You Can Start Early Too!

I have always started my canning in the fall. I love having a variety of apple, pear and peach items in my pantry along with the homemade salsa.

This summer I have activity looked for places to get free or very inexpensive fruits to preserve. One of the fruits people just give away are mulberries. Mulberries grow on trees and are not hard to harvest; you just set tarps on the ground and shake the branches of the tree. I have never seen anything like it! Pie cherries (sour cherries) are also ready to be picked right now. Perhaps you know someone that will not be using the fruit on their trees, please let me know and we will see if anyone in the ward could use it.

This has resulted in many jars of jams, syrups and preserves in the past couple weeks. You can find a lot of recipes online at www.fooddownunder.com or at the local extension office. If you have not canned before or are not an experienced canner, Michelle or I would be happy to show you the basics. (Since we are at a high elevation, remember to process your jars for long enough.)

This week I will be using pie cherries to make canned cherries and cherry pie filling. I will also be trying a vegetable Antipasto recipe soon. (I have made canned bing cherries, cherry syrup, bing cherry jam, cherry raspberry jam, mulberry syrup, mulberry apple syrup, mulberry cherry apple syrup, mulberry jam, raspberry mulberry apricot jam, mulberry peach jam and raspberry apricot jam.) If any of these recipes interest you, let me know!

Danielle