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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