Looking to learn more about how to can frozen fruit for the February Community Canning Challenge? Continue reading for some helpful advice! The February Community Canning Challenge is to gather up your frozen fruit and get it out of the deep freeze and transform it into something that is delicious and ready to use. I’m ..read more

This recipe for Health Salad is my own entry in this month’s Community Canning Challenge. We are focusing on ways to preserve brassicas and root vegetables this month. For more information on the challenge, click here. To chat with other participants about what we’ve all made, you can either subscribe to my Substack (all challenge ..read more

Hello friends! This post is here to help give you some ideas about how you might participate in this month’s Brassicas and Root Vegetables Community Canning Challenge. If you missed the introductory post last week, you can find it here. Sign up to participate using this form, and join me over at Substack (all challenge ..read more

Hello friends! It has been a VERY long time since I’ve shown my face around these parts. But with the start of the new year, it is time to shake the dust off, pull my brain back together and get back to the business of canning and making connections with all of you. Enter the ..read more

This three ingredient fig jam is designed for canning and uses just fresh figs, sugar, and lemon juice. It’s bright, flavorful, and so easy to make. If you find yourself awash in figs every year, keep this recipe handy! Hello friends! I realize that it has been an absolute age (more than a year!) since I’ve posted anything new here. I have desperately missed sharing my canning practice with all of you, and while I can’t promise anything like my old regularity, I very much want to show up here more often. So let’s dig back in. I’m kicking my triumphant return off with a recipe for the simples ..read more

Looking for a sugar free peach jam recipe that is spreadable, satisfying, and bursting with summer fruit flavor? You’ve found it! This post is sponsored by Mrs. Wages. For years and years, there have been a subset of people who have written to ask me about making jam with sugar substitutes. I tried a handful of times with stevia and monkfruit, but I never liked the results enough to share them here. But the folks from Mrs. Wages recently sent me a box of mixes and pectins that included a couple packets of their Sugar Free Fruit Pectin Home Jell and I was inspired to try again. This time, I t ..read more

It’s hard to believe, but the first time I partnered with Fillmore Container was nearly ten years ago. Over the last decade, I’ve teamed up with them a number of times to offer giveaways, product reviews, and even in-person classes. Today, I’m delighted to be working with them again to offer up $100 credit for their online store to one lucky winner. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Fillmore Container, they are a family-owned container and closure distributor based in Lancaster, PA. They work with commercial producers and home canners alike and offer a hugely vast assortment of jars ..read more

I get a lot of emails every summer (particularly during peach season) from people who have canned fruit for the first time and they’re wondering if their sealed jars are safe to be tucked away on the shelf. The reason they’re worried? The finished jars are sticky on the outside. Friends, this is an entirely normal thing to experience when canning fruit in liquid like syrup, juice, or water. Raw or lightly cooked fruit flesh contains air. During the canning process, that air escapes from the fruit and pushes its way out of the jar (this is why we only tighten the canning rings to finger tip ti ..read more

Hello friends! Goodness, it sure has been a long time, hasn’t it. Between the pandemic, parenting, and burnout from all those sponsored posts last year, I forgot how to show up here. But after a little break, and the blessed addition of a regular babysitter, I’m finding myself itching to reclaim my identity and role as a canning blogger/writer/teacher. I knew it was time to get back to work when I started composing blog posts and recipe headnotes in my dreams. Part of my motivation in returning to this space is that I’m seeing a big uptick in people looking to learn how to can. And I get tha ..read more

Strawberry hibiscus butter. Smooth and spreadable, this low sugar preserve gets an added boost of color and brightness from the dried hibiscus blossoms. We are smack in the midst of strawberry season here in the Philadelphia region. I picked up a flat on Saturday and the boys and I (they are nearly three years old!) met some friends out in Bucks County yesterday for a round of picking. I am still trying to find my way back to the blog after a quiet winter and spring, so while I dust off my rusty recipe development skills, I thought it would be nice to share this recipe for strawberry hibiscus ..read more