lilshadow - last summer was my first foray into canning and, weirdly, I love it! My friends think I'm bizarre.
I was intimidated, too, so stuck to simple things: dilly grean bean pickles, jams, tomatoes, peaches, etc.
Get a good book on canning from the library. Anything from Ball is good. I recently picked up the "Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving ". It's great!! I've gotten lots & lots of ideas out of it.
Follow directions EXACTLY, and before you know it, you'll have a cupboard filled with things that you put up on your own.
My goal this summer was to put up one thing a week. There were weeks I put up 2-3 things and others when I did nothing. I guess it's evened out.
I got most of my jars at Goodwill and at a barn sale. I try not to buy jars at retail prices b/c they're around $8/doz. It's hard to find things much smaller than a quart at the Goodwill but it can be done. After canning last summer I started to get a sense over the winter of what needed to be in what size. Tomatoes & pickles need to be canned by the quart b/c we go through them like crazy. Peaches in pints, jams in 1/2 pints. This is the first time I've canned cobbler & pie fillings, which I'll use in small quantities (I think) for mini-desserts. I canned those in 1 quart & 2 pint jars/batch, so that I'd have some for company & some for us (only 2 people in my household).
I was intimidated, too, so stuck to simple things: dilly grean bean pickles, jams, tomatoes, peaches, etc.
Get a good book on canning from the library. Anything from Ball is good. I recently picked up the "Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving ". It's great!! I've gotten lots & lots of ideas out of it.
Follow directions EXACTLY, and before you know it, you'll have a cupboard filled with things that you put up on your own.
My goal this summer was to put up one thing a week. There were weeks I put up 2-3 things and others when I did nothing. I guess it's evened out.
I got most of my jars at Goodwill and at a barn sale. I try not to buy jars at retail prices b/c they're around $8/doz. It's hard to find things much smaller than a quart at the Goodwill but it can be done. After canning last summer I started to get a sense over the winter of what needed to be in what size. Tomatoes & pickles need to be canned by the quart b/c we go through them like crazy. Peaches in pints, jams in 1/2 pints. This is the first time I've canned cobbler & pie fillings, which I'll use in small quantities (I think) for mini-desserts. I canned those in 1 quart & 2 pint jars/batch, so that I'd have some for company & some for us (only 2 people in my household).
