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Best Home Canning Equipment for an Experienced Canner

November 8, 2017 by Jenny Gomes Leave a Comment

This gift guide will list the items perfect for the canning enthusiast who has canned a season or two and has the basic gear already. These tools will help them can better, faster, and will take their canning to a whole new level. Read on for the complete list of canning gear for an intermediate canner!

The Best Canning Equipment for an Experienced Canner | This lists all the canning supplies for a canner who has a season or two under their belt and shares the tools that make their hobby more fun...gift one of these items and I bet they will share a jar with you!

This post contains affiliate links. That means that if you click through a link and make a purchase, I get a teeny tiny commission that doesn’t affect your purchase price at all. It’s a great way to support your favorite canning blogger. 

If you are looking for gear that’s best for a beginner, check out my beginner’s home canning equipment guide here! 

First up is the best food mill around. This food mill processes cooked foods and removes skins, seeds, peels, cores, and makes a super smooth sauce in one step. There’s no motor that will fail, or no junky plastic parts that will fail in a year or two; this is a well made, easy to clean tool that will last years and years.

Next in the list of Best Home Canning Equipment for an Experienced Canner is the beautiful preserving pan by Kilner. This is a pan for cooking jam, jellies, and more. It is heavy bottomed, and basically perfect for making preserves. It would last a lifetime, prevent jam from begin scorched, and allow it too cook low and slow, and thicken perfectly.

These jars may look “French Countryside” even though they are German in origin. An experienced canner would love to try their hand at canning with these Weck jars. They are a little different than standard Ball jars- the lid has a removable rubber flange and there’s no satisfying “pop” sound like when canning Ball lids & jars, but they work with the same processes and same recipes. They are beautiful and chic, to boot.

They come in these many other shapes as well, which is so fun:

Next up in Best Home Canning Equipment for an Experienced Canner is the newest development in the canning world, the Steam Canner. These pots were approved for use by the USDA in 2015 and they make canning SO MUCH FASTER. They work exactly the same way as regular canning but they heat up much less water, so they are ready to go in 5 minutes instead of 30. If I could give every canner ONE gift, it would be one of these. I NEVER pull out my regular water bath canning pot anymore because they work so well and save so much time.

You don’t have to worry; they are NOT hard to use, and they aren’t at all like a pressure canner. I wrote a blog post about them here called 29 Reasons You Should be Using a Steam Canner and there’s another great post I wrote called Steam Canning for Beginners.

Once a canner has canned a few seasons, they know that it would be really nice to keep track of which recipes they loved, which they didn’t, how many jars each recipe yielded, etc. I have a free Canning Log that’s beautiful and printable, and you can print it off right here to give to the canner in your life!

A steamer juicer is a contraption that your grandma probably used for canning grape juice. They are a really useful device and can be used for juicing elderberries, grapes, currants, and more. This one is the same brand as the steam canner that I love so I’d suspect it would be the very same high quality. I’m still steaming in my grandma’s steamer but if I had to ask Santa for one, this is the one I’d love:

This item is a lower price point, but if you had to can many pounds of cherries, you’d probably pay 10 times whatever a pitter cost to have it. A cherry pitter can save so much time and make the job of canning one of the most delicious fruit so much more fun. This kind is hand held, in the same brand as the food mill I’ve had and used for several years.

This cherry pitter is by Norpro, which is another brand I trust, and it suctions to the tabletop. I have the very similar model, that I got at a yard sale, but mine screws to the table ledge, and has scratched it more than once. I have not used this suction one but I bet it would work perfectly AND it wouldn’t damage your countertop. I like this style of model because it is really nice to have several cherries in the hopper so you can just bang-bang-bang pit them and then grab another handful.

This little strawberry huller is a great stocking stuffer if your canner preserves a lot of strawberries. This little guy does his one little job very, very well and if faced with a mountain of berries to preserve, the canner in your life would thank you.

This ladle is called a “strainer ladle” and they are wonderful for canners because they allow you to control how much liquid and how much solid (salsa+ tomato juice, for example) ends up in each jar that gets filled. It’s under $20 and I love mine.

