Can-It-Forward Recap

Last Saturday was National Can-It-Forward Day, a day to spread the fun and value of home canning. Erik and I had our own little party and taught two of our friends the art and science. There was gabbing, a few glasses of wine, and plenty of boiling water. This was the first time I had every canned with people and it was a blast!! A lot of canning is sitting around waiting for the pot to boil or meditatively peeling tomatoes, which I appreciate for its mind-centering qualities, but it was a hoot to sit around our kitchen island with a couple of ladies and gossip/discuss/debate the events of the day.

We made two recipes, neither of which I’ll repeat here, because we made them both just as published. First, whole tomatoes, the workhorse of the canning world. The recipe said that we’d get 7 quarts out of 21 pounds of tomatoes, but it only took us about 18 pounds to get there. Heavy tomatoes? Overly gentle packing? I don’t know. The rest became tomato and cashew chutney from Canning for a New Generation the next day.

Since the tomatoes need to process for 45 minutes, we whipped up a batch of Blueberry Lime Jam. Yes, really whipped up. It was almost no work at all. It took about 35 minutes at a hard boil to get the gel point, but this will depend on your particular conditions. We got 12 quarter-pints (4 ounces) plus a tiny little bit in the refrigerator that I think Erik has eaten already. It was his favorite jam last year.

What’s on deck in my canning calendar? Peaches peaches peaches this weekend then a crazy tomato canning extravaganza (120+ pounds) over Labor Day weekend. Peaches and tomatoes were the big winners last year, but, unfortunately, they show up at the same time and often require peeling. This makes August and September a little busier than I would like, but it’s worth it.

Happy canning!