Canning Season Has Arrived

Summer is in just hitting it's stride with the growing season and the fruits of summer are starting to come in.  At the farmer's market this week, there was an abundance of apricots at the fruit booths, so I decided on a whim to make some apricot jam and invested $24 into seven pounds of ripe, fresh picked apricots.

Once home, I got busy setting up for a canning session.  I put a large pot of water on to boil and filled it with eight half pint jam jars and their lids.  While that was heating, we worked on getting all of the apricots pitted and chopped and into a large saucepan.  I was making old fashioned apricot jam with no pectin, so the only other things that went into the jam was a good amount of sugar and a few tablespoons of lemon juice.  I started heating it all together and mixing it on the stove.  Once the mixture started to boil I kept an eye on it and let it cook down and thicken.  Once it seem to be thick enough, I tested the jam on a cold spoon from the freezer.  When it reached the thickness where it wouldn't run off the cold spoon I knew it was time to fill the jars.

The recipe called for eight cups of apricots, six cups of sugar and four tablespoons of lemon juice.  The apricots I bought were enough for two batches of 8 half pints each, so the cost to me comes out to a little over $1.50 per jar, though the sugar, lemon juice and jars were things that I already had on hand.  Not too pricey for knowing what went into it and knowing that it was made the freshest way possible.

Next on my canning agenda is to make a batch of strawberry jam, canned peaches in syrup, and plum jelly when those fruits come into season.  I know that this is just the beginning and from the looks of my garden it is going to be a busy year for salsa, pickles and tomato sauce too.  I had better take stock of my jar collection and invest in some new lids and probably some more jars as well.  So far I am off to a good start on my winter food stores.