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Best Summer Blog Posts

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Summertime is fun time and these summer blog posts will take you from homemade crafts to the kitchen, to identifying wildflowers to the right way to cut off shorts, and to making delicious homemade drinks. Read on for the best summer blog posts!

7 Summer Blog Posts from The Domestic Wildflower | Homemade food & craft ideas and recipes to take you through summer!

Free Canning Basics Blog Post

When I started canning, this was the part that caused me the most grief. A good cookbook is a helpful start, but there’s no way for it to SHOW you what happens when. There’s no shame in admitting that, hey, you don’t really cook all that often and having 3 pots going on the stove at once is kind of overwhelming. Really, no shame from this girl. I am here to tell you (and explain, in detail in the course) that canning is WAY LESS COMPLICATED than cooking a big family dinner.

I always say that I’d rather can every single day than cook Thanksgiving dinner once. The basics course teaches you what is supposed to happen when and how to be efficient with your time at the stove.

Free Canning Basics Course

How To Cut Off Shorts

There are a few tricks to making perfect cutoffs that I will share with you here. I hope the next time you wear the knees out of your favorites or score some secondhand jeans that are too short the way I just did, you can spend a few minutes cutting them off the right way to wear all summer long

Pickled Bread and Butter Jalapeños

This post will share a recipe for pickled bread and butter jalapeños and a few clever techniques for keeping your sweet and sour pickles crisp and delicious.

I don’t can a lot of pickles. I also don’t can much that is very spicy, either. As you learn more about canning and develop the set of recipes you enjoy making and your loved ones enjoy eating, you will too find that there are some foods you can over and over and others you don’t end up trying.

Sidewalk Paint

Not only is sidewalk paint an easy, fun, fast, creative, and inexpensive outdoor activity for kids, but it is actually a really pretty medium that is beautiful to play with for kids and grownups alike. Get to mixing, Wildflowers! This recipe will teach you how to make sidewalk paint and will end up in your regular summer rotation in no time.

2 Easy Salsa Recipes

Making homemade salsa is a great way to use up all of the extra tomatoes from your garden and store them for winter. Discover how to make these 2 Easy Salsa Canning Recipes for Beginners.

Raspberry Jam recipe

Raspberry jam is one of the fastest preserves a person could make. Canning has a terrible reputation as being time-consuming- this recipe proves that canning can be quick, easy, and is a simple extension of the cooking process. Raspberry jam is a delight to give as gifts, easy to pick at U-pick farms, and delicious preserved in mason jars. 

How to Identify Wildflowers

This post will share some of our favorite resources for identifying wildflowers in your area and includes both helpful apps and books that are sure to educate and inspire.

Tomato Sauce Recipe

Oh, canning tomatoes! Canning tomato sauce is one of the most satisfying tasks a home canner could ask for because of the versatility of tomato sauce. When people start preserving, they often make jam because it is fairly simple and of course delicious but I find the savory preserves, like this tomato sauce, are far more useful. I guess we just don’t make enough toast to feeling like my time making lots of jam would be worth it. Conversely, my family eats a lot of tomato sauce. Last season I canned over 100 pounds of tomatoes, grown in a friend’s garden a few ridges down the road, and only made it to late spring before running out. I am busy working up Romas, 12 pounds at a time, and sharing about it here and on my YouTube Channel and on Periscope. I’d love to have you follow along there if you’re inclined!

Free Shrub Making Course

Shrubs aren’t just for the garden. Shrubs are a no-cook, easy homemade cocktail or mocktail mixer that’s delicious and fun. This is the new & improved, free, shrubs email course that will help you master the ratio behind these fruit and vinegar syrups.

How to Hang Laundry on the Line

Not only is a clothesline full of wet laundry idyllic and romantic, but it is also frugal, sensible, and not much work at all. Hanging your clothes out to dry imparts them with a delicious fragrance that cannot be replicated nor poured from a bottle and it saves on the damage the high heat of a dryer causes (goodbye fried underwear elastic). Whether a washline conjures for you images of the country or of Mediterranean apartments high above the stone streets below, you can employ a few of these techniques to dry your clothes the old fashioned way.

