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I Canned!
Thanks for all of your help with my earlier post. I did my first (and second) round of canning the other night then realized I loved it and canned more yesterday. Haha! I really do love it and I love the results!
I posted my first recipe for Plum Jam on my blog if you want to see.
I can see this becoming a little bit addicting. I plan on giving away most of the jam and I LOVE giving people stuff so this is just feeding that more. Haha! I thought I'd add my observations here:
-Canning is not as hard as I thought it would be. Literally if you can use a knife and boil water you can can.
-I have a VERY small kitchen to the point where I'm limited to two 2 square foot sections to can on (one section of which I shared with my stand mixer and utensil containers). I didn't find this problematic at all. I would clean as I go to keep it looking nice and by the end I had clean kitchen and lots of jam!
-When you make it itself it tastes SO MUCH BETTER! I made plum jam, strawberry mango, and mango banana cinnamon jam and all three I thought tasted better than any jams I've tasted before. This probably isn't true, but to me they are the best!
-When people heard I started canning I got 4 emails asking if I'd be willing to share. People really LOVE homemade jams!
I'm going to can a bit tonight again so that the other mangoes I have in my fridge don't go to waste. And I can't wait. 
Re: I Canned!
Mango raspberry jam is really good.
Vanilla bean mango was also a big hit (you just cook it with vanilla bean).
I don't know how many mangoes you have, but you could just cut them up and can those in syrup. It's even easier than jam and one little container of mangoes (the Del Monte brand) is like $4! Same with peaches.
I see you have a little one. Have you thought about canning apple sauce? Super easy and you can control the sugar contents.
Ok...I just checked out your blog and saw the pictures of the jam. I noticed that especially the second jar has too great of a headspace. You can fill it up more than that.
The recommended headspace for jams is only 1/4 inch. It is measured from the VERY top of the jar (the rimmed part).
Oh thanks! I was using the funnel as a guide and wasn't sure if I was filling it properly.
And I like the mango syrup idea! I got 10 mangoes (total of 4 kilos) from my co-op and 1 mango yields 2 cups so I've only been using one per batch. Which means I have a bunch left over still. I'm not a big fan of eating mangoes just by themselves so I've been looking for creative ways to prepare them.
The key is to get sweet apples. Obviously, if you get tart, green apples, your applesauce will be tart also and you'll need to add several cups of sugar. I used Fujis last time and didn't end up using any sugar.
You just peel them (that's the sucky part), and quarter them to get rid of the icky, inside part (the core). Then you just cook it until they're soft (I used Ducth oven) and mash it or run through food processor (I pulsed it so it wouldn't be too runny). You can also use honey to sweeten it.
proud pagan
The Ball Canning Accesories Kit comes with a little tool (it's in the middle of this picture) that has notches in it for measuring headspace. Works awesome. You just rest the right notch, say 1/4 inch, on the rim of the jar and fill the jar to the bottom of the tool. The kit also comes with a jar lifter and lid lifter, which are necessities for canning.
ETA: Congrats on canning! It is addicting and I agree food tastes so.much.better. In the jam from the grocery store, they're using the crap fruit that wasn't quality enough to sell whole. So the jams suucks.
Yay! I'm always glad to hear others are as addicted as I am!
For my applesauce, I don't peel them or add sugar, I just core and chop them and add some watert and cook until its right... I like the peels. When they cook down they aren't as firm. I also like to do a mix or tart and sweet apples... until it feels right. Sometimes I add cinammon or cardamon. Yum!
I saw the canning kit in the Lakeside Collection catalog just today LOL (they had a red one). *jebuell, that is SO great that you canned! Now to stock up for winter!! Question: did you use a pressure cooker? I've canned marinara sauce without one (just got the water as hot as I could get it), but still worried about botulism...... DEFINITELY canning this fall. Congrats on your success!
jebuell, I took a peek at your blog..and I was wondering what kind of camera do you have? I love the quality of the pictures!
Excellend job on canning! I was supposed to start learning this year, I was going to can green beans (my mom's side of the family shares a fairly large garden). Didn't get the chance to because everytime I would get ready to go pick the beans, my grandma had already done it and canned them. I asked her why she never calls, and both her and my grandpa don't want me working too much. Love their guts so much, but I really wanted to do it. There is always next year though!
I plan on starting out by canning green beans, and possibly my own jams. I'm not a jam person, but everyone else in this house is.
Again, good job! They look great!
I'm actually a photographer (but don't let the Nest Gods know that, I don't want to get banned!) so I have a 5D and an L series lens that I take those pictures with. I'm a cheat.
I see that you live in Utah, have you looked to see if Bountiful Baskets serves your area? That's where I get all of my produce ($15/week, more if I add bonus packs on) and why I can so much. They give you a TON of produce for $15! There's only two of us eating it and I only ordered every two weeks but we still have a TON of left-overs! So I can.
I'm a pretty big jam person, but more than that I'm a gift giver. I love being the person you invite over and they always bring something. My friends love the jams and syrups that I make them and it'll be great at Christmas time because... well... I'm pretty broke right now (cross country move). So even if you don't eat them, they have their purpose!
I haven't heard of them, but I will definitely check them out! Thanks!