So, yesterday I was promoting how fabulous it is to can your own produce, so I thought I would cover how to do that while watching your little ones. Canning is not hard, but it is very time oriented. The jars have to be processed for specific amounts of time and it's all hot. You don't want kids around the hot boiling water and cooling jars (unless they are old enough to help). The easier thing to do is to break the canning process into two stages. This also applies if you don't have kids and are short on time and don't have several hours at once to devote to canning.
Stage 1: Wash, peel, pit and chop the fruit (if necessary). Berries are the lucky ones here because they don't need to be pitted. Store in tupperware in fridge. If you are doing several batches, (I did a double batch of peaches and it took me about an hour to chop all those peaches) it may take a while. Break time.
Stage 2: (within a day or two of stage 2) Prepare jam or whatever and can. Process according to recipe.
This will cut the canning into two separate time blocks, which make it easier. Then I take advantage of naps and bedtime. I start the cooking of the jam before naptime, then put kiddos down and have naptime to fill and process jars (more time intensive). Then I don' have kids wandering in to see what I am doing while I'm through hot stuff around the kitchen.
This also works well if you are coming home from work and are too tired for a several hour process. Chop and peel the first night. Go relax. Cook and process the second night. Relax again.
More to come..
--EM
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