in your canning pot for 10 minutes.

As pretty as they are, they are even better tasting.
You may never go back to store bought again.

After everything is done, it is time to step back and admire your work.

Homemade Strawberry Preserves look very different from the store-bought kind. The taste is VERY different from those little packets you usually eat in restaurants and take-outs.

If you have request for a recipe or blog. Please
let me know. You can ask on the blog itself or e-mail me. I am going to start posting a e-mail that I use for my blogs. ust click on the link and it will bring up your mail program. The address is already filled so all you have to do is type the message and give it a subject.

Contact me at:  jellymanga@gmail.com

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Pepper Jelly Recipe

RECIPE # 2 PEPPER JELLY                       

This is the recipe that Mary Lynn used at our store. It is the one that proved to be best for our customers.
We found that we could make more than one batch at a time with no real added trouble. If you want to try making a multiple batch, make sure that your pot is big enough.

We made large quantities of Pepper Jelly so here are the amounts used. the jar totals for larger batches was:

3 batches = 26 jars 4 batches = 36 jars

Batches Boxes of Pectin	Cups Vinegar Infusion		Cups Apple Juice	Cups Sugar	Salt Tsp.
1/1	2		2	6	½
		Multiple Batches
2/2	4		4	12	1
3/3	6		6	18	1 ½
4/4	8		8	25	2

Pepper Jelly

I hope you made the apple butter. It was easy and tasted like you worked days to make it.

We will make Pepper Jelly in this blog. If you have never tasted Pepper Jelly on a cracker with cream cheese; you have missed out on one of the best tasting things in the jelly neighborhood. Parties have been given just so people can serve and eat Pepper Jelly. Looking at a table decked out with green and red pepper jelly just makes me hungry.

I mentioned green or red Pepper Jelly because those are the traditional colors. I am not sure why, except those are the Christmas holiday colors, and people tend to give more parties that time of year. Someone in the past started using those colors and the tradition started. Just for fun sometimes we use different colors for our jelly; imagine blue or yellow or orange pepper jellies. When you make yours, you can decide what color to make it.
At shows people used to ask me which was hotter, the red or the green. I laughed a little to myself, and told them they both tasted the same, the only difference was the colors. They would taste the samples and tell me the red was hotter than the green. I would say that if that is the case, a Red Velvet Cake was the hottest food in the world. Sometimes they would walk away, and sometimes they would think about it and laugh.

What type of person are you?

Well, let's get started making our jelly. The first thing you want to decide is what kind of peppers to use; sweet bell peppers or one of the hotter varieties. More than likely any pepper jelly you have tasted has been made with bell peppers. 

Some of the best tasting jelly I have ever tasted came from Jalapeno' peppers. We have even used much hotter peppers such as Habanero to make jelly, so it is up to you. The Habanero Pepper jelly was a instant success with my "Hot-Head" customers. Any time in this recipe, if you want to substitue a hotter pepper, you may do so. Just be careful. We will use bell as a starting point. Try next batch using another type of pepper.

The time it takes to make Pepper Jelly may be one of the things that scare people away from making it. It is going to take a couple of weeks to make really great jelly, OK jelly can be made after a few days. We are going for the best, so a couple of weeks.

Here is your shopping list:

First item: Peppers. You can find good peppers in packages, but I like to pick mine out from a pile. If you have a fresh produce marker or something like that in your area, shop there. If not, your grocers will do. You will need 3 or 4 good size bell peppers. Smaller peppers and different types of peppers require more.

Next on the list is vinegar. We use cider vinegar, for the taste, but you decide. A quart of vinegar will do the job.

The next item to buy is very important; disposable rubber gloves. They are very important as they provide protection for your hands while cutting and using peppers. The seeds & meat of the peppers have a juice that is extremely irritating. Your eyes are most sensitive to the juice. That is why they put the juice in Pepper Spray for self protection. So be extra cautious when working with any type of pepper.

