Growing up we would spend part of our summers in rural Virginia at my grandparents house. I think the road leading up to their house was a dirt road and wasn’t paved until we were in high school. It was such a small town that we would actually make the local paper that we were visiting from Chicago! The neighborhood kids would ask us the weirdest questions about Chicago. I guess if you’ve lived your whole life in a town of 500, Chicago can sound like an exotic location! They would ask us if we had trees and grass. Or if there were mobsters on every street corner. They would ask us to say certain words because of our “accents.”
My grandma had grape vines. I am sure they weren’t as big as my childhood memory is making them, but one of my favorite things to do would be to pull the ripe grapes off the vines, suck all the sweetness in my mouth and throw away the skin. I’d make myself sick I ate so many grapes! But that’s the first memory I have of canning. Watching my Mom and grandpa squeeze the grapes, then hang them in cheese cloth (maybe overnight?) in order to make grape jelly and can it. Every time I eat grape jelly I think of my grandma!
So when I was approached to talk about Can it Forward Day – I was thrilled. Because check out the new canning product they are sending me!
The Ball® FreshTECH Automatic Home Canning System is all about taking the guesswork out of canning. It’s made with SmartPRESERVE™ technology, a suite of sensors that control the time and temperature needed to can popular Ball® recipes all on its own. These recipes are preprogrammed into the appliance, so we can guarantee your food will be perfectly preserved every time!
I cannot wait to try this product. Right now I do a water boiling method in a giant stock pot. It can literally take me an afternoon to can half a dozen jars of salsa. The fact that I can just set it and forget it is amazing!
On August 16 you can check out “A day to celebrate home canning, International Can-It-Forward Day allows food enthusiasts to connect via a variety of online and in-person activities. New and experienced canners can participate in a live webcast on www.freshpreserving.com, taking place on ground in Brooklyn Borough Hall Farmers Market, filled with canning demos where viewer questions will be answered in real-time by Chef Acheson and other experts while they learn the most popular (and delicious) home canning recipes. Twenty five farmers markets across the country will also be hosting Can-It-Forward Day celebrations! In addition to the canning demos, there will be segments on crafting, herb gardening and the brand’s new drinkware line. We will also be attempting a Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Mason Jar Mosaic.”
And because they are so generous – they are offering two products to give away!
· The Ball Canning Discovery Kit (one for giveaway): A kit designed to demystify the home canning process and make fresh preserving accessible for even the most novice canner(Retail value $11.99)
· The New Limited Edition Spring Green Heritage Collection Jars (2 cases for review, 2 cases for giveaway): These limited edition jars commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the Ball brothers’ “Perfection” Jar and come in a beautiful green tint. These are being produced only in 2014 and are available in both pint and quart varieties. We would offer a case of each size for review and also for giveaway. (Pint retail value: $9.99 per case/ Quart retail value $12.99 per case)
All you have to do is leave a comment telling me a canning memory, or your favorite canned product given to you by a family member or friend. I’ll choose random winners on August 16 – the International Can It Forward Day!
When I was a kid my mom, who is no longer with us 🙁 would send my brother and I out to our back yard where we had wild blackberries and rasberries and we would pick and pick and pick. Then my mom always made jam and we would give it as Christmas presents and eat it ourselves all year. I never realized how spoiled I was and back then I looked forward to when school had PB &J because they used that store bought grape jelly!!! She used to put wax on the top which we would pop out and save and use to wax our sleds int he winter!! Great memoris, so glad you ahve the bell jar giveaway!
My grandmother made the most delicious peach jam EVER. Kind of miss that old lady!
Pickles, peaches, green beans……..my mom and gramma use to can EVERYTHING!!! I loved seeing the jars lined up, so pretty!!
My memory of canning is one year when we were living in our first house and Charlie (your brother) decided to start his own garden so he could can spaghetti sauce and salsa. The spaghetti sauce canning went great, but the salsa was a different story. Charlie forgot to put on gloves when handling the hot jalapenos. His hands were burning from the jalapeno seeds and the fumes (or whatever you call it) also permeated the house so much that it stung my eyes. I had to go into our bedroom and shut the door it was so bad. This was also when I was pregnant with Sarah. Charlie might remember this story differently!
My fav canning memory is smushing strawberries with the potato masher to “help” my mom make strawberry jam when I was a kid. 🙂
I canned for the first time last year. It still scares me! Therefore I freeze most of my stuff. But if I had this system….. it would be different!
My earliest canning memory I was about 8 and my mom canned for the first time. First we went apricot picking. Then she canned apricot jam and it took all day at a friends. Later we ate apricot jam for over two years everyday. I still don’t care for apricot jam 🙂
I’ve never had a canning memory! Isn’t that crazy! I am not sure if either of my grandmothers ever canned anything, and I sure as hell know my mom didnt! 🙂 How great that you have those memories! I’d love to make some one day. 🙂 <3 PS in your post about your panini at work with no butter…. THAT PLATE IS DARLING. 🙂
I love mason jars but in my house, I don’t can with them, I use them for drinking glasses, and grain, bean, and baking supply storage. They work great. My favorite canned items are my grandmas applesauce and my friends homemade grape jelly. I am too chicken to can anything myself yet!
My favorite memory is going to the farmers market for the first time and seeing all the beautiful canned pickles, tomatoes, peaches! Homemade canned products taste so amazing compared to factory processed.
The only time I canned salsa, I used peppers a neighbor gave me from his garden. I didn’t wear gloves. And ended up with chemical burns completely covering my hands and lower arms. I spent a LOT of time in the next week with ice packs on both hands. The salsa was great, and I now wear gloves when I handle peppers. And I will never make salsa again. Ever.
My first time canning was quite the experience. I had a brand new baby at the time and I had strapped him into his baby sling and we set out to pick a bunch of blackberries. Once we were home and he was fed and changed, I placed him in his bouncy seat while I worked on the jelly. Just as I was about to start ladling hot jelly into the prepared jars, I heard an explosion and my baby started to cry. So I stopped what I was doing and picked him up only to find that the explosion I heard was a major diaper blowout, completely up his back and all over his bouncy seat. He’s 18 years old now and every year when I’m canning jelly I think about that first time.
Oh yes! Spent many summers in my Granny’s kitchen helping with canning! Wish I had those days back again! I do my canning in a big ole pot of boiling water. lol Nothing like strawberry fig jam on a hot biscuit!! 😀
nothing beats homemade salsa! Love trading our versions with friends.
When I was a child, one of my favorite memories was of my mom making wild plum jelly. It was do sweet and tart at the same time. It seems like we would spend the whole day in that kitchen laughing and talking. Of course I was so excited because I was getting to help! What I would give to just spend one more day in that kitchen with her!
I used to can tomatoes with my mother in New Orleans when I was a kid. Louisiana tomatoes are specially good and I remember it fondly. I’ve only been canning myself for a few years, making mostly jam.
My mom and grandmother use to always can jams and the BEST bread & butter pickles (so sad when we used the last jar)..still haven’t figured out the recipe they used 🙁
My favorite canning memory is helping my mom snap and cut green beans in preparation for canning when I was really little.
I love canning! My first canning adventure was a few years ago when I had my first garden, and I remember how proud my Grandma was of me! I miss her so much! Pickles are probably my favorite thing to make/can and that canning system looks awesome! I will put it on my wishlist 🙂 (The jars sound really cool!)
My one and only canning story is from when my friends’ (two sisters) mom left her daughters to mind the jars of peaches she had in a big pot of boiling water on the stove. All I recall is coming back into the kitchen to find peaches everywhere. But that doesn’t deter me from wanting to learn to can, especially salsa!