I don't know about you, but I love all the fresh produce that nature provides throughout the summer months! It's always a little sad when you know the growing season is coming to an end as the days get shorter and the air grows cooler. But along with that comes the wonderful days of Fall so you make do.
One of the main goals that Hubbs and I have, is to become as self sufficient as possible, this means a nice big garden in the summer that produces enough produce to store through the winter.
So for my birthday this year my dear sweet man got me a pressure cooker and a ton of Mason jars.
It may sound like a boring gift (way better then a vacuum, depending on the vacuum) but I was thrilled. I have never before used a pressure cooker, not really much of a using the kitchen person, needless to say I was a bit intimidated.
Luckily for me my neighbor girl is a Domestic Goddess and was willing to come over and give me a good canning lesson. Seriously this woman is amazing and I strive to one day be as efficient in the kitchen as she is. Her pantry is filled to the brim with tons of canned produce that she does throughout the year, and there is always home made jams in her fridge. Thankfully I get the extra bounty!
Really the whole thing was pretty easy, just a little time consuming so while we waited for the HUGE pressure cooker filled up with water and cans to get to almost boiling the neighbor and myself indulged in some coffee and left over Birthday cake =) YUM!
Once we finished stuffing our fresh peaches in their cans and filled them up with Welches white grape juice ( great preservative) all I had to do was put the lids on and wait for them to seal while cooling.
I feel pretty comfortable with my canning experience so maybe next time I will venture to can more than two things of peaches. What can I say, I started small but now I'm itching to stock the pantry with tons more gleaming cans filled with summers goodness.
*Angela*
They're beautiful!
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