In some hot water..

After my date with pressure canning potatoes, I decided to do some hot water bath canning at home with some of my fruit. 

I never did understand why it is called canning when we are using jars, and using jars came before metal cans.......all those unanswered questions. ;)

 I had to get a little creative since I do not actually have a hot water bath pot, so I used my pasta pot.







I can fit 5 of the 8oz jars in the pot and it BARELY fits to fill the water level to above the jars, so I will either need to upgrade and buy a bigger pot or can everything into small portions. ;)

I made a blood orange marmalade with some almond extract and sugar in water.  Added some cornstarch to thicken it a bit. 

I canned the pineapples in nothing but water, no extra sugar.









 




I cooked the pears in light sugar and water to soften them.









To my delighted surprise every can sealed!  I was worried that they would not seal well with my makeshift set up, but I guess I got lucky. 

Labeled and Ready for my shelf! :)

HAPPY "JAR-ING"!! 

Blood orange Marmalade

Orange segments

water 

sugar

cornstarch

almond extract

put oranges in pan and add enough water to cover. Sprinkle sugar over them and bring to a boil.  add a tsp or so of corn starch and let boil until thickening and over half the water is gone. Add almond flavoring to taste and more sugar if you wish. 

put in clean warm jars to can.

Pears

peel and slice pears, remove the seeds.

cover in water

sprinkle sugar over them, bring to boil. 

Let boil 2-3 minutes or until the desired amount of soft.

use slotted spoon to fill the clean and warm jars with the pears only, then top off the jars with some of the liquid.

Pineapples

Cut into chunks

put in pan with water to cover.

bring to boil and immediately turn off the heat

use slotted spoon to put pineapple into clean and warm jars, then fill up with water.