This is all you need to start. More items later when cooking starts.

Take the peppers and cut them into quarters and then wash them. Remove the stem, the seeds, and the white membrane. For the next step you can use a knife, but a food processor works better. Even one of those choppers you see on late night TV would work. You need to chop the peppers to the smallest size you can; more edges means better jelly. I hope this makes sense to you, the more surface area exposed to the vinegar means a better infusion, and the infusion is what we cook with.

The green jelly has the seeds and pulp in it. Not very pretty and you get seeds in your mouth when you eat it. The red jelly has been made from a strained infusion. Which one will look best in your gift baskets and on your table?. 

Put the chopped peppers in a container and add your vinegar. We use glass containers, but a plastic one will work, just don't use metal. Most anything else might react with the acid vinegar. Put the lid on tight and mix the container, then set it in an area of your kitchen that does not get any direct sunlight. We don't want the vinegar to start to warm. We don't want cooked peppers. Every few days mix up the container; make sure you have no leaks. We are going to use the juice only. The strained peppers can be saved for future recipes. The reason we don't use the peppers in our jelly is the way it looks when it sets up. It is not as attractive as clear jelly.

When your infusion is ready you will need more things, so for your next shopping trip you will need cane sugar (important, more about this later), food coloring, salt (Kosher, Sea or canning), boxes of pectin and apple juice. For the apple juice, do not use the kind that says made from concentrate. That means it is made with water. No extra water, it makes the jelly not set up as hard. Pepper Jelly does not set hard to start with and if you make it with added water, it might not set up at all. For the pectin, you can use Sure-Jel, found just about everywhere. We use Can-Jel from Kroger, it works just as good and cost less. Save those dollars when you can.

You will also need 8 ounce canning jars. You can use larger jars if you prefer. Becuase the jelly is a soft set, it just doesn't work as well in bigger jars. We almost always bought our jars at Big Lots; they have a complete section for canning supplies at a lower cost. Fred's also has the same thing. So shop around for the best price.

I mentioned cane sugar; this is sugar made from sugar cane only. You can buy sugar that is made from beets on the very same shelf, it just doesn't say Beet Sugar. You have to read the label to be sure. My grandmothers told me to always use cane and that is what we use. We try to never stray too much from the things theey taught us.

One other item needed is unbleached muslin. You only need about a yard of it. Cut into 18" X 18" squares. Washed and dried like the way mentioned in my last blog about the utensils needed to cook jelly. Some say use cheese cloth, but we have never had success with it and just quit trying.

Your two weeks are up and you are now ready for the cooking part. Take your container of peppers and mix one more time, then carefully pour thru a pocket of muslin in a strainer. Make sure that you don't fill your pocket too full, it will leak and you don't want to waste any. With the first liquid you will see why we use the muslin, the liquid is clear. You can't make good jelly if the liquid is not clear.
One of the definitions I have read for jelly says that jelly is liquid, jam is crushed fruit. After the last liquid finishes dripping (don't rush, it won't take too long), take the left over pieces of pepper and put them in a freezer baggie. Write the date and what is in the baggie. We will use these leftovers in another recipe real soon.

Get your jars ready. We put our jars in the dish washer and used the hot rinse cycle. The box may have had dust or other such things we don't want in our jelly.

Take a cooking pot big enough to hold all the ingredients, including room to boil without boiling over.
Measure all of your ingredients before you start cooking; you won't have time later, I promise. You need 2 full cups of the infusion vinegar, 2 cups of apple juice, a box of pectin, 6 cups sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt for each batch (with our Pepper Jelly, we cooked more than one batch at a time).
Start cooking by mixing the juice and vinegar then add the box of pectin. Make sure it is dissolved completely. When it comes to a rolling boil (that means a boil that doesn't stop when you stir), add the salt and sugar. Mix thoroughly to make sure the sugar get dissolved. Bring back to a roiling boil and cook for 1 minute exactly. This is important, you guessed, because less than a minute and it won't set.
Over a minute and it will not set as well. Correct timing is a must in jelly cooking. Not so much in other things. After the minute remove from the heat or turn off the gas burner. Now is when you add your food coloring, don't over do, a little goes a long way. Just a drop at a time while stirring. Check the color and add more if needed. For Habanero Pepper jelly no coloring is need, the natural color of the peppers color the jelly. Why? I never could find that answer. If anyone of you know, please let me know and I will pass it along to everybody else.

