Last year (2020) I decided to give canning a try. I was annoyed at the fact we were wasting so much good produce because we couldn’t use it or give it away fast enough.
So I toddled off to Big W and got myself a Ball Canning Kit and some smaller Ball jars. I know lots of people reuse old jars which is awesome, but I’ve also heard that they can sometimes shatter and knowing my luck that’s what would happen to me! Plus I like the look of the “proper” jars 😉 If I look after them they should last a long time so I was happy to purchase them new.
Next step was deciding what to try first and the obvious thing was something with tomatoes as we had a gazillion cherry tomatoes. I found a couple of recipes that sounded good (and easy) to try and away I went. I did have a few mishaps (mainly figuring out the best way to get the jars in and out of the waterbath) but overall I would say it was a success!
We ate/gave away most of those jars soon after I made them but I found a couple still in the cupboard this morning so opened one for my breakfast and it went very nicely with my ham and eggs.
These are the recipes I used:
https://www.bhg.com/recipe/balsamic-cherry-tomato-caramelized-onion-conserve/ and https://eatlittlebird.com/cherry-tomato-relish/
The cherry tomato relish didn’t have specific instructions for canning so I compared it with other recipes in my preserving book to make sure it was going to be ok for waterbath canning.
Bayside Homestead 