This little jar is only 4 ounces, which means it’s perfect for the canner in you life to fill with hot sauce, chocolate cherry jam, or any other perfectly gift-able preserve and give as gifts.

And for the canning enthusiast, they need these super cute canning tee shirts.

Cutest canning shirt! From Love Into Jars!

As any experience canner knows, Canic is the fear brought on by having tons of quickly ripening produce, but not enough time to can it all. It’s a very real thing, and the canner in your life needs this shirt.

Cutest canning enthusiast shirt! Chance from Love Into Jars!

 

Many canners have little Berry Picker helpers- these shirts are awesome for those littlest helpers whose motto usually is, “one for the basket, two for me.”

Cutest little berry picker tee shirt! For canning lovers from Love Into Jars!

I hope this guide to the best home canning equipment for an experienced canner was helpful! Remember, if you have a canner in your life that’s just getting started, or is “canning curious” check out this guide for The Best Home Canning Equipment for a Beginner !

Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner

 

Filed Under: Can

Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner

November 5, 2017 by Jenny Gomes 2 Comments

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!

 

This post contains affiliate links. That means I get a teeny, tiny commission if you click through and make a purchase and your purchase price isn’t affected at all. It’s a great way to support your favorite canning blogger.  

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.

Here’s what you need instead. You need a regular stockpot, or a pot that’s 3 inches taller than the tallest jar you plan to can. A pot that you could boil artichokes in is probably large enough. Think this type:

You don’t need the lid. Yeah, it’s helpful if you have it but it’s not absolutely necessary. THEN, you need this gem:

 This is a silicone trivet, and they sit in the bottom of the regular stockpot and prevent the mason jars from rattling around and breaking. They are useful as a regular trivet, inexpensive, collapse for storage, and once I got one, I NEVER pulled the giant speckled canning pot out again.

The canning jars that are best for a beginning canner are wide mouth pint canning jars. You want to get wide mouth canning jars because they are easy to clean, the most versatile size for the widest number of recipes, double as drinking classes, and you can freeze in them.

The next size that’s great for beginners is the wide mouth half pint. This size jar holds one measuring cup, so it’s just right for jam, applesauce, and for gifting the fruits of the canner’s labor.

Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner Continued: If the canner in your life has jars already , or maybe has canned a time or two, you should DEFINITELY get them several boxes of NEW lids. Lids can only be used ONE time through the canning process so a canner goes through them fairly quickly. They are a great gift item that a canner will always use in the same way a cooking enthusiast would always love a great bottle of olive oil. Here are the wide mouth lids that fit the jars above.

A beginning canner needs a set of tools that are usually sold together called a canning utensil kit.

Here’s my pro tip: That little wand that has a magnet at the end is called a lid lifter. They are used to lift lids out of simmering water before putting them on jars. If you’ve not canned much, or even if you’ve canned a lot, you might think that because that thing is sold in the kit, you need it, right? Wrong. You actually do NOT need to have that lid lifter and I wrote a blog post about why here but the short reason is that the lids haven’t had to be simmered since the 1960’s.

You NEED the tongs (called a jar lifter) and the funnel and you can get them separately through those links if you don’t want to purchase the kit, though I bet the kit is cheaper.

The Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner list is nearly finished- download the checklist here to be sure you got everything you need!

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!

And finally, if you or someone dear to you wants to learn how to can, I cannot recommend enough that they join the Start Canning Course. This premium video course teaches STEP BY STEP exactly what to do when!

In Start Canning

I teach how to can:

  • Strawberry Jam
  • Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
  • Strawberry Syrup and Strawberry Butter
  • Tomato Sauce
  • Roasted Bell Peppers

Plus once you know how to make the basics, you can take your newfound skills and use them with different types of fruit and vegetables. It’s like having an entire farmer’s market on your pantry shelf!

Click here to learn more about Start Canning!

Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner Join the Start Canning Course to learn how to preserve healthy, homemade food in jars!