Now let the pot set still for 2 or 3 minutes. You will see a skim form. This needs to be removed along with any bubbles or anything else. Use a spoon or a skimmer for this. Ladle your jelly into your prepared jars, be careful, use a good ladle and a food funnel. Fill the jars to within 1/4 inch of the top.
Very important not to over fill; jars will not seal right. It would be a shame to go to all this work and have something like an over filled jar ruin your day. You can under fill a little, that is OK.
Now you need to take a damp paper towel and clean the rims of each jar. This is also very important, unclean jars don't seal. With the case of canning jars you received 12 domes and 12 rings. These make up the top of the jar. The rings should be rinsed and set ready to use. The domes need to be rinsed and then put in a small pot with water and heated on the stove. This sterilizes the dome that comes in contact with the jelly. Be careful taking each one out, you can get burned very easily. We use a small plastic stick with a magnet on the end for easy retrieving. You can find one of these at the hardware store or where you bought your jars. Place the sterile dome on the jar with the shiny side up and the side with the rubber seal down. Then screw on the rings finger tight, over tight and the air inside the jars can't escape so no seal. Not tight enough and water gets into your jar, bummer.

You will need a canning pot to boil your jars. Fill the pot so that the jars will have at least 2 inches of water covering the jars. Bring the pot to a boil then add your jars. Boil for 10 minutes and remove the jars and place on a drying rack or a counter top to cool and set over night. The next day check the domes to make sure they are sealed. If they are not, you will have to get a new dome and reprocess. An unsealed jar is not a problem for use, we just keep it in our refidge and eat it first.

The sealed jars are ready for your labels and can be given away as gifts or taken to the next party along with good crackers and cream cheese. If you take green and red jars along, you can have fun with which is hotter. Tell your friends the story, I will bet some still don't believe you.
After you have been successful with bell peppers, try a batch with jalapeno' peppers. Everything is the same.

On occasion we made our jelly using both colors in the same jar. We made the green coloring, then let the jars set overnight (make sure they are covered not sealed). Then the next day we made another batch using red. Carefully, we ladled in the red and then we processed the jars. They looked great. Some people thought that was a stupid idea, well that is the only kind of ideas I get.

I have been told that I should keep my blogs shorter, under a 1000 words. Let me know what you think. Are my long blogs OK, or do you want two short ones on each jelly. Let me know if I need to talk less, something Mary Lynn has been trying to get me to do for over 25 years.

Also let me know of any request or any questions. I will try to answer them all. I am really new at blogging as you are new at making jelly. I hope we both get more comfortable at our new jobs.

Please subscribe to my blog, this way you will receive a message telling you a new one is out. Also please pass me along to your friends.

Equipment You Need to Start Home Canning

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO YOUR HOME CANNING

I will try to list some of these for you and if you like you can use it as a shopping guide. I am sure some of you will think that all are not necessary and can get by with less. That is up to you, my list is what we used to make our Award winning Jams, Jellies and Preserves.

One of the first items you will need to purchase is a canning pot. Canning pots are large pots that you will use to process your jars for longer shelf life. They almost always come with a rack inside, this rack is what you use to safely put your jars into a boiling water bath, and when the time is up, remove the jars. I have seen people try to make do with some sort or rigged pot, but this soon leads to injury and or failure. Procesing correctly is the only way you have to make sure your jars are sealed and have no tiny leaks. With proper sealing home made products have a very long shelf life. Some of your home made products are good for years. You can find canning pots at your local hardware store or grocery store or even Wal-Mart. When I refer to local hardware store I am not talking about the big warehouse stores. I use those store to buy many other items, but they don't stock home canning products.

