Canned Food Pictures

Yesterday was such a busy day. Hubby and I had an errand we had to run and that took us til around noon. Then I came home and picked up my mom and we went out looking at garage sales, it was a great deal of fun. I enjoy spending that one on one time with her. Then when we got home the busy work began. When we stopped working at 11:30 at night we had 7 quarts of potatoes, 11 1/2 pints of Strawberry Jelly and Jam and 10 pints of Peach Jam. It was a lot of work and it really did a number on me but it is so worth it to have this great food put up for the following year. Had it not been for my husband and daughter no where near this amount of food would have gotten done. They are always awesome to help me out.

This is the Strawberry Jam, I was hoping you would be able to see clearly how beautiful it is but the camera did not do it justice.

This one again was where I was trying to show you how you can "see" the texture of the jam in the jar.

This is th Strawberry Jelly, it had no pulp added  to it so this is just a beautiful easy to spread jelly.

This is showing the 7 quarts of potatoes we got done. That is a quick and easy process to do. It was the first time I have done it and I was thrilled with how easy it is.

The jars in the front on the right side of the picture are the Peach Jam, oh I can't wait to get into that. Not only is it great on toast but fruit is a natural meat tenderizer so putting this or many of the other jellys and jams I've told you about on meat is an amazing experience in cooking, one you are not likely to forget any time soon. So give it a try I think you will love it as much as we do.

Close up of the Peach Jam

Canned Potatoes.

Orange Jelly

Okay friends, here we go this is the AMAZING  Orange Jelly recipe I've been hinting at.

Please keep in mind that these jellies are not just for putting on your toast or bagel in the morning. Fruit is a natural meat tenderizer and using these on pork or chicken can just have some amazing results. Give it a try and come back and comment and let me know how it turned out for all of you.

Here we go! I so hope you all enjoy this jelly as much as I do. It brings the orange flavor out in a strong way, like when you bite into an orange and you get that little tick in your jaw! This jelly will do that for you also. I have a hard time not eating it with a spoon and forgetting about the bread.

Orange Jelly

5 cups of freshly squeezed orange juice.
           let me state here that you can purchase orange juice with no sugar added and use that but you
           will also be putting all the preservatives etc. that they put in orange juice into your jelly. I
           not to do that as that is a huge part of what I'm trying to get away from for my family.
5 cups of Sugar
1 package of powder pectin.

Prepare your jars for canning, have them sterilized and ready to go. Due to the fact that you only process this jelly in a boiling cold bath canner for 5 minutes the jars MUST BE STERILIZED.

Have your lids and rings set out and ready to go, don't forget to put your lids in hot water before placing them on your jars so that they will seal.

In a large pot, do not use an aluminum pot, combine the sugar and orange juice and bring them to a boil. Make sure this is a roiling boil, that is a boil that cannot be stirred down.

Continue the boil until the ingredients are greatly reduced. I found that by the time I reached the required temperature it had reduced enough at that point.

You want the jelly to reach a boiling temperature of 220 degrees. Now to be honest mine never did get to 220, it hit about 217 and just stayed there. I let it boil for about two to three minutes at that temp and it worked out just fine.

Add the pectin and allow to boil for an additional 5 minutes. Again I didn't reach 220 at this stage either but did this step at 217 degrees and it caused me no problems.

Pour jelly into prepared jars. Wipe rims apply lids and rings. Then you will process this in a boiling cold bath canner for 5 minutes.

Makes 4-5 pints.

It is very important that you do not start timing the canning  process until the water has returned to boiling.

As always this is the recipe I use for my family. Your choice to use this recipe is at your own discretion, I can not be held liable for any negative results you may have in the process of making the jelly or canning it.

General Jelly Recipe

Generic Jelly Recipe. There are some jelly's that will make their own pectin and there is no need to add pectin. I will get those listed shortly. But for general jelly like grape or strawberry this will work and turns out just wonderful.


1/2 tsp Butter (not margarine since it's nearly plastic, look it up)
4 C Fruit Juice
1/4 C Lemon Juice
1 Pkg Powder Pectin
4 1//2 C Sugar

Place fruit juice and lemon in a pot on the stove.