Absolute Best Way to Get Started Canning

If you want to know the absolute best way to get started canning, this post will tell you the fastest, easiest, and best way. Read on for the tools, tips, and tricks from a busy mom who understands what it is like to not have enough hours in the day.

I hope you loved all these summer blog posts! Which are you going to try first?

7 Summer Blog Posts from The Domestic Wildflower | Homemade food & craft ideas and recipes to take you through summer!

Oven Canning: Should You Try It?

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This post will explain oven canning, and whether or not it’s a safe choice. Read on for the scoop on oven canning!

Oven Canning: Why You should never use your oven for canning blog post

This post may contain affiliate links.

Oven canning used to be popular around the turn of the 20th century, where it seemed a handy way to keep the house cooler (before air conditioning, better home insulation, etc) than water bath canning. Some found that their fruit and veggies canned held their shape better, even, when canned in the oven.

I’d imagine that if you’re reading this post you know someone who oven cans, OR you’ve seen those cutesy recipes where the baker is directed in baking mini pies or mini muffins in mason jars the oven. If you can bake in them, why couldn’t you can in them, is the thought.

Oven canning was determined unsafe by the Mass. State College Extension Service in 1940, in a 2 year study. In fact, many studies followed proving the same: Oven Canning is NOT safe.

Well, my Grandma does it and she’s fine…

I’ve never had anything happen to me when I oven can…

It’s hot in an oven, it’s hot in a water bath, so what difference could it make?

These ideas are what can lead to jars full of hot food exploding in the oven, the oven widow exploding, major injury to anyone around, and at the very least, a major mess to clean up.

Why can’t I can in the oven?

Watch the YouTube video version of this post below if you prefer!

Ovens do not heat evenly. The steady heat of a water bath canner or steam canner is even and steady- there’s no fluctuation.

Wet heat is also penetrative in a different way than dry heat. The processing time specified in a recipe is based on the heat penetrating to the core of the food in the jar. While a traditional water bath or steam canner penetrates and heats the food in the middle of the jar, the heat of the oven “roasts” the outside of the jar and the food next to the glass. Think of a time you’ve burned a piece of meat in the oven but the inside still wasn’t cooked. That doesn’t happen in a crockpot, right?

Mason jars are not designed to be baked. They were designed for water bath and steam canning. They were never intended to be roasted.

By 1945 the National Safety Council made the bold claim that oven canning was outright dangerous and actively advised canners against it. They also warn against damage to kitchen appliances and equipment, which I think is a very valid warning as well.

My official recommendation is that oven canning should not be attempted.

That said, I have a friend who oven cans. Her mom does it, so she does it. She’s careful, she uses new jars, etc, but in my mind, her most likely risk is a huge mess and I’m not about to join her.

I personally am tired of cleaning by the end of any given day and cleaning up cooked food mixed with shards of splintered glass from inside the oven sounds like a fate worse than death.

Even if a canner today avoided (somehow…I don’t know how to avoid explosion but let’s say it was avoided) the door of their oven exploding, the risk of a huge mess seems pretty great. The injury possible from an oven canning explosion (so painful and very serious) seems small, but nonetheless a risk indeed, and one I’m not interested in taking.

Oven Canning: Why You should never use your oven for canning blog post

I want canning to be fun, fast, and easy. That’s why I only practice myself and teach others techniques that are USDA approved and sensible for a busy mom and modern family. Explosions in the oven just don’t seem like a busy mom dream come true, right?

If you’d like to learn more about canning, check out the Canning for Beginners Ebook Bundle. All my ebooks: Steam Canning for Beginners, Canning 101, The Canning Essentials Workbook, and more at over half off in one bundle. You’ll also get 2 recipe ebooks as well!