The next items are sort of a team, measuring cups and measuring spoons. I don't know of very many cooks that can make their best with only guesswork for measurements. There is a big diffence in 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon. Just like there is a big difference in a 1/4 cup and a cup. Something else you might think you don't need, but really do, is long wooden spoons. All the fancy shiny spoons you might have will not work in home canning. There are two big reason, 1. The wooden spoon will not get hot while stirring your projects. Most of our projects require lots of stiring and mixing. A metal spoon gets too hot and will burn you. 2. A wooden spoon is used to watch the liquid drip off to see if it is jelling. This is called watching to see if it sheets. Your grandmothers did not always have Sure-Jel or Can-Jel to make their jellies set up. They had to watch their spoons and look for sheeting.

Canning Jars are a necessary item Reusing jars from home is the number one way to have a failed project. The resaon is that most people use metal utensils to get jelly out of a jar. A single scratch on the inside could cause your jar to crack when it is reboiled. Canning jars come with domes and rings to seal your homemade items. The dome is the flat circle with a shiny side and an underside with a rubber gasket attached. This gasket makes the seal, and the dome is curved down when the jars are set. You also have the rings that hold the domes to the jars. Before you boil your jars the rings should be finger tight; that is not hard tight or loose. If you have the rings too tight the air can't escape from your jars and form a seal, or the water might get into your jars if too loose. After your jars are processed, sealed and cooled, you can go back and take the rings off and clean any water that might still be there. This will keep the rings from rusting. Rings are reusable but not the domes.

Good pot holders are valuable, as they keep you from burning yourself during the whole process. Whether you are cooking or removing the jars from the water, hot pads or pot holders are just the thing. Something new I have seen in the market for this use are gloves that are made to protect your hands even in ovens. I wish I had had those back when we had our business. No matter how hard you try to keep from burning yourself, it still happens.

Unbleached Muslin - you will need this to strain your liquids. This will give you the clearest jelly. Do not use chesse cloth; this will still allow tiny pieces to get in your strained liquid. One of the nice things about the muslin is that you can wash it and reuse it forever. Go to a fabric store and buy 2 yards of unbleached muslin. At home cut into pieces about 18 inches square. This is a good size to work with. Next wash the cloth 3 or 4 times without fabric softeners (you don't want your hard work to taste like fabric softners) then dry. In the last wash use a cup of vinegar in place of soap or fabric softener. This rids all the soap from your muslin. Don't use the little sheets in the dryer either.
If you are going to be giving your finest made items away as gifts you will need to make yourself a label to put on the jars. You need more than the name of the product, you need your name, and in some cases the ingredients. You want your name on the label because every time your friends eat from it they will think of you. The ingredients are a good idea as so many people have food alergies, and you don't want someone to eat something that will make them ill.

Canning, Kosher or Sea Salt. Table salt has iodine as a ingredient. Iodine can change the color of some of the things you can. It makes a bigger difference when you are putting up vegetables and pickles. The edges of the pickles can turn a dark color and not look the way you want them to. I am sure that some people will say that they have used table salt with no adverse changes in the products. All I have to say is we have not been so lucky. Some of the things we made did have brown looking edges and we were unable to sell them. It is your choice, but I would recomend sticking with the type of salt most canning books suggest.

The next item on your list should be a good cooking pot. This is a vital item in cooking. Just like a good frying pan to make fried chicken, a good jelly pot is needed. You need a pot that is strong enough and high enough. Strong in that it distributes the heat evenly and tall enough that something will not boil over. You have not really cleaned up a mess, til you try to clean spilled/burned jelly off your stove. For these two reasons, you should maybe get a bigger pot than you have just to keep down the mess. One more item that you will find that you can't work without is a jar funnel. This is a funnel that you use to keep from spilling the hot fluids. It fits the jar mouth and is wide at the top for ease of use.

