Canning your own fruit is easy.

The Discover You Can House Party was a success.  We had so much fun learning to can peaches and making strawberry jam and then preserving it. I had so much help from my Grams she is a canning expert!  Thanks Grams.  To all of my friends that came over to can, Thanks I could not have done it without you!

Here is what we did:
First we put the Ball brand jars in a pot of boiling water to sterilize them and to keep them warm as we put the filling into them.

While the jars were boiling we boiled the peaches.  It is a good idea to boil the peaches so that the skins will peel off easily.  Then we cut them up, and sprinkled the Ball brand fruit-fresh Producer Protector to keep the fruit from turning brown.

We packed the jars with the peaches and added a light syrup mixture of water and sugar. To fill the jars we used the Ball brand collapsible funnel (since I receive 4 in my hostess package, I raffled off 3 of them.)  

We used a bubble remover & headspace tool from the Ball brand utensil set to get rid of excess air.  Before we put the lids on we wiped the jars clean and made sure to leave head space of 1/2 inch to insure the best seal possible. (Each recipe will tell you how much head space you should leave.)

To seal the jars and to preserve our peaches we used a hot water bath.  We placed the filled jars into boiling water and covered with a lid for the designated time of 25 minutes. 

When the Jars were done we took them out and let them rest on a towel on the countertop for 12 hours.

And that is how we canned Peaches.  It was so easy and simple will the aid off all the Ball Brand Canning products.


To be a little bit more adventuresome  we made strawberry jam too.  Here is me mixing the strawberry and the classic pectin.  After this I added a little sugar and brought it to a boil.

 We followed the recipe that we down loaded from the http://www.houseparty.com/events/view/discovercanning website and made Strawberry Jam .

Strawberry Jam recipe:
about 5 of the 1lb strawberry containers.
6 Tbsp Ball brand Real fruit Classic Pectin Flex Batch
4 cups granulated sugar

Crush strawberries in a large bowl.  n a 8 -quart saucepan add  strawberries and pectin, bring to a full boil stiring constantly. Add sugar and stirring to dissolve.  Return to a boil  and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and skim foam if necessary.

Here is the finished product.  Our Jars of strawberry jam.

Each guest was able to go home with one jar of strawberry jam and one jar of can peaches.  They also received a bag of goodies from Jaden home brand and I raffled off some of the extra products that I had received from Jaden Home brand.

Check out http://www.freshpreserving.com/ to get recipes for canning your own fresh fruit and veggies.  You can even be a part of the National Can It Forward Day Saturday August 14, 2010.    National Can It Forward Day.

PS.  I will be hosting a Give-A-Way with some coupons and products you can use to can your own food.  Keep a look out this month for when it will be announced!