Home Cannery

So lovely to see the Caramel Apple Jelly and Apple-Pear Jam stacking up.

I've been shirking my web updates, but, I assure you, not my home cookery. This season, I decided to test out a recipe that's pretty common here in Kansas, the apple jelly. I've never made it before, and I won't presume to tell you how to proceed — I'm pretty new to canning and prefer to keep the directions handy and my mom on speed-dial. But I will tell you that I'm pleased with the results. It's like I was born on the prairie.

Next time, I will keep an eye out for apples that are larger, as peeling hundreds of the tiny ones took up the majority of my time. Thank you to Pome on the Range, a neighboring farmers market vendor, for the gorgeous apples. If you're in the area, they also have scads of the best Honey Crisp apples around for sale at their store.

It looks pretty neat right now, which is how you can tell I'm between things.

A full day's work for me, though the magazines seemed to think it takes only
two hours to produce eight jars of jam. I am clearly a beginner.

The remainder of my bushel of apples after 12 jars of jam and jelly,
myriad caramel apples, and eight quarts of applesauce. Oy vey.

Aside from the apples, I canned pizza sauce and tomato soup using tomatoes from my garden. They turned out lovely — we had a soup test run because it smelled amazing —, and I'm excited to have fresh, yummy things any time I want. Also ready to go this winter, butternut squash puree and creamed corn, thanks to the end of this year's farmers market freeing up some of my freezer space, though I still plan to cram the rest of it with bread. Mmmm, fall.