Canning

Yesterday I spent the day canning at Holly's house. It shouldn't have taken all day to can 18 jars, but it did. Kids do that for you I guess. It brought back so many fond? memories of being a kid and helping out canning peaches, pears, tomatoes, etc... While preparing for the day I was getting some jars out of the basement. There are 2 large storage rooms, one has mostly food storage, toys, and lots of empty canning jars. So I brought some jars up. Today while putting the new jars of peaches away I realized that the shelves containing canning jars were in a major need of an overhaul. Rich and I went to work. (Don't you love it when your spouse so graciously 'volunteers' his time to help you with your random-needs-to-be-done-now projects?) We took all of the jars off the shelf, sorted through them, and put them all back again in only a matter of 2 hours. Now the shelves look awesome! There are rows of wide mouth 'Ball' jars and rows of small mouth 'Kerr' jars and everything in between. We did, however, toss all the old mayonnaise and spaghetti jars that had been used or saved for canning. That part was fun for Rich becayuse he got to smash them all. We didn't think they would be needed or missed. Sorry Mom, we didn't ask... But now our few jars of peaches look out of place among all the empty jars. It made me catch a 'want to can' bug. Will I, probably not this year. But Holly and I do have plans to do more peaches. And I have to count the 28 jars of strawberry jam down there that I did last month

But that's another story.

I bought strawberries for an event Rich was having at the office, and I bought 3 flats! Way too many! So I was left with about 2 1/2 flats. I had to use them, thought about freezing them, but already have lots of frozen strawberries. So, I made jam. Sophie was a great helper. She helped me measure the sugar, and stir the pot. Peter was good at pushing the buttons on the blender to help me puree the strawberries. I don't like chunky strawberry jam, I like it smooth. We were trying to conserve the air conditioning, and it was so hot in the house that day. I had a fan blowing on me in the kitchen. When Rich came home he noticed that it was over 85', so we turned on the air. I was so grateful! I hadn't realized it was that hot in the house!! But now we are enjoying eating the yummy strawberry jam on everything!