Canning

Ok, I know I live in the country and am a stay at home mom, but that's not the only reason I am canning!  It's fun and you get to make whatever you want and it's not even too hard.  I got a canner for my birthday and a few of us moms wanted to try canning together.  So at the beginning of December, I did my first set of canning with some applesauce.  I learned how to use my canner and also that applesauce costs more homemade than store bought.  But we were going to do homemade pepper jelly next and I knew that would be worth it.    

We met at Tina's church and let the kids play while we got started on making the pepper jelly.  Every now and then we'd have to stop and make sure the kids were ok.  Or start them on a craft project. Or find them some fun toys.  It was a little harder than we thought, canning and watching the kids at the same time, but it all worked out in the end.  We also might have talked longer than we should have (as always) because it took a long time.  And we also were trying to do 5 people's worth at once.  So every burner was going and every pan was being used.  A few particularly funny memories would be MaryRuth trying to watch all our pans at once, and all of them boiling over, separately, one right after the other.  Finally by the time the last pan boiled over, it caught fire and wouldn't go out.  She just shouted, Get the Salt, so I complied and she got it put out.  All this because Sarah was fanning it with a towel and I was useless.  Best and worst moment of the day.  So after all the canning was done, we realized it was 1pm and none of the kids had eaten.  So we fed them and started our two hour clean up (of a tiny kitchen mind you).  It was crazy.  But in the end I got some yummy pepper jelly and we are going to try salsa next!