The BEST Strawberry Syrup you will ever have!

There is nothing more delicious than homemade Strawberry Syrup.  Envision it over some delicious waffles, pancakes, crepes, or ice cream.  Do I have you hungry yet?  I hope so!
For several years I have been on the hunt of a good strawberry syrup.  And this year was finally THE year!  It's a crowd pleaser so far, and that is with just a dozen or so that has tried it so far!  So go ahead, try it out for yourself.

First you want to wash, hull & cut the strawberries into fourths.  Measure them out to at least 6 cups.

Now put them into a large pot with a small amount of water - around 1/2 a cup or so.  Boil them for 5-10 minutes, then reduce to simmer for 20 minutes.  Dump them into a colander.   I put the colander over a measuring cup to make it easier to see that I have hopefully around 2 cups of juice.  You can leave them in the colander for several hours to drain, or you can speed up the process like I love to do😉

Now add your juice to a large pot (I reuse the pot I boiled them in) - and add sugar & lemon juice.  Bring these to a boil.
While this is starting to boil, mix your water and clear jel in a separate container.  Once the juice boils, add the clear jel mixture & stir while boiling for 1 minute.  It will really start to thicken because of the clear jel.
Ladle into your jars, wipe the rim, lid and water bath for 15 minutes.

Presto!!!  Strawberry syrup is made!!!

🍓Happy Canning!!!

Strawberry Syrup
1 batch yields roughly 28 oz 

6 cups of washed, hulled, and quartered strawberries

1/2 cup water

3/4 -1 cup sugar

2 1/2 tsp lemon juice

1/3 cup water

2 1/2 tbs Clear Jel

Place strawberries and around 1/2 cup water in pot.  Bring to boil and let boil for no more than 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Reduce to simmering for 20 minutes.  You are breaking down the berries to get as much juice extracted from them as possible.  Now place them in a colander over a measuring cup. Let drain for a couple hours, or like I do - speed up the process by stirring them up.  You need at least 2 cups of juice.

Now take your strained juice and put in a pot (I reuse the pot I just boiled them in).  Add your sugar & lemon juice.  Bring this to a boil.  In a separate container whisk together very well the Clear Jel and 1/3 cup water.  Once the juice is at a boil, add in the Clear Jel mixture and stir for one minute on a hard boil (a hard boil is one that can't be stirred down).  Remove from heat and ladle into your clean and warm jars.  Leave 1/4 - 1/2 inch headspace.  Wipe rims and sterilized lids and bands - just tightened to finger tight.  

Hot water bath jars for 15 minutes. 

 

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Very Easy Grape Juice - 1 quart at a time

Imagine waking up on a weekend morning...Coffee being made for you and breakfast just about finished.  Yum!!  But then, what will your kids drink?  Homemade grape juice of course!  I can't promise that dream can come true - except for the grape juice!
My sister and I have been making this juice for quite some time now.  Kid tested and loved! We normally use my sisters concord grapes that she has in her backyard.  But for this post I'm experimenting with Red Table Grapes from my local Aldi, since we probably don't all have grapes just out in our backyard!! 

Make sure to have your water bath canner & jars ready! This is a very quick canning recipe.  Use as little as a cup of grapes - or as many as you want for this recipe.

Grape Juice Recipe
1 cup grapes
1/2 cup Sugar
Large pot of hot boiling water

Wash and take the grapes off stems.  Place 1 cup of grapes in a quart jar.  Add sugar.  Add boiling water to jar.  Leave 1/2-1/4 inch headspace.
Repeat with as many grapes that you have, or as many quarts of juice that you want.
Wipe rims with a clean cloth, add sterilized lids and bands - finger tight.
Place in water bath canner and process for 20 minutes.
Let cool to seal for 24-48 hours.  Make sure they have all sealed, and then these need to be left to store for 6 months before opening.  Once opened, be sure to strain the juice out and discard the grapes.
What a great treat to have in the middle of winter with all your family and friends!!

In my experimentation today - 2 lbs of grapes yielded 6 quarts of juice.  The color on mine are light now, but in 6 months time they will have darkened.  I will load a picture of them before I open them.

Happy Canning!!

Check out my video:








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Items for Water Bath canning

If you are just starting out canning, or just thinking about it - here are a few things that have really proved to be helpful to me....

