Trying New Things

 While I know quite a good number of people who have canned or regularly can things, I, myself, have never actually tried my hand at that particular task. Left to my own devises, it seems likely that I wouldn't ever really do that; my little patio garden only produces a few tomatoes and flowers, so I don't have excess of fresh fruits or veggies wanting to be preserved and, so far, I don't have any neighbors sneaking zucchini onto my porch in the dark of the night. 

However! One of my brothers is getting married in the fall and they thought it would be fun to have little jars of sweet preserves as their wedding favors, and they invited family to help with this undertaking. These two live far away, way out in Hawaii, so there's not a great deal I can do, here on the mainland, to help with wedding preparations so I was happy to volunteer (despite my complete lack of knowledge or experience.) That's what Google is for, right!??

So, I got hooked up with little, tiny jars and set about finding a recipe that would work. If I'm being honest, this project made me terribly nervous - new skill, no "real" tools, new recipe... for a wedding favor. No pressure! However, I had lots of more experienced folks who let me pick their brains and between them, and lots of Googling, I took a deep breath and plunged in. 

First thing first, pick a recipe. People said that it's safest to pick one from a real cookbook (vs. instructions from a random blogger) so I turned to my books. The one that seemed the simplest was a recipe for apple butter - which is delicious, so it was decided! Then, it was onto ingredients:

Next, I washed and sanitized the little jars and cooked up the apples with the flavors. I don't have a huge big canning pot, but I've got a good number of smaller ones. This lead to my stove puffing along on all burners (a rare sight):

After the apples were softened and blended up, back to the stove they went to simmer forever. Eventually, things started firming up and it was time to do the "plate test":

It passed! So, finally it was time to spoon my apple butter into the tiny jars. (turns out a melon baller was just the right size!) Then, back into the boiler they went to get sealed up. 

This recipe made enough to fill 14 of my 24 jars, with a little bit left over for me to sample. Yumm! So pretty!

 I'll have to give it a go again soon to fill the last few jars in time to mail over and get there before the wedding.. but this first attempt went pretty well! I'm feeling a lot more confident. Even a little inspired to get "real" canning supplies and try my hand at other fun things for myself.... homemade applesauce is very delicious.