A kitchen timer is vital to making good jellies. It has to be big enough to hear and see. It really helps if it is not mounted on the wall. It also has to be flexable, something that you can set for 10 minutes or set for 45 minutes. You don't have to buy a digital timer, an old fashioned one worked for us for over 15 years. The best thing is the small timers are inexpensive. It is your choice for the size and model.

Last, but not least, you need a jar lifter. It is something that you will use for many things while canning. The #1 reason is taking hot jars out of boiling water. Sometimes when you are trying to lift 8 jars out of the boiling water in your canning pot, it is too heavy. You will have to take out a couple to allow you to lift the other jars safely. Don't try this with anything else, especially tongs. You will burn yourself. Boiling water leaves a very bad burn.



Here are a couple more items you may need: A good Ladle to transfer your products from the pot to the jar, a long thin non-metalic spatula to slides into your filled jars to release any air bubbles, a kitchen scale, food brush for cleaning, large collander, a food mill, food chopper or grinder, juice extracter, a candy thermometer.




There are other items needed to make other types of canned products. I will give you another list for putting up relishes and pickles and other such items. But for now the above list will get you started.



My next blog will be about making Pepper Jelly, one of the most popular jellies we made and sold. It is also the most misunderstood. So very many people think it is scorching hot because it is red in color. I will tell you the truth about the color of pepper jelly.

Recipe #1 Apple Butter Recipe

The Austin House Apple Butter Recipe

This is the same recipe that Mary Lynn developed to make her most delicious award winning apple butters. The recipe I gave you in the first blog came from this. Later on we will make a batch the other way using fresh apples. We will cover the Apple Butter Recipe that begins; Pick a bushel of Apples.

For right now, start with 3 or 4 jars of Unsweetened Apple Sauce. Just a little bit easier. Also the equipment you need for this recipe is small compared to the other recipe. For all our canning recipes you will need either a pressure cooker or a canning pot (a large pot that you boil the jars with at least 2 inches of water above the tops. This makes them seal).

Let's get started.

A 5-6 quart Crock-Pot, the size makes a difference in quantity you can cook. Make sure you know the size of your crock-pot. We will use the crock-pot in many of our recipes, it is a valuable tool in home canning. When you are cooking in your crock-pot, it  needs to be over half full.

12 cups of apples (Unsweetened Apple Sauce)

9 cups cane sugar (I will always say cane sugar, as it works best for canning)

1/3 cup cider vinegar

3 tablespoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice

3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Mix all ingredients thoroughly before pouring into crock-pot. Cook 6 - 8 hours (varies by crock-pot)
Stir occasionally. If at the end of cooking time it seems too runny, cook 1 hour longer with the lid off.

Ladle into washed, rinsed and dried 8 ounce canning jars. Fill to within 1/2 inch from the top. This is to make sure you have an air gap between the dome and your product. Clean the rim off with a damp paper towel before you put the dome and ring on. Do this so that you get a good seal. Put on the domes that have been boiled. Then place the rings on and finger tighten, do not over tighten.

Place jars in boiling water bath with at least 2 inches of water above the jars. Boil for 10 minutes. Carefully remove the jars and set someplace where they will be allowed to cool undisturbed. Allow to cool til the next day. Then check to see if all the jars sealed. You can test by pushing down on the dome, nothing happens if it is sealed. Unsealed jars will pop back up. You have to take these jars and remove the rings and domes and replace them with a new cleaned, drained dome and reprocess.

Now the jars are ready to eat or give as gifts. A gift of something  you have made by yourself is very different from a gift that you just stopped by the store and bought. A hand-made gift is a treasure from the past.

