• Plan what you are canning before the day arrives so everyone knows what is on the agenda. We selected two recipes, one jam and one salsa.
• Have one person designated to do all the shopping. This way everything you need is there when the party starts and you aren’t waiting for someone to show up with a vital ingredient.
• Plan for lunch. I had everyone bring money for takeout since no one delivers to my house and the kitchen was busy with canning. Next time I’m thinking I might just get a deli tray to save someone having to run out and pick up lunch. We’ll see how it goes.
• Divide the cost. Tally up what all the jars and food supplies cost and get a cost per jar. Then everyone can pay for however many jars they want. This seems to be the fairest way to me.
• Have someone to watch the kids. Both of my kids were there and one of the participants brought her son with her. The kids had a blast playing together, but it was definitely good to have someone who wasn’t involved in the canning that could keep an eye on the kids.

At this party, the people that were canning with me had never done any canning before. I think it would have been helpful to have a canning tips handout for them instead of just telling them tips throughout the day that they probably won’t remember. It’s a lot of information for someone to absorb when it’s completely new. I also wish I had thought to make copies of the recipes for everyone before we started. For my next party I plan to have a packet for each participant that will contain the canning tips sheet and copies of the recipes we are preparing that day. I will also include a canning resources sheet so they know where to go to get more information and to buy supplies if they want to try it on their own.

All in all, I feel that they day was a success and I would definitely do it again. Canning is always more fun when you can do it with a friend or two or three.

Have you ever hosted or been to a canning party? I’m curious how you feel about them and what things worked well or even didn’t work for you.

One of the jams that we made was a Blackberry Peach Jam inspired by the Blackberry Apricot Jam recipe that was posted on Food in Jars. This jam turned out so delicious that my 2 year old daughter sat there eating the little bit that didn’t fit in the jars with a spoon.

Here is my recipe for Blackberry Peach Jam:

Blackberry Peach Jam
Makes approximately 10 half pints

4 cups           Peaches, Chopped
4 cups           Blackberries, Crushed
4 ½ cups       Sugar
2 tsp              Lemon Juice
2 pkts            Pectin, powdered

In a large, non-reactive pot (stainless steel or enameled cast iron), combine peaches, blackberries and lemon juice. Bring the mixture to a simmer and add the pectin. Let the mixture reach a boil, stirring frequently to prevent burning, and then add the sugar. Bring mixture back to a hard boil that can’t be stirred down and boil for 5 minutes.

Fill clean, sterilized jars with the hot jam, wipe rims, and apply lids and rings. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

Remove jars from canner and place on a towel in a draft free area. Allow to cool and remain undisturbed for 24 hours. After 24 hours, test seals, remove screw bands, wipe jars and label. If any jars did not seal correctly, store them in the refrigerator and use immediately. All other jars should be stored in a cool dark place until opened.

Of course it has been well over 24 hours and although I did test the seals, I didn’t remove the screw bands or label the jars yet. Maybe I’ll find some time to take care of that tonight.

Saturday morning I took my oldest daughter and headed to the Farmer’s Market. There I picked up three grocery bags of seconds peaches for a total of $11.00. It really didn’t seem like that many peaches when I bought them, but once we got them home and started working with them I realized just how many peaches we had gotten. Yikes!

 Once I was home I started blanching the peaches. Once my mom arrived she finished the blanching while I got to work peeling and chopping the peaches. Once all the blanching was done and the peaches were hanging out in the kitchen sink we both started working on peeling and chopping peaches. My oldest daughter decided to join us in this chopping adventure, so here is a picture of our little helper. I will say that having a toddler help with the cutting does make the process take a little longer, but I just couldn’t tell her no. She enjoys helping in the kitchen so much and I do want to encourage that.

The peeling and chopping did wind up taking a couple hours. Like I said, we had help and I did have to keep stopping to take care of our infant daughter or to help the toddler with various things. It was a bit crazy in our house, but then I don’t really expect anything less then that anymore.

One of the first things we did with the chopped peaches was throw some in the crock pot to start peach butter. That way the peaches were cooking down while we were working on all the jams. After the peaches and lemon juice had been cooking for about 30 minutes I hit the mix with an immersion blender to smooth it out. After that we just let it continue cooking for the rest of the day. We would periodically stir it to check how it was cooking down.

Once the pot of hot water for sterlizing got boiling we got a pretty good system going. One of us would make a batch of jam while the jars were sterlizing. Then we would pull the jars out and fill them when the jam finished cooking. One person would fill the jars and the other would put on the lids and screw bands and then put them back in the hot water bath. Along with the filled jars of jam we would also have some empty jars in the pot (it’s a very large pot) so they could get sterilized while the others were sealing. And the process would continue with the next batch of jam.

By the end of the day we had 5 batches of peach jam, 2 batches of peach jelly, 1 batch of blueberry peach jam, 1 batch of peach blush jam and 1 batch of peach butter. The grand total was 72 half pint jars of various peach jams, jelly and butter. Here’s a picture of the finished product.

The next morning I checked all the seals and everything looked good. I printed up a bunch of labels on my computer and slapped them on the jars. My mother came back over that night and we divided up the jars. Now I think we’re good on peach jams for awhile.

Sadly, we didn’t get to do any peach slices because the peached weren’t freestone. I did ask at the farmer’s market and was told that they were semi-freestone and that they seperated easily when the peaches were ripe. Since I had seconds I figured we would be good. Instead we wound up mangling most of the peaches while trying to get the pits out. That’s why we used all the peaches to make jams and butter. In another week or so we plan to get some freestone peaches to can some slices in light syrup.

Note: I will update this post to add the recipes for peach jam, peach jelly and peach butter later this week. Unfortunately I don’t have the recipes with me and I don’t want to hold up this post.

My name is Holly and I was fortunate to grow up with a mother who canned various foods so canning isn’t really new to me. However, this year is the first time I am doing all of the work. Previously I helped my mom and even that has been quite a few years ago. Canning is something that I enjoy and I also love knowing that I’m saving healthy local food for my family to eat. Of course since it’s been a few years since I’ve done anything related to canning that means that I’m relearning quite a few things.

I decided to go with the name The Crazy Canner because with two small children and a full time job outside of the home, everything about our life is a little bit crazy right now. Plus there is my tendency to go a little overboard when I get involved in something that I enjoy. Just this past weekend I went a little crazy on the peach jam (more on that in a post later this week).

My idea for this blog is to share the recipes that have worked well for me along with book reviews on difference canning and food preservation books I try. There should also be a few canning basics posts mixed in to help anyone who is completely new to canning and maybe even give a good tip or two to the slightly more seasoned canners.

So far this year I have canned many batches of jams and one batch of corn. Oh, how I love fresh, local corn. In the coming weeks I will have posts about this year’s already completed jam sessions mixed in with posts about my current canning adventures. Once I’ve gotten caught up I will stick with just posting about what I’m currently preserving.

What canning have you done recently? I’m always interested in finding new recipes and combinations that can be canned.