This post will share with you the new canning products available this canning season and I will share the ways I plan to use them in my little kitchen. Read on for the list, Wildflowers!
This post may contain affiliate links. All opinions remain my own and I would never recommend a product or company that I wouldn’t recommend to my grandmother, the nicest lady in the world.
I have said it before and I will say it again; I love canning jars. Aside from being super sturdy, classically designed, and plastic-free, they are so helpful beyond their primary purpose for canning. I use jars to store sugar, crayons, bobby pins, to drink from, to pack my lunch, and more. I love that the regular size lids and rings ALWAYS fit ALL of the regular size jars and the wide lids fit the wide jars. There’s no wondering if the lid will fit…they just do. There is magic in simplicity, and God knows I need a little more simplicity in my life.
Enter to WIN the Fall into Canning Giveaway: The Start Canning Course + Beginner Tools! The winner is drawn October 26!
Ball® brand Home Canning Products have several fun new items out just in time for canning season and they have shared some of them with me. Because we are all birds of a canning-jar-loving feather, they have kindly shared a flat of Wide Mouth Pin Collection Elite Series Jars for a giveaway to one lucky reader. Enter to win here!
Click to enter to win the blue Wide Mouth Pint Jars Giveaway!
The first item that is new this year is the Pour & Measure Cap that fits on a wide mouth jar of any size. This clever little lid has two useful spouts; one that is wider, for pouring out cereal, grains, and other dry goods and a narrow spout for liquids like salad dressing. I think I will use mine to pour my shrub straight into my cocktail glass this summer 🙂 The lid is a marked with ¼, ⅓, and ½ cup measurements which eliminate the need to rustle up a measuring cup, which I absolutely appreciate. I think this jar + lid combo will be on the regular rotation in my pantry because 1) I have ants (big ones, little ones, you name it…) and I try to store most dry goods in jars to prevent the ants from having a reason to invade and 2) I have made an attempt (a very poor one, I admit) to reduce the waste I bring into the kitchen and the foods I buy in bulk can be stored in a jar with this handy lid. I’m thinking of those little bulk chocolate peanut butter cups living in this jar right now…
The Ball® brand Super Wide Mouth decorative half gallon jar is the pretty and practical new girl on the countertop. While this jar is not made for canning, it is perfect for storing pantry items. The lid is a lovely brushed silver color, (which matches my imaginary refrigerator!) and creates a nice seal to keep cookies fresh.
The color of the season is blue at Ball® and the blue jars and matching lids & rings are positively dreamy. The blue jars are not navy, but an almost aqua blue and I think they are a great alternative to the regular (read: boring) clear glass. If you were making the sensible switch to drinking from jars, these would be a fun way to dress your table and still be able to can in them, and use the universal, oh-so-wonderful lids. The lids & rings are fun because sometimes, you want the pretty color of your canning product to be shown through clear glass (I made strawberry syrup last week that was a gorgeous ruby color for example) but the blue lids and rings allow you to dress your item up for gifting or organizing. You could use the blue lids & rings together with the blue jars, or separately, and I always love options.
While the practicality of the Ball® brand Canning Jars has remained the same over the years, the variations on the exterior of the jars have been many. This year, they have brought back the retro-fabulous jam jar to great effect. These pretty little jars feature fruit around the outside, hinting at the possible contents, and hold just the right amount of jam for my liking. I hate canning items in jars bigger than what my little family will eat up. For me, little 8 ounce jars are THE way to go for canning because the food inside always is eaten before it goes bad or is lost in the depths of the refrigerator. Wasting food you have canned is the worst thing ever because of the effort you spent to put it in jars in the first place. These little gems are perfect for beginning canners. I also use mine to bring trail mix to snack on in between classes. Or during class- who am I kidding? 😉
Now that I have personally moved past the beginner stage of canning and into the depths of overly enthused and utterly confident intermediate, I have begun doing totally crazy things (you will too if you start, mark my words) like buying many, many pounds of produce on a whim (the price was so good! They smell so wonderful! I can make XYZ!) with little plan and even less time. Because of my enthusiasm and impulsive purchasing, I am always looking for ways to speed up the canning process.
Canning does take time, and it absolutely varies by the recipe, the quantity, your comfort level in front of the stove, and more. When I choose a fairly labor intensive recipe and have flats upon flats of produce, I need to process the veggies and fast.
Enter the last item on the list of new Ball® brand Home Canning Products for 2016. The Ball® brand Harvest Pro is a sauce making a processor that is designed to process (puree) items like tomatoes, apples, and faster so you can get to the more enjoyable parts of the canning process. I haven’t put the sauce maker to my own timed test yet but you better believe I will once the tomatoes are on in my neck of the woods. The claim is that it can process up 15 QUARTS (that is a lot!) of tomatoes in 20 minutes. That is remarkable, to say the least and for days when my living room is filled with flats of Romas aging by the moment and toddler supper time rapidly approaching, the sauce maker would be invaluable. If you don’t know how to can (yet!) you absolutely could make good use of it to make fresh tomato or apple sauce, to make baby food, and to process other vegetables. It works in a way similar to that of my favorite Kitchen Aid attachment that I use to grind up buck meat. They both produce a smooth grind and separate out the parts you don’t want to eat. It is simple and smart. This sauce maker would be a wise investment especially if you can larger quantities, are short on time, or hate the laborious hand food milling/processing that comes with the intermediate canning territory. I will put this baby to the test soon and will write an extensive post of my findings during tomato season. In the meantime, I want to hear from you that have tried it. Let me know what you make!
Here’s a treat that I am so thrilled to share with you, Wildflowers.
The lovely folks at freshpreserving.com have shared a flat of the Wide Mouth Pint Collection Elite Series jars for one lucky reader. Enter to win here and remember; the giveaway rewards you for sharing, which increases your chances of winning. So share, share, share, Wildflowers!
Click to enter to win the blue Wide Mouth Pint Jars Giveaway!
All these products can be found on the Fresh Preserving site. Are you all stocked up for canning season?
Do you know what equipment you need to round up to get started? Print this handy list and start rounding up pots and jars!
I must have this device! I have over 100 tomato plants and 50 pepper plants in my garden. If things go like last year I will have hundreds of pounds of produce to make into various delicious tomatoey products. I CAN’T WAIT!!
Angela that’s so awesome! Enter to win – I would love to see it go to someone who would use it 🙂 share share share!