Canning is frugal and fun

Let's face I love to can!! Nothing gives me for satisfaction then looking at all the jars of pretty foods I fill when I go on a canning spree. And canning is frugal as well. Our grandmothers and great grandmothers would spend months during the gardening season canning every thing they could get their hands on so they would have good healthy foods to feed their families during the winter. They were limited mostly to the foods they could grow in their back yard gardens and local farmers but thanks to the over the road trucking companies and others we are able to can all year long.

In addition to my love of canning I am also a prepper. I believe food prices are going to rise a lot higher than they have already and with us living on a limited income I am trying to do all I can to make sure we survive. It is a well known fact that all the current weather related problems and earthquakes have been causing crop losses. And they are going to continue causing crop losses and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Michigan has already lost their sour cherry crop and grape juice crop for this year not to mention all the other states that had huge crop losses last year and even so far this year to floods, draught and more. I want to do all I can to make sure my family. So I have been canning as much as I could in the last week. So far I have made grape jelly (pictured above), carrots, succotash, cranapple jelly and pulled pork.

The grape jelly and cranapple jelly were a very frugal thing for me to do. I was given several bottles of both juices and since we are not big juice drinkers here I turned them all into jelly. All I had to do was buy the sugar, Sure Jel and canning lids. I now have enough jelly to last my family of 4 for about one year from the juice that was given to me. A win/win for us. :) We even have enough that I can send a few jars to my grandkids. They love Nana's jelly.

Here is a picture of the cranberry jelly. Doesn't it have a pretty amber color? It sure does taste good as I got a small sample after filling the jars. YUM!!

I can't wait to see what I can get my hands on to can next. Happy canning everyone!