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We are canning everything we can find from the local veggie stands! So far it has been tomatoes, peppers, and pickles. Apples are next...

I'd love these! I've been experimenting with quick pickles all summer and would make pickled beans, cukes, carrots, radishes and try a variety of vinegars and spices.

Wide-mouth jars, and pint jars, seem to be a rarity these days! What a wonderful give-away! I've been scouring garage-sales and church bazaars for pints this season, without much luck.

I grew up canning- my father making raspberry jam, pear chutney, assorted pickles, relishes, and the like. Everything was boiling water bath and open-kettle method. These days we know better, and I've obtained not one but TWO pressure canners to accompany my BW Bath pot.

My partner and I now put by starting in early August and keep going through the winter harvests. Canning your own food is such a great way to eat locally, eat organically, and eat wisely. No longer do we purchase tinned vegetables, soups, or broths which are full of preservatives, salt, and high-fructose corn syrup.

So far this season has yielded: 3HP Mint Jelly (no dye added), 3HP Rosemary-Lemonbalm Jelly, 15HP Salmonberry-Raspberry Jam, 7.5P Bread & Butter Pickles (courtesy of my Aunt Luise's recipe), 8P Tomato Sauce, 7P Roasted Tomato and Garlic Soup, 7P Carrot-Ginger Soup, 7P Vegetable Barley Soup, and 5P Sweet Corn. Still to come should be chili, beans, pumpkin, butternut squash, applesauce, brandied pears or apples, cranberry sauce, and boiled cider.

My biggest recommendation to the young-person of today (of which I am one) is to learn this age-old craft. The Ball Blue Book is still a wonderful resource, and cheap. Putting Food By is another wonderful resource, with plenty of info on the safety aspect of canning to keep us all botulism-free. Call your extention offices, get your friends together, and start putting by! Your body (and pocketbook) with thank you!

What great timing-- Sunday is my maiden voyage in canning! I've gotten a whole bunch of advice from coworkers, and I have a big bunch of ball jars left over from when my family had bees, so I'm going to try to can some applesauce. The best advice I got (I think) was to do a "dry run" first-- to figure out where I'll put the hot jars and how I'll pick them up and then where I'll put them to get filled, etc.

If all is successful and I make it out without burns (my coworkers are rooting for me) I'm going to try canning cranberry sauce with orange peel and grand marnier next.

Been canning okra pickles, kirby and seabreeze cucumbers, mixed peppers, and escabeche since june. Been eating good and giving them away since late summer and can't wait to crack one open this winter. Ate too many tomatoes to can them and haven't had the time to pick up a case at the farmer's market, maybe next year. We would love a few more jars to work with.

I really want to start canning this year - a neighbor gave me her brilliant apple butter recipe and my mother-in-law cans an amazing fruit chutney! I also just finally started making my own tomato sauce so I want to try and can some of that with the last of the tomatoes (summer is officially over - it's starting to snow) so I have to hurry!

I have had a FoodSaver with a wide-mouth jar sealer attachment for several years now, and I have only recently started using the jar sealer-- it is awesome! I can vacuum-seal all kinds of things from raisins to chocolate chips to couscous--you name it. I also vacuum-seal fresh herbs and such, and they keep in the refrigerator much longer than if stored otherwise. And the jars are SOOO much more affordable than the FoodSaver canisters. I can't believe I've waited this long to begin using this attachment.

I have a dream... to become a domestic goddess. I want to can. I read books on canning. I have been inspired to can, but have been too scared. My mother made a wonderful corn relish and dilled green beans. I make a mean applesauce which I just freeze but I'd like to try canning it, too!

I have been coming here for a long time and never bothered to register until now because I just can't stay out of a conversation about my beloved home-art of canning. I taught myself how to can based on many good books plus extension articles on the internet. It is a great hobby. It really brings people together as you often need an extra set of hands if you are doing a lot of canning at once. My canned apple pie filling rocks, just dump it in a pie shell and bake. I have also done spiced pears, three-pepper salsa, kiwi jam, and much more. The internet is a wonderful resource for interesting recipes. It's easy and fun!

I love to can! I need to put up some more spaghetti sauce and salsa definitely. A farmer near us is to drop off some boxes of tomatoes this coming week... seconds on them he gives us.

I also need to can up some more mustard greens and turnip greens as well as zucchini rellish, and pumpkin butter. I'm pretty well set on applesauce but I do need to can some apple butter too.

I would love to win this! I need some more canning jars. I love Lehman's!! They have some of the coolest stuff!

Not to be a party pooper, but I like the narrow mouth jars for canning better for two reasons. The shoulder does a better job of keeping things like pickles submerged and the wide mouth gives you a bigger surface area of food that gets oxidized (and I usually throw that part out). With a good canning funnel (I like my stainless steel one a lot) you can fill the narrow mouth jars with liquidy stuff like tomato sauce or jam very easily. Of course, pickles are a little trickier!

Lehman's sells a great rack for boiling your lids that even my mum (an old canning pro) fell in love with. It's worth it! Those little buggers love to stick together and then spill boiling water all over you while you're trying to lid your jar.

Before we moved away from Oregon we canned raspberry, raspberry rose, blackberry, loganberry, loganberry jasmine, purple raspberry, and boysenberry jam for the long cold Wisconsin winter that faces us. Once we got here we managed to can a box of tomatoes turned into sauce too. Preserving local and bountiful food to eat during the scarcer months is always a great idea.

happy canning everyone,
trillium

Laura @ Laura Williams' Musings wins (thank you, Random.org!) - we look forward to photos and tips on her spaghetti sauce, salsa, mustard greens, turnip greens, zucchini relish, pumpkin butter and apple butter. Congratulations, Laura!

Thank you!!!