Our Little Piece of Heaven

"YOU DON'T HAVE A GARDEN JUST FOR YOURSELF. YOU HAVE IT TO SHARE." Augusta Carter







Saturday, July 14, 2012

NATIONAL CAN IT FOWARD DAY! YOU CAN CAN!

Happy "National Can It Forward Day!"  I was very busy on this special day of celebration!  If you haven't ever tried canning and preserving your own fruits and vegetables, I will tell you one thing, "YOU CAN CAN!"  It is an amazing way to use the extra fruits and veggies you cannot eat and is absolutely awesome to be able to enjoy these foods in the winter, when the garden is covered in snow!

I purchased this very handy new Discovery Set that Ball offers, and it is amazing for small batch canning and has all the items you need (except for pectin and fruit) to create a "canning masterpiece"!  Ball has really created a unique product to get people to give canning a try!  I highly recommend this product for beginners and small batch canners as well!






Today in the kitchen I made:  Traditional Salsa (A special thanks to my husband for helping me dice up all the onions and tomatoes that I needed), Cherry Preserves, more Strawberry Preserves, Kosher Dill Pickles, and Jalapeno Jelly!

For those of you who have never tried Jalapeno Jelly, I know it sounds a bit bazaar, but it is really good!  You can take a cracker, a bit of cream cheese, and then top it with some Jalapeno Jelly!  Yum! Yum!

Happy National Can It Forward Day!
Mindy

9 comments:

  1. Wow! You have been busy! That is a lot of work, and it looks awesome... I do jellies mostly, and I make the jalapeño jelly and I love it do you use a bit of sweet peppers with the jalapeños too? I am a bit intimidated with dill pickles though and salsa too.. You must try rosemary jelly and basil jelly.. My next experiment is chamomile jelly...

    Well, the picture says a thousand words!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I have been a bit busy! I enjoyed every minute of it though! I really get motivated to do it when I read in the media about how expensive everything is going to be due to all the drought, etc. we have been having! The jalapeno jelly recipe I made does not call for sweet peppers, however, I did see some recipes that did! You should definitely try pickles, they are so easy to do! I purchased some Ball Pickle crunch granules and will be trying those soon! Rosemary jelly and basil jelly - oh my - never heard of them, but will have to check them out! Good luck with the chamomile jelly, let me know how it goes! Happy jelly making and gardening! Mindy

      Delete
  2. Still waiting for a big enough harvest...then I will give it a try :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wish I had your store cupboard. I have a lot of empty jars and nothing to put in them and Jalapeno jelly sounds delicious. Well done on getting your husband to dice the onions!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hopefully you'll have some great harvests soon and will be able to do some canning yourself! Happy Gardening! Mindy

    ReplyDelete
  5. I just love pepper jelly! Your garden is beautiful. What are the pink flowers at the bottom left?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love the pepper jelly too! Thank you very much! At the top of the page, the in the picture of my pond, the pink flowers are daylilies. They are a really great flower to plant for super color and more and more shoots each year. They can be divided after 2 to 3 years and then you end up with more plants to plant elsewhere or give away! Really neat! Thanks for visiting my blog! Mindy

    ReplyDelete
  7. I thought pepper jelly was bizarre until I tasted it. Then, I must have gained ten pounds after I canned some for the first time. Cracker, cream cheese, and jelly has often been my dinner or lunch. Okay, sometimes I had it for breakfast!

    ReplyDelete