• A Ball Blue Book.  It has been an essential item in my canning life. You can pick one up on Amazon here*

• I also recommend getting a jar lifter, funnel, & canner.  If you want all these items, you can get them in one spot here* - 

This kit also comes with a spatula - but I'll be honest, I don't use it for everything. It also comes with a lid wand, which comes in very handy -  
but something I love even more is a lid holder!!!!                                                                    
It was the PERFECT gift for me!! You can get that here - Lehmans 

• And of course - you will need jars, lids, & bands.  All new jars come with the lids & bands.  I have reused my bands for many years, but you should NOT reuse your lids.  I know, I know - that's a real bummer!  Of course, you'll need to know what size jars you want to use in your canning.  Most jams, jellies, & spreads are in adorable 4 oz, 8 oz or 12 oz sizes.  And these can come in adorable decorative jars, or just the plain jane.  My mother started canning with my sister and I a few years ago, and she always insists on using the decorative ones since she puts the canned yumminess on display.  😍😍  You can buy these at many retailers, but here's a link to Amazon*

         


Also there are wide mouth jars/lids & regular mouth jars/lids.  I made the mistake once of buying wide mouth lids when I didn't own any wide mouth jars!  Oops!!  I now use both types of jars in my canning.  But just to start out, I would just buy the regular size jars and go from there.

• Ok, you will also need a pot to sterilize your lids (a small one does just the trick), and a pot to cook your food in.  So yes, I do normally  have at least 3 burners going on my stove while canning!  If you have a dishwasher - that works great for heating up the jars. But that might be getting ahead of myself, since this is just a post on the items needed.  Sorry!

Here's a look at my must have canning items.  

The larger one is my actual canner.  The middle one I rarely use.  The small one I use for the lids.

I know it looks like these would take up a ton of space that you just don't have - but they really don't, they all stack well together!

This is the largest canner I use at times - with all the other pots & items in it.

I wish I had the actual water bath canner for the link I posted on the kit, but I bought all my things separately - before the big craze of canning.  But that's okay, these have worked well for me for many many years.  

Important to note, that the pot you choose to water bath your jars in - you do not want to then cook food in it.  You want it to be totally used just for water bathing.  You may wonder why - but after canning a few items, you will see you wouldn't want to use that pot for anything else!

So there you go!  Now go get your items so we can have some fun together!!




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Chocolate Strawberry Sauce

Mr. Homemade Canner loves the chocolate syrup and strawberry syrup I can, so I wanted to try something new - Chocolate Strawberry Sauce. Yuuuummmmm!

Fresh Strawberries

Unfortunately where I currently live, I couldn't pick my own strawberries. 😭  So I "picked" my strawberries at a local Aldi for $1.19/lb!!  Then I washed them & hulled them --- removed the stems ---- then cut them in half.  Typically recipes want you to use a potato masher to mash them, I find I want to do it quicker than that (Plus I threw mine out in a recent move since I never used it!), so I used my cup blender to get them smashed up a bit.

Here they are after I have blended them, I dump them into my measuring cup for ease

At around 6 cups of smashed strawberries, I dumped them into my cooking pot.  I added 4 tbsp of Lemon juice, 6 tbsp of Pectin, & 2/3 cup of Nestle unsweetened cocoa powder.  Whisk very well and let it come to a boil.  Once boiling, add 4 cups of sugar all at once and return to a full boil.

Boil hard one minute and then ladle that bad boy on into your canning jars for processing for 10 minutes!

Want to see the end result??  Of course you do!

Came out a bit gelled.  I'm passing it around to family and friends to taste test!!  

Ingredients:

2/3 cup Nestle unsweetened Cocoa Powder

6 tbsp Ball Pectin

6 cups crushed/smashed strawberries

4 cups sugar

4 tbsp lemon juice

Directions:

Prepare your boiling water canner.  Heat jars and lids.

Place strawberries into large pot.  Whisk in Cocoa, Pectin, & lemon juice.  Bring to a rolling boil, stirring frequently.  Add sugar all at once and return to a rolling boil.  Boil hard for 1 minute and stir.  

Remove from heat.  If you like, skim off any foam (I didn't have any with this recipe.)

Ladle into jars leaving 1/4 - 1/2 inch headspace.  Wipe rim.  Apply lid and band just fingertip tight.

Process jars in water bath for 10 minutes.  

Remove jars and place where they can cool for 24 hours. 

Wait to hear the beautiful "ping" song as they seal shut!

Have a recipe you want me to try for you - let me know!  

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The Homemade Canner Herself

Hello!  I wanted to let you know a little about me.  My name is Samantha and my run in with the canning life was around 2001.  My sister wanted to make some grape jelly, so we did. And I thought it took FOREVER!  But I absolutely 💓the end result. From there I wanted to learn how to can tomatoes!  So around 2005 a sweet older lady taught me how to can tomatoes, but not the approved method for these days...and now I've been canning ever sense!
So stay tuned as I try to share my journey of canning.  There are many recipes I have loved and some I haven't liked so much, but I will try to share all of them with you.  Plus, I want to get recipes from you to taste test!
Thanks for reading!

Samantha
The Homemade Canner