And for the canning enthusiast, they need these super cute canning tee shirts.

Cutest canning shirt! From Love Into Jars!

And once a canner starts canning, it’s not long before they experience Canic- the fear brought on by having tons of quickly ripening produce, but not enough time to can it all. It’s a very real thing, and the canner in your life needs this shirt.

Cutest canning enthusiast shirt! Chance from Love Into Jars!

 

Many canners have little Berry Picker helpers- these shirts are awesome for those littlest helpers whose motto usually is, “one for the basket, two for me.”

Cutest little berry picker tee shirt! For canning lovers from Love Into Jars!

I hope this Beginner’s guide to home canning equipment was helpful! Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner shouldn’t feel daunting- there’s really not a lot you need to start preserving healthy, homemade food in jars!

Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner

Filed Under: Can

Applesauce Muffins Recipe

October 23, 2017 by Jenny Gomes Leave a Comment

This recipe for applesauce muffins is is a great way to use a healthy ½ cup of your homemade applesauce (or store-bought if you haven’t learned how to make it from me yet!) into a portable snack.

Such a great applesauce muffin recipe! Easy and fast and my kids love them!

This post contains affiliate links.

They are tender, moist and almost cake-like. I won’t tell anyone if you frost them 😉

I took half of the recipe for Sunday Morning Breakfast Cake from The Good Housekeeping Cook Book from 1942 and then made up the rest.

I was intrigued by the technique of adding hot milk, which worked marvelously, ditched the nuts (because: picky kids), changed a few other things, and added copious applesauce, and the result are these perfect muffins.

If you haven’t made your own applesauce, you need to get my recipe here. It’s fast, simple, and there’s a free download to print off too!

Here’s the Applesauce Muffins Recipe!

You’ll need

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (here’s my easy homemade vanilla extract recipe!)

1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ applesauce (see my recipe here)

½ cup milk (preferably whole) heated until just about to boil

2 tablespoons butter, melted in the milk as milk is heated

In your electric mixer (this is the one I use daily and love) beat 2 whole eggs on high until they are thick and bright yellow- about 5 minutes.

Add sugar while continuing to beat. Mix in vanilla.

Mix in dry ingredients on low speed. Add applesauce.

Heat milk and butter in a small saucepan until just about to simmer and add to the mixer and incorporate.

Bake in ⅔ full muffin papers at 350 oven for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Such a great applesauce muffin recipe! Easy and fast and my kids love them!

Delicious, right? Download the recipe below, and be sure to pin it so you have it digitally on Pinterest too!

Such a great applesauce muffin recipe! Easy and fast and my kids love them!

Filed Under: Cook

Canning Pumpkin

October 15, 2017 by Jenny Gomes 2 Comments

I’m a big fan of doing things at home, making food for yourself, and generally believe homemade is best. You can read my manifesto for more on the purpose behind this blog and truly, I love helping my Wildflower readers learn how to make things for themselves.  There’s a few situations where you cannot make something at home and one of those is canned pumpkin puree.

Canning Pumpkin | This post explains why canning pumpkin is not safe and why old cookbooks said you could. Great info in this post!

This subject undoubtedly will bring about cries from readers who will say truthfully that they themselves, their mother, grandmother, and great grandmother have been canning pumpkin puree for years and no one has ever gotten sick.

To them I will say that I am truly happy that they’ve never gotten botulism. That would be a real bummer to have diarrhea for a week, or worse, if you were elderly or had a compromised immune system.

One of my favorite college professors specialized in food, culture, and literature. She had red hair and wore fabulous clothing and taught poetry, among other things. She taught me a lot about how strongly people feel about their food and the love that goes into preparing it. I showed up to every single one of her classes at 8 am on Friday mornings in Taylor Hall of Chico State, even though Thursday nights were a very fun night indeed and I would have much rather slept in because she was such a great teacher. She shared example after example of how we eat what we eat, because of our mothers, because of our geography, and because of our husbands. It all made perfect sense to me, and her early morning lessons really ring true now that I’m blogging about canning.