If you have children, let them help with the cooking. If you have the same luck my Grandmother did, someday you can read their blog about how they made this with their Mother or Grandmother or whoever. Those types of memories never go away. They just get better with each telling.

The next blog will cover the tools you will need to do home canning. There will be more things needed as we progress to different types of canning.

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Can U Can It? The Begining

Before you answer NO!
Read on and see how easy it is to make something you and your family will enjoy. You will make something you can brag to all your neighbors and relatives that you cooked something the "Old Fashioned" way. Some things your grandmother and maybe your mother made will no longer be a mystery. So let's get started by me telling you a little about my self and how I qualify to be your teacher. I started home canning about the age of 5. We lived just across the backyard from my father's parents. My grandmother was one of the old-fashioned women that always got up hours before the rest of the family and made a big hot breakfast (this was before you put a couple of Pop-Tarts in the toaster and called that a hot breakfast). She always made biscuit and eggs and all the breakfast items you would have expected. For the noon meal (called dinner) she made corn bread. She made a full meal with meat and veggies and had it on the table when the grandmother clock on the mantle start to chime noon. My grandfather always had a way of pulling up before the clock stopped chiming. To top all this off, at 5PM she had another full meal (called supper) with both fresh biscuits and cornbread. This went on every day that I can remember. She was a real "Southern Housewoman", you know like the ones that you read about in all the novels. My grandmother did lots of home canning whenever there was things to put up. She canned all types of fruits and vegetables and made jellies, jams and preserves. She taught me this and I will try to pass some of this on to you. I will try to show you how to make something with methods modernized to some extent. I have tried to carry the teaching she gave me forward into my business and home life today. For almost 15 years my wife and I had a canning business that started with 4 varieties and a card table and built up to a large store/factory, an 18' trailer, an F-150 pickup and over 1500 varieties of products made the "Old Fashioned Way". We made every jar or bottle that we sold. We never worried about the products we sold because we ate it along with our whole family.

How about Apple Butter for our first recipe?
You will you will use store bought items in place of going to the orchard and picking a bushel of apples. I figured most of you would delete me at that point. The first thing to do is make a shopping list: Unsweetened Apple Sauce (make sure it is unsweetened) Cane Sugar (it makes a difference) Cider Vinegar, and these ground spices: Cinnamon, Allspice and Cloves. We will combine al these ingredients and cook in a crock pot, yes I said crock pot. You will also need 1/2 pint or pint canning jars and a canning pot, both of these are usually available at a hardware store (not warehouse). Check the size of your crock pot and make the recipe according to that size, don't to forget to account for the sugar in the volume.

For each cup apple sauce use 3/4 cup sugar. to 4 cups applesauce and 3 cups sugar add 1 Tbls cider vinegar, 1Tbls cinnamon, 1/2 Tbls allspice and 1/4 tsp cloves. Mix well and cook 6-8 hours. Check your crock pot occasionally and stir it completely, this keeps anything from sticking and also lets you know how things are going. Your house will smell unbelievably delicious. To make the apple butter thicken remove the cover for the last hour or two. When finished (when it has that dark rich color of Mahogany) put the Apple Butter in the cleaned jars, leave a 1/2 inch space an on the top for a good seal. Wipe the top and place the cleaned dome and rings on, fight tight but not to tight so it can't seal. Process the jars in a boiling water bath for a full 10 minutes. Make sure the water is at least 2 inches over the top. If you are not using a canning pot, do not set the jars on the bottom they will break. After you remove the jars set on a level spot to cool undisturbed for at least 6 hours. The jars are sealed when the dome on the top is inverted. They will be good for at least 1 -2 years, if they last that long.

How your family responds to this will make the effort well worth it. If you don't make biscuits from scratch then buy good canned biscuits, not the ones on sale, they are worth the difference in price.

Please let me know how yours turned out. Tell me what you would like to make, give me some suggestions. In future blogs I will tell you ways to use your apple butter in day-to-day cooking; it's not just for breakfast.