With the fruit season coming soon, I am looking for some quality canning jars. I plan on going nuts this year: Apple butter, apple sauce, plum jam, plum saft, red current jam, maybe some pear stuff as well and well...I need some really good canning stuff. I have looked in Sweden and I really can't find anything that great.

Basically I want to fill my small apartment with enough preserves to last me until 3010. and for that I need your help!


Thanks
Robert

Oh my gosh! I never thought of asking that here myself but I'm also looking to can! I would love love love to get into that! I have an awesome pressure cooker robert if you would be interested in having a canning party

Your local grocery store, I'm sure, has some good jars, the kind with the rubber ring and wire locks. Otherwise, you can actually re-use any jars you bought with pickles, mayo or what-have-you. Just sterilize, skim your jam/preserves well and fill while it's still hot. Closing the cover while the preserves are still hot will make a natural vacuum seal as the fruit mass cools. For juice you can use glass ketchup bottles, etc., but what I use are the old Grolsch beer bottles, that also have the rubber rings and wire locks. A few years ago a friend of mine went around to some restaurants that served Grolsch beer and asked to take them from the garbage. She got them for free. However, I don't believe it is served here any more. I have seen the same bottles in those stores where they sell stuff to brew your own beer and wine. I use the same bottles for brewing my own root beer.

/Sapphire
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I have seen the ones with the rubber rings at IKEA and stuff, but the ones I am looking for arehttp://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/canning-pantry/jarp1lg.jpg mason jars with the screw on ring and metal lid top. Thanks for the tips though, if it comes down to it I will definitely use whatever I can get my hands on to start.

Krista, Not sure what pressure cookers have to do with reducing fruit down as fruits are high in acid, but having a canning buddy does sound fun, we will see what happens when fall comes around, I will keep you updated!

RP,

The pressure cooker preserves vitamins from floatin away It also cooks things fast which just makes things easier. Honestly I've never taken on canning myself and have been a little scared to because of the bacteria. I'm not honestly sure if the pressure cooker helps SO much, it's just that my mom always used a pressure cooker and so for a while there I was convinced the pressure cooker actually was the canner

Thanks for keeping me updated! It would be a total blast to get together with another American and can stuff!

O O O oooooo I havn't looked if they ship, but they are in the UK so maybe they do ship, they have mason jars!

http://www.preserveshop.co.uk/glass-jam-jars

Just wondering how the whole canning thing is coming along? I've been thinking about the abundance of incredibly cheap cabbage that you can find now!

How's everything going?

Not so good unfortunately, never got around to getting the cans, and sadly my cherries are out there waiting for me. Now that I am on my pre-beach-starve-myself-until-I-get-a-better-body diet I don't think I will be working on it now... I was excited about it too, but then I gained weight....

Ummm, since you won't be using the Apple Butter recipe might I borrow it??

I tried to make it once but it turned into taffy!

I didn't have no family recipe or anything, I just googled it

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/apple_butter/ was what I was looking at, their recipes in the past have been pretty good for me.

Sorry I don't have any family secrets to share, other than an overly garlic tasting spaghetti sauce my mother usually made us microwave wonders!

THANKS!! I peeked at the recipe and right away I see what I did wrong. This recipe says don't peel or core the apples. The one I used before just assumed an astute cook would know that.

I'm trying to lower my blood sugar right now and am trying new low-carb recipes. Low Carb is probably the best way to take off weight for most people. If I come up with anything great I'll share.

quote:

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Originally posted by penn:
Ummm, since you won't be using the Apple Butter recipe might I borrow it??

I tried to make it once but it turned into taffy!

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quote:

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Originally posted by penn:
I peeked at the recipe and right away I see what I did wrong. This recipe says don't peel or core the apples. The one I used before just assumed an astute cook would know that.

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I just spent the day picking cherries, for real people, I love to pick fruit!! I will stay outside the entire day until every last fruit is picked. Unfortunately yesterday's picking cherries day was rudely interupted by an audience waiting for dinner!

I made a cherry pie though, of which I think was to tart and to red (it reminded them of blood?!?!) for my family. Then I took the rest of the cherries and seeds and all threw them in the freezer, I have no idea if this kills the goodness or not but it was that or the trash.

I'll probably deseed them in later dates and throw them into smoothies.

I would be tickled pink to find someone who had a taste for this stuff, it seems most people don't enjoy it, heck it was only now that i started to really enjoy it!

I have always loved cherries, most fruit actually, i grew up with fruit always readily available no matter what season it was.

Here in Louisiana, my mother routinely freezes all types of fruits and berries. As long as they are packaged well, to keep as much air out as possible, they should last a while. I know she usually puts berries in at the begging of may and doesn't take them out until the holidays. And fruits go in starting at the end of June until the holidays.
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