Get the Canning for Beginners Ebook Bundle here!

Canning for Beginners Ebook Bundle

I promise water bath and steam canning is super fun and safe. If you’re new to canning, sign up for the Free Canning Basics Course where I’ll pop into your inbox with simple lessons to get you started canning right away, the easy way!

Two jars of jam Tower of canning jars from the Best Canning Jars post

For another myth-busting post, read about why simmering your canning lids is OUT here!

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Can You Use An Instant Pot for Canning?

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This post will explain whether or not you can use an instant pot for canning, and why, using scientific information you can trust from the USDA. Read on for the scoop on using an instant pot for canning!

Can you use an instant pot for canning?

Instant pots are the modernized version of a pressure cooker. My Gram used to use a pressure cooker to cook inexpensive (read: tough) cuts of meat that were inexpensive till they were tender.

Instant pots can be used preparing all kinds of things- (easy chicken and corn chowder, berry cobbler, or carnitas, for example!)

But can you use an instant pot for canning?

Watch the video version of this blog post here!

Water bath canning works because the inside of the jar reaches over 212 degrees fahrenheit. The USDA tests recipes to ensure that the inside of your salsa, or raspberry jam gets to this temperature, which is hot enough to kill spoilers in a high acid environment.

Canning jar filling with juice ready to be canned in a steam canner, the fastest way to can.

Instant pots are not tested for canning- we have no idea how hot, for how long it is inside your tomato sauce if you tried to can it in an instant pot. Therefore, we’d have no idea for how long to process any particular recipe to kill spoilers.

If you’re a dyed in the wool rule breaker, consider this. An instant pot is designed to do a very different job than canning. It doesn’t create steady heat- it builds pressure very, very quickly, and it is designed to cook foods with pressure, as fast as possible. That’s a very different job than what a steam canner or water bath canner does.

If you’ve tried it and your jar sealed let me tell you that it takes very little heat to seal a jar. Jars that have sat around a hot store shelf for long enough seal. The seal is only ONE part of the very important trifecta of elements that works to ensure water bath canning is safe.

Canning works by putting a high acid recipe (strawberry jam, tomato sauce, pickled pearl onions) in a jar and submerging the jar in heat. The heat kills the spoilers present in the jar and forces the oxygen OUT of the jar, creating a vacuum which causes the lid to suck inward and seal. A sealed lid alone is NOT enough to create a safe canning situation.

You can read more about acid and canning in this post– there’s even a free pH chart of all the foods you may can that you can download for free!

The bottom line is you cannot use an instant pot for canning.

If you wanted to use an instant pot for canning, you surely wanted to in order to save time. The FASTEST way to can is to use a steam canner– they save 25 minutes per batch, every batch. Read this post about them!

The Absolute Best Way to Start Canning

Want to learn more about canning in general? Sign up for the Free Canning Basics Course and get a few easy, STEP BY STEP lessons right in your inbox that will help you master the basics!

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The Best Canning Jars

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This post will share the best, most versatile canning jars for a new or experienced canner, that will double as food and drink containers in your home, and will help simplify your pantry and your canning process. Read on for the best canning jars!

The Best Canning Jars

This post contains affiliate links.

If you’re a new canner, you probably have no idea which jars would be the best and if you’re experienced, you know there’s so many to choose from and that it’s hard to know what really is the best canning jar. I’m here to share what works best for me, and what I’d do if I were you, and why.

I’m always thinking about how easy things are to clean. If it is hard to clean, I’m probably not interested. That’s why the jars I’ll list below are all WIDE MOUTH jars. These are so much easier for your hand or the dishwasher to wash no matter if the jar held canned tomato jam or ground coffee.

Watch the video version of this post below!

Furthermore, a WIDE MOUTH JAR stacks easily, while a regular mouth jar does not. I want to be able to create a tower of jars if I want to, and wide-mouth jars allow for easy stacking.

