The ONLY preserves recipe you'll ever need!

If you're interested in making preserves, you've came to the right place! This is like a beginner's crash course in making preserves! I'm going to keep it short, but jump right in about what you need to know BEFORE you start making preserves, and then I'll follow up by putting my tried and true reciepes at the bottom :)

What you should know:

Don't think you're going to accomplish everything in ONE day. It literally took my husband, grandmother and I an entire day to make 3 jars of jam, and then all of our peaches and pears (which is in the sugar syrup). 3 jars of jam doesn't seem like a lot, but I didn't buy enough strawberries, and the recipe I'm putting below is for 7 cups of jam (which is about 3 mason jars). You can double, triple, or quadrupil the recipe if you want, but I prefer working with small amounts. I find they're easier to handle and they're not as heavy to move.

When buying your fruit, buy fresh (or hand picked), and buy what's in season. Don't expect to make blueberry jam at the beginning of summer when it comes in season towards the end!!

Go slow. Don't rush...when you rush, you make mistakes, and one small mistake can and will spoil an entire batch. Learned the hard way a few years ago when we first started doing this...and it ended with fermented preserved peach....disgustingness.

Prepare your jars WHILE you're cooking. Whether you're boiling your jars, or using the dishwasher, do this WHILE you're cooking and preparing your preserves. If your jar cools down before you're ready to use them, don't worry! Put a metal butter knife IN your jar before your pour in your jams, jellies, or syrups! The knife will apparently absorb all of the heat ensuring that your jar doesn't crack or bust!

The lids from the mason jars should ALWAYS be boiled. The rings can go into the dishwasher, but the middle circle should be boiled in a small pot of water. This year, after the lids were boiling in the pot, I kept the burner on low to keep it warm.

When you're done your canning and have all of your lids and caps on, if you decided not to use Paraffin wax, DON'T WORRY!! Turn your jars onto their lids and let them cool completely that way. Sounds weird, but while the sugar is cooling, it's going to make it's own sugar seal around the jar keeping air out and your fruit and jams from spoiling!

Use Liquid Pectin. I've used powdered pectin SOOO many times in the past, and it's not BAD or anything like that, I just like the result better when I use the liquid pouches of pectin. I feel like my jams...jellify a lot better than with the powder packages. My opinion, but I'm nit picky when it comes to jams I suppose!

HAVE FUN!!! If you can get 2 or 3 friends together to do this, or make it a family event, Go for it!! Life is nothing if you can't have fun, and the more fun you have, the more you're going to want to do it next year!


Here's my SUPER SIMPLE recipes for homemade jam, and canned peaches and pears :)

Strawberry Jam (for about 7 cups)
3 and 3/4 cups strawberries (hulled and crushed...hulled is just taking off the stems, and use a potato smasher to crush them!!)

1/4 cup lemon juice

7 cups granulated sugar

1 pouch Liquid Pectin


In a large saucepan, combine fruit, sugar, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil on high heat and let boil hard (rolling boil) for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in pectin. Stir and skim (taking off all of the pink foam from the top) for about 5 minutes to enture that jam is fully combined and no peices of fruit is floating at the top.

Pour into warm mason jars, fill it until it's about 1/4 inch from the top. Let cool down until it's cool enough to handle the jar (without burning yourself), and turn over the jar to make sugar seal.


Peaches and Pears in Syrup 
3 and 1/4 cups white sugar

5 cups of water

Bring water and sugar to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Reduce heat to low, and keep warm until ready to use. DO NOT boil the syrup down too much. If your syrup get's too thick, it'll be hard to work with and won't taste the same as just a light simple syrup.

Cut the fruit (peaches and pears), and place in jars BEFORE you put the syrup in, leaving about an inch of space from the top. Ladle syrup into the fruit filled jars until fruit is completely covered. Put on tops, and turn over immediately to ensure a good sugar seal.




 

First day of school

It's the first day of school for my Bean, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only mother that didn't cry. It's not that I'm not an emotional person (yesterday I cried over the fact that he wouldn't clean his room...), but I was more excited FOR him to experience new things than for me to send off my first born offspring to school.

The journey begins...

Every adventure film I've ever seen as a child had those 3 exciting words. You somehow just new that when those words were either said or shown on the screen of our televisions, it was going to be an amazing movie that you'd talk about for weeks to come. I never knew those words could mean so much... In true movie buff/corny mother form, I looked at my 5 year old while we were sitting in the car waiting to go in,and told him the simple three words that got me excited when I was his age...and then I watched. I watched as my little bird puffed his chest out proud. I watched as the excitement glossed over in his eyes, and a smile plastered on his face...then it was time.

The walk to the classroom felt like it took one second, and I watched the hustle and bustle of other students hanging their stuff, parents helping them, parents taking pictures of their kindergarteners, proud yet teary eyed....I helped my not so baby boy take off his sweater, revealing his new Star Wars t-shirt that he picked out himself. I helped him take off his outdoor shoes and out on indoor shoes. I helped him to put his lunch box, and bottle of juice in the appropriate location and then I watched....

I watched him find his name tag, and find his assigned seat. I watched him colour the page already set on the tables, and I watched him get right to work filling the page with colours.

And just as it began to feel ok....he looked at me with big round smiling brown eyes and said 5 words....

"You can go now Mom..."

Shocked at how my 5 year old turned into a mini-teenager, I told him I'd be there to pick him up at 1:30 and I left. I left feeling happy, sad, proud. I left and my mind flooded with memories of his first word, and his first steps. Memories of the years before, and how we far we've come. I left confidently knowing that there wasn't anything in school that I haven't already taught him. I left knowing he was probably going to pick out the words he already knew during story time, and how he would drive the teacher insane with his interrupting, and comments.

I got into my car and thought for two seconds "what if he needs me?" I smiled at the thought of him sitting there, and the troublesome thought of him needing me quickly left my mind. I debated on getting coffee, picking up something for supper, how my grandmother was doing, how my grandfather was making out waiting for her. I debated, but I ultimately went home empty handed.

I came in to an even bigger shock,  my youngest child, 2 years of age, hadn't made a mess. I wondered if she was sick, but cleaned what wasn't already clean, started the dishwasher, and put a ham in a pot to boil for supper. As I finished up, and sat down on the couch with some tea my mind began to wander once again... "Is this what it feels like to only have one kid?" "What do people with only one child do?" "Will it be raining all day?" Silly thoughts trying to pass the time...trying to make time fly by so it's finally time to pick up my oldest so I get the familiar feeling of having two kids again. It's amazing how slow time goes when you want it to fly by.

I never actually thought about how independent my daughter was until today. I feel unneeded. Almost   Unnatural. It just doesn't feel right, I feel like someone had taken me to the centre of the earth and forgotten. As I calm my tired, worriness that doesn't make sense even to me I can only think one thing...

"This is the NEW normal."

I set my son off on an incredible journey, and cannot wait to hear all about his adventures. Adventures of every subject, math, music, reading. Adventures of lunch, and about who are what and what hilarious joke that other kid told. So many adventures....waiting to be experienced...and I'm so excited for him to experience everything. I didn't cry, I barely teared up. I'm excited for him to experience life as an adventure, something I've forgotten how to do...and try to remember how old I was when I stopped treating my life like an adventure. I wish I could turn back time and figure out when....but instead, I'd much rather watch him.

I hope he never looses his excitement. Excitement for life and for adventure.