I had a follower on social media recently reference the 1973 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens Canning Cookbook when she stated that she was following the directions therein to can pumpkin puree. I’m sure that book had great directions for doing so…44 years ago. I too love reading old cookbooks for inspiration and using recipes that my great grandma used- those old recipes make me feel genuinely connected to the women in my family and the recipes are usually dang good!

But here’s the problem. Canning science has improved in the last 44 years, and the latest recommendations by the USDA are that you CANNOT can pumpkin puree.

I could not, in good conscience, suggest to any reader, that they can pumpkin puree based on that science.

Pumpkin is a low acid vegetable. It is also very dense. Even in a pressure canner, which gets over 220 degrees, it is too dense for the heat to reliably penetrate the puree to kill any potential botulism spores.

Don’t worry, new canners; there are VERY FEW items that you cannot preserve in a home canning setup and this is one of them. Truly, very few. And, just like when you bake bread, you don’t have to understand why or how the bread rises. You DO have to follow the directions in order for it to work. Canning is the same. You just have to follow the directions.

All foods have an acid value, which I explain in detail in this blog post, but you can download this free acid & canning chart which lists the pH of all the foods you might can for reference. It will show you that lemons have an acid level of a 2 (high acid!) and tangerines are significantly, and somewhat surprisingly less acid 4. It will list all the low acid veggies, like pumpkin too. Download it here!

You may, according to the USDA, can in a pressure canner cubed pumpkin, but I would consider this to be an intermediate canning activity. No freshmen allowed 😉

Cubed is required because a trusted recipe source (the USDA for example) TESTED the size of the cubes (1 inch by 1 inch) and measured the heat inside those little cubes to be sure that it was hot enough inside to kill the spoilers that would make you sick.

It is for this reason that you cannot ever can spaghetti squash at all– it won’t hold a cube shape and becomes a mushy mass that the heat, again, can’t reliably penetrate. And, doesn’t that sound super unappetizing? I love canning, but canning is NOT the only way to preserve food and given that squash comes naturally in a shell that protects it quite well from the elements, I’d suggest storing in a cellar far before tackling preserving it in jars. 

Cubed winter squash must be peeled first, which seems like a colossal chore to me personally, but it can be done.

So, what should you do if pumpkin is your favorite fall flavor and you want to preserve it?

It can be frozen, and I’d recommend these wide mouth pint jars for freezing.

Those jars have a freezer safe line right on them, are easy to clean by hand or in the dishwasher, and are my favorite for canning.

You can read this page on the USDA site for more detailed, and tested by science specifics on exactly what you can and cannot do with pumpkin.

To be clear, “puree” also refers to pumpkin butter, pumpkin pie filling, mash, mush, or anything that’s not a 1×1 inch chunk. No pumpkin baby food, no smooth pumpkin of any kind. No can do- pun definitely intended 😉

Canning pumpkin is not safe.

If this post was interesting to you, I’d highly recommend you download the Acid & Canning Chart– it lists the pH values for all the foods you might consider putting into jars, include cocoa, persimmons, tuna, and more. I’ll let you download it to see where those yummy items fall on the scale 🙂

If you are feeling too beginner for an acid chart, I have a completely free Canning Basics Course that I’d love you to join. Teaching beginners is my absolute favorite and you’ll learn how to get started making jam, pickles, applesauce and more. It’s easy, fun and free! Join here!

Enroll Now!

Canning Pumpkin | This post explains why canning pumpkin is not safe and why old cookbooks said you could. Great info in this post!

These are the new shirts for the new sister site, www.loveintojars.com where my new book, Love Into Jars and related party is being held. Grab a shirt here! http://loveintojars.com/shop/

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Filed Under: Can

Super Simple Easy Sew Fall Decor Bunting Tutorial

October 7, 2017 by Jenny Gomes Leave a Comment

This post will share a super simple Easy Sew Fall Decor Bunting Tutorial that you can make in under an hour! I also link to the jute rope I love for all my garlands and buntings, as well as some great ribbons to use in the Fall Bunting too. 