It is true that a regular mouth pint or quart IS nice for pouring liquid- it offers a tiny bit more control of the liquid pouring out- but that benefit is so small and the advantages of a wide mouth are so much greater than if I had to start all over, I’d never buy any regular mouth jars except for a few exceptions I’ll list below.

The Best Canning Jars

The wide mouth pint jar holds 2 cups and doubles as a drinking glass. They are sturdy, stackable, and 2 cups are not too much applesauce, not too much jam, and is a perfect amount of tomato sauce for a pasta supper. If I had to choose just one canning jar to use forever and ever, it would be this one. Truly, I use them to drink from, and they are the most versatile overall. Pickles like Dilly beans and carrot pickles fit nicely, shoulder to shoulder in them, and it is easy to get air bubbles from a wide mouth pint jar.

Beautiful drinks Tower of canning jars from the Best Canning Jars post

The second jar I’ll recommend in this Best Canning Jars post is the wide mouth half-pint. I can serve sizes of applesauce, fruit cups, pickles, and more. Yes, you’ll can more batches but think about how many food products you buy or think about buying that is a convenience or serving size packaged? The usefulness of not having to scoop out the applesauce and wash a separate bowl after cannot be understated. If you’re feeling like it will take longer to can in smaller servings, you need to use a steam canner– they are ready to can in 5 minutes and save 25 minutes every batch. Read more about steam canning in this post.

Wide mouth half pints hold one cup of food, are small enough that a kindergartener can likely manage to unscrew the ring (though I would open the lid before sending the jar to school until probably Christmas time for my daughter, just until she got the hang of it at home). I love having a wide mouth half pints to grab when we are headed out the door- they are the ultimate fast health food.

6 jars of raspberry jam Tower of canning jars from the Best Canning Jars post

My mother canned primarily in quart jars. I find this to be problematic for several reasons. Leftovers are liable to go to waste, despite my best efforts. Having half a jar of preserve left-over in the fridge takes up refrigerator space for something that very well may go bad. When I do use up the second half, it may not be as delicious as when the jar was first opened. A quart jar can’t be stacked, and the opening is harder to get a scrub brush into. Processing times are longer, too, for quart jars. They are not my preference.

What about specialty jars?

The tiny 4-ounce regular mouth jar is really a delightful little jar. It has no shoulder, no difficult space to clean, so it is like a wide mouth half-pint but half the size. They are the perfect jar if you want to share your preserves. They are a single serving size of jam (1-2 pieces of toast), a single serving of salsa, or a 2 person serving of hot sauce. They are what I’ll can one batch (perhaps 12 jars) of applesauce for when my kids want a snack, but it’s close to suppertime or they just aren’t that hungry. I canned more fruit sauces in this size when my kids were very small.

Two jars of jam Tower of canning jars from the Best Canning Jars post

The 4-ounce jar is what I’d use if I were pressure canning plain veggie puree for baby food or plain fruit sauce like applesauce.

This jar is also what I’d use for canning for a party- bridal or baby shower favors are a thoughtful treat and a manageable project in this size.

Read the post about canning for a party here!

Tower of canning jars from the Best Canning Jars post

Other specialty jars are just that- you can use them to be adorable when that’s a priority but they are an investment. They might be affordable, but they are not disposable. They will be around, on your shelf or someone else’s indefinitely, so imagine what other preserve or other use you’ll have for the jar in the future.

Other Jars I Love

I use the wide mouth pint and a halfs (3 cups in one jar) for coffee, and all manner of beverages. They’d be ideal for canning a tall pickle like asparagus, garlic scapes, or some other long, languid veggie. I love that they are easy to clean and fit into a car cup holder.

Half gallon mason jars are something that every household should use if not for canning but for dry goods storage. They are so inexpensive, relatively speaking, sturdy, BPA free, like all of these jars, and can be used to store things like flour, sugar, coffee, cereal, oatmeal, crackers, tea bags, and more. They cannot be used for canning in a steam canner (too tall) but can be used for canning in a very large water bath canner. I’d can with these jars if I had a glut of cider, for example.

