Friday, May 13, 2011

Canning Anyone? Adventures in the Kitchen

Original Post date Sunday June 27, 2010

Today I gave canning Dilly Green Beans a try.. my aunt Mary from northern WI made then when I was younger. My grandparents always had a jar in their fridge and despite them being spicy, I LOVED them! I asked her for her recipe and she was kind enough to share.

I won a House Party sponsored by Ball (just like the Ziploc and DiGiorno pizza we won the past). They wanted me to have a party with 10-15 friends and make salsa. Seems like since schools been out, everyone's weekend schedules have been crazy and with all the supplies given to me (except the food) I really wanted to give this a try. We headed to the local farmer's market to find out what looked good and bought fresh dill and green beans.

There's a lot of preparing.. washing all the jars, keeping them in simmering water, boiling a ginormous pot of water and then of course preparing the food but (again, cross your fingers) I'm hoping they turn out great.. I may have added a bit more cayenne pepper than it called for so hopefully they aren't too spicy but we like hot things. Matt practically drowns all his food in hot sauce if that tells you how much heat he likes.

Anyhow, my mom canned foods when I was younger and I always wanted to try it but didn't know where to start.. Now I can say I did it! Next I'm going to try a pepper-onion relish. Harry and David sells it for like $8 a jar.. yikes! I'm going to wait until the peppers are in season.. can't wait! I'll post a final picture of the finished jars after we try them out (2-6 weeks).. if they're horrible, they'll be in the trash and you'll never hear me speak of such canning nonsense again! ;)



I was trying to be cheesy but what's wrong with my thumb?!

Updated post: July 20, 2010

The Green Beans Turned Out....
PERFECT! We've been waiting a few weeks to try them and opened the jar on Saturday... they're soooo good. Thank you so much to my Aunt Mary for the recipe and for the great childhood memory that inspired me to give canning a try.

I'm actually going to the be guest speaker at my MOMS Club business meeting tomorrow. I'm going to give a canning demonstration and let the ladies sample my beans. Who knows, maybe I'll inspire them to give it a try. What a great way to use food that otherwise might go to waste... not to mention make very personal gifts for the holidays.

I can't wait to try other things!






p.s. the ladies loved the demo and a few wanted to give it a try.

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