Food preservation. I love it. Dehydrating, canning, fermenting and more: all totally awesome.
But i must admit: in late spring/early summer, most of my time is spent keeping animals alive, butchering animals when they’re ready, keeping plants alive, and harvesting plants when they’re ready…… Not a ton of time for preserving the harvest. Yet. My garden is also in a short season zone, so the bulk of cannable items aren’t yet ready. All of these excuses are why I am not yet ready for Can It Forward Day – but you can be!
The old ‘Ball Blue Book” is a solid staple for referencing recipes and techniques for canning. It belongs in every homesteader’s pantry. This year Ball released an even ‘awesomer’ book: The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving has more than just canning recipes and processing times, this new book has recipes for making things WITH the jams and sauces you preserve. It also covers the basics of fermenting, curing meats, dehydrating and both pressure and water bath canning. It’s also a really pretty book – great for a coffee table.
There were so many fermented and tomato based recipes i wanted to try – but tomatoes are at least another month away for me. So i decided to can some blueberry/lemon zest jam with blueberries from a neighbor’s farm and lemon zest i froze last winter. Sounds yummy, right? Sadly i began the recipe without checking my supplies and gave up after discovering i’d run out of both sugar AND liquid pectin.
Fail.
The nephew enjoyed my ‘muddled blueberies’ on french toast at least! I swear, that is the face of enjoyment.
So, who wants to tackle food preservation this summer – now or later when you have more time and bounty? You, i hope!
To encourage you to ‘can-it-forward’ and enjoy the flavors of summer all year long, i am offering some incentives 
- Head over to the Freshly Preserved Ideas Tumblr page and sign a pledge to can it forward this year! This will get you a $5.00 coupon to spend in the Fresh Preserving store (tons of cool stuff there!)
- Friday, July 22nd, the Ball brand will host this year’s sixth annual Can-It-Forward Day! A day to celebrate the joys of fresh preserving, and encourage both new and veteran canners to preserve more, they’ve planned for a truly unique experience for 2016 with a real emphasis on “canning it forward.” This year, Can-It-Forward Day will be entirely online via Facebook Live. Throughout the day, the Ball brand and their expert ambassadors will be demoing a variety of canning recipes and in the true spirit of “canning it forward,” for every engagement received on the videos, whether it be a comment, like or share, the brand donate $1 to a local charity. Get inspired!
- I’m hosting a giveaway! Get a Case of the new BLUE Wide Mouth Pint Jars: a copy of the new book and a $5.00 coupon towards Ball jars or lids!
HOW TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY:
- Share this post with your friends – the more folks we can encourage to can the better! Share by email, facebook, twitter, whatever – comment on this blog post letting me know how you shared it and what you hope to preserve this year.
- Like my Facebook page and post a comment tagging a friend. Again post what you’d like to preserve this year, of a photo of what you preserved last year.
I will choose a winner by randomly picking one of the comments on July 22nd. Good luck, and happy canning/dehydrating/smoking/curing/fermenting/freezing!
I, too, have a canning ‘misstep’ from my first- and last- attempt at pickles! I made lovely jars of pickles one summer and was so proud that I shared a few jars with family. Only to have the jars turn weirdly icky a week later. I opened one only to realize I had somehow left out the vinegar! I had to round up all the gifted pickles and admit my silly mistake! But I still can and freeze and dehydrate: the corgis love dehydrated chicken breast and i love the savings! Gonna email your blog to friends who I think might be interested!
that is such a funny story, Ellen. yikes!
Miranda recently posted…My Canning Fail – Your Planned Success!
shared by email!