These are the best canning jars, Wildflowers. If you’re inspired now to learn how to can, join my Free Canning Basics Course to put these jar recommendations to good use and preserve healthy, delicious foods in jars! It’s just a few lessons right in your inbox to get you started the easy way!

Canning Curious

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Are you canning curious? This post will help demystify the process of preserving food in jars, clarify what you need in the kitchen to can, whether or not you need to simmer your canning lids as Grandma used to, if you need to sterilize your jars (the answer will surprise you!), what the deal is with pickling salt, how you can preserve way faster with modern technology, and more. There’s even a free Canning Basics Course you can jump into at the end of the post. Read on if you’re Canning Curious!

Canning Curious? It is easier than you think!

Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner

Have a beginning canner you are shopping for? Want to get the best canning supplies for the beginning canner in your life? This post will share exactly the Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner, even if they are just canning curious and want to to start canning, or if they have canned a few times before. Read on for the complete list of canning supplies for a beginner!

The Best Canning Equipment for a Beginner - Get this must have home canning kit list for beginners if you are shopping for gifts or for yourself, this lists the gear you need, and tells you how to skip that giant pot!

The first item that everyone thinks of when they think of canning is the big, speckled canning pot. My favorite tips for beginners is that they DON’T need that pot! What?! That’s right. You don’t need it.

Do You Need to Use Pickling Salt?

Many canning recipes call for pickling salt, and curious canners want to know: Do you need to use pickling salt? I’ll explain what pickling salt is when you should use it when it is okay to skip, and you’ll want to dive into canning immediately because salt is salt, Wildflowers.

Do you need to use pickling salt? Read this post to find out when to use it and when you can skip it!

Pickling salt is regular salt that has NO anti-caking agent nor any iodine. Salt that you and I buy typically has a few additives in it that make for a cloudy brine.

Do You Have To Simmer Your Canning Lids?

Do you have to simmer your canning lids? This post will explain whether or not you have to simmer your canning lids before putting them on your canning jars. Read on to get the scoop!

 

Should You Be Sterilizing Canning Jars?

Do you need to sterilize your jars first when canning? This post explains how sterilizing canning jars can be a huge waste of time and why. Read on to find out when you need to spend time sterilizing canning jars!

One of the factors that makes canning “work” is heat. Water bath canning brings the inside of the jars (and thus the food) to over 212 degrees, which kills spoilers (microorganisms) in the high acid environment.

What Is A Steam Canner

This post will explain what a steam canner is, the pieces that come with it, how it saves time, the types of recipes that maximize a steam canner’s efficiency, how much water they use (hardly any!) who a steam canner is best for, and why you’ll want to try one yourself!

Steam canners have been around a while, that’s completely true. They only recently have been approved by the USDA, National Center For Home Food Preservation and studies were done by both Utah and Wisconsin Universities tested and proved that they are safe for water bath canning. They are safe for exactly the same recipes as used in “regular” or water bath canning and you can learn to use them if you’re a beginner- as in never boiled a pot of water in your life- Or if you are an experienced canner.

This post contains affiliate links.

What Happens if You Forget The Lemon Juice?

What Happens if You Forget the Lemon Juice? In many canning recipes, it is required that you add an acidifying ingredient like bottled lemon juice, citric acid, or vinegar. What happens if you forget? This post will explain. Spoiler alert: it ain’t pretty.

Canning works and is an effective means of food preservation because of several elements. One element is the inside of the jar is sufficiently acid. That is to say, it is too acidic for spoilers (bugs that would make us sick and decay our food) to grow.

Canning Curious? It is easier than you think!

Learn MORE:

If you want to learn more, I have a FREE Canning Basics Course that I invite you to try- you’ll learn more about canning, how it works, and how it is the way to enjoy delicious salsa all year round 🙂 Sign up here!

Free Canning Basics Course

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