Canning

This weekend I canned like a crazed woman! It was my first ever attempt at canning by myself. I bought 8 pounds of strawberries and 25 pounds of peaches through my co-op and went to work. 6 pounds of the stawberries went into jam that ended up not setting so it is being billed as strawberry syrup. I made infused vodka, ice cream, cobbler, jam and sliced canned peaches with the peaches. I also sliced some and put them in the freezer for smoothies. The peach jam also did not set up so it is also syrup. The sliced peaches are amazing and popular opinion is that they are better than store bought. I am going to stick with this for a while since I hate putting in the work on jam and not getting jam at the end. The initial investment in jars and supplies has made it more expensive than buying store bought but I think as the jars are reused and the produce comes out of my own garden it will be a great budget stretcher. I also found another use for the syrup left when we eat the canned peaches. I am going to use it to sweeten my tea so I will have peach sweet tea with no additional sugar used!