(I use my cast iron enamel coated pot as I don't have to worry about hot spots in it. If you would like one of those beautiful pots they come in blue and red. You can go to Wal mart and give them $60 for one or watch Aldi's and get them for $20.)

Sprinkle the pectin over the top of the liquid, no heat or stirring needed at this point.

Let the pectin sit for 1 minute and then stir it in.

Turn your heat on and get the liquids to a rolling boil. (a boil that cannot be stirred down)

Once you have reached a rolling boil stir in all sugar at once. Stir constantly to get the sugar dissolved and returned to a rolling boil.

The last rolling boil needs to be sustained for several minutes, I use a candy thermometer and when I get in the range of 217 to 220 degrees I keep it there for 1 minute.

Once jelly's are finished ladle out into canning jars if you are going to process them. I process them for 15 minutes in a cold bath canner. The water in the canner must be boiling as you start your time when the water is boiling not when you put the jars in.

If you are not going to can it then put it in a container and let cool then put it in the refrigerator.


This is one of the recipes I use in my home for my family. While we have never had any problems with it I cannot be held liable for your decision to use this and for any possible problems you may have with it or your canning process.

Mint Jelly (using fresh mint from your garden)

Mint Jelly

Read this recipe all the way through before beginning. I made some adjustments and changes to it as I did mine. You can follow what I did or follow the recipe, whichever way works best for you. Following this recipe is a personal choice, I can't be help responsible for any negative results you get from using it or storing it.

3 cups packed Mint Leaves
Green Food Coloring
4 cups Sugar
1 pkg, powdered pectin




This recipe calls for using Mint leaves, so if you have Mint  in your garden this is a good recipe for it.

Pick and wash fresh mint leaves carefully and bring to a boil with 3 3/4 cup of water.
       (I went a step further with mine and tore my leaves in half)

Steep (leave the leaves sitting in the water off of heat source) for at least 10 minutes. (I let mine sit for about 20 minutes to assure I had a good amount of mint flavoring)

Strain through a double layer of cheesecloth and measure out 3 cups of the mint infusion. (I didn't have cheese cloth but did have one of the wire strainers that has very small holes, it worked great)
 a few drops of green food coloring to get the desired color you want.

Combine the mint infusion and sugar in a large kettle and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved, then continue the boil for 1 minute.

Add pectin all at once, continue to stir constantly and boil for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and skim off foam. (I avoid this step by adding a 1/2 tsp butter, it keeps jelly from foaming and doesn't affect the taste at all)

Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal with parrafin. (I also did not seal mine in this manner I put , mine in the sterilized jars, put seals and lids on them and then ran them for 10 minutes in boiling water in my cold pack canner, worked great)

Additional Notes: Once the jelly was done and one jar cooled I put it in the refrigerator. Once cooled I tried it one a slice of toast and it was okay. Not quite as strong in the mint flavor as I expected but you could definitely taste the mint. I have read often where mint jelly is good for use when cooking lamb. We don't eat lamb but I'm thinking it would be great on pork.

Canned Peaches and Green Beans

Today has been such a great day! I was a little run down early this morning so my mom and daughter chased me out of the kitchen to go take a little nap. When I got up they had washed up the few dirty dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. That's better than getting a dozen roses in my book.

After that we started working on canning. Mom and daughter pealed and cut the peaches in half and put them in water with lemon juice in it. Then when they were done we packed them into jars and poured a mixture of water and sugar over them. This will make the syrup as they can and wait to be eaten this winter. Since these were such sweet peaches I was able to use a very light syrup which makes me even happier, that uses a lot less sugar.

While they were working on that I washed and snapped Green Beans. One they were done I filled the jars, put some salt in each jar (don't use table salt, either Kosher or Canning salt is needed) then filled each jar with water, put their flats and lids on and they were ready to go.

These two things don't take long in a cool bath canner so it was no time at all when I had 6 quarts of Peaches and 3 quarts of Green Beans canned and cooling.

It doesn't seem like much but each and every jar means another I don't have to buy from the store. Another jar that I know exactly what is inside of it and another jar that doesn't have ingredient names so long that you need to be a scientist to read them.