Fall Bunting Garland | This tutorial is super easy and she links to such cute rope and ribbon to make it! Definitely making this!

This post contains affiliate links. That means that if you click through and make a purchase on Amazon, I get a teeny, tiny commission that doesn’t affect your purchase price at all. I only link to products that I think will make your project awesome, that I’d recommend to a friend. Let’s make this bunting! 

You might remember my pretty, red and tan striped burlap bunting from this post. I ended up donating it to a local auction that was raising money for my child’s playground that needed a safety update and now, this fall season, I needed a way to spruce up our dining area with some fall color.

So, I decided to make this Easy Sew Fall Decor Bunting  and write a tutorial for you all!

I love this jute rope for making buntings because it is inexpensive, great for indoor or outdoor use, and strong enough you could use it to suspend a lantern or a wreath- it’s amazing!

I gathered scraps of wide ribbon (some with wire edge, some wide satin ribbon) and sewing scraps that fit my theme. I hemmed a bridesmaid dress for my cousin that was orange (for a fall wedding- so cute) a few seasons ago, and in classic Jenny fashion, saved the scraps from the hem. These orange chiffon and satin scraps are perfect but I’ll link to some great ribbons you can use here.

Materials for the Easy Sew Fall Decor Bunting

Sheer Chiffon Ribbon |Burlap Ribbon | Leaf Print Ribbon | Velveteen Ribbon | Velvet Ribbon | Jute Rope | Flat Jute Braid

Fall Bunting Garland | This tutorial is super easy and she links to such cute rope and ribbon to make it! Definitely making this!

One tip from my quilting experience is to choose fabrics or ribbons that are mix of dark, medium, and light. You don’t have to worry about matching colors so much as you do striving to to get an even-ish mix of dark, medium, and light colors in order to make your bunting (or quilt) sparkle.

Instructions

Cut your fabric scraps (use fabric that won’t fray readily, unless you want to hem about 10 inches long (don’t get hung up on this- 12 inches or 8 inches, all look really cute).

Since you are using up scraps, potentially, take a minute to lay them out first, on the floor or on a table top, in the order you’d like them to be on the bunting. I had only a few dark ribbons, so I spaced those out over the 10 feet of hemp rope FIRST, and then filled in with my many light and medium hued pieces.

Then, stack them up in the order than you liked so they are beside your machine, ready to go.

Once you have assembled your scraps or purchased fabric and ribbon strips then determine about how long your rope should be and cut to length. I cut mine 3 feet at least longer on each end so I have plenty with which to tie to curtain rods, fence posts, etc. Knot the end of each rope in an overhand knot and if it particularly prone to fraying/untwisting, you can secure it with strapping tape (the clear plastic tape on cardboard boxes from Amazon 🙂 like a large scale version of your shoe lace tip.

Fold the ribbon or fabric over the hemp rope with the rope to the LEFT of the foot, and the little banners pointing to the RIGHT.

Easy Sew Fall Decor Bunting Tutorial | This tutorial is super easy and she links to such cute rope and ribbon to make it! Definitely making this!

I like to fold them a little askew, so they create an upside down V shape.

Backstitch, and sew to the end, remembering to backstitch again.

Sew as close to the rope as you can so they don’t slide all over your rope when on display.

Grab your next little banner and repeat, about as far apart as each banner is long.

That is, if your little banners are 5 inches (10 inches long when you cut them) then space them out 5 inches apart on the rope.

Repeat until all banners are sewn on to rope.

Easy Sew Fall Decor Bunting Tutorial | This tutorial is super easy and she links to such cute rope and ribbon to make it! Definitely making this!

Super cute, right? Check out my other bunting project here- I used an upholstery strapping that’s striped and adorable.

Fall Bunting Garland | Easy Sew Fall Decor Bunting Tutorial |This tutorial is super easy and she links to such cute rope and ribbon to make it! Definitely making this!

Filed Under: Craft

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