As I am sure you all know, I love to make jams and pickles and preserve pretty much anything I can get my hands on.  There is something truly amazing about taking the sweet, perfect flavors of the season and capturing them for whole year.

Pickling requires 3 basic things:
1. Vegetable or fruit to pickle - cucumber, asparagus, cherries, etc
2. Pickling liquid - generally a mix of vinegar with water, perhaps also sugar
3. Seasoning - additives that pack the flavor, mostly herbs or garlic

There are a ton of variations on each one of these components, but you will generally find all of these parts in each pickle recipe.  There are two methods of pickling and each recipe varies on which one to use.  The first is the hot-pack method which involves heating food and putting it in the jar while hot - this menthod expels the air from the food and allows a tighter pack in the jar.  The other is the raw-pack method or cold-pack method which, as you may have guessed, involves not heating the food prior to packing it in the pickling liquid.

The process is pretty basic and the same no matter what you are picking:
1. Sterilize jars & prep your vegetables or fruits (clean & cut them to fit the jars and heat them if hot packing)
2. Put your seasonings in each jar
3. Add vegetables/fruit
4. Fill with hot pickling liquid
5. Process in hot waterbath

Once you have these steps down, you can pretty much pickle anything.  You could also even skip the last step and make refrigerator pickles.

Oh, one more note about pickling!  All vinegars are not created equally.  Each time of vinegar has a different acidity level (white vinegar is much more acidic than champagne vinegar for example), so always use the type called for in your recipe.
Got it?  Great! On with the recipe!

I love asparagus!  Spring and early summer are the perfect times to find these little spheres of deliciousness at your local farmers market or in the grocery store.  When you get tired of roasting or grilling them (but really, how could you get tired of that?), try making them into easy pickles!  I like a spicy pickle, but feel free to omit the pepper flakes if that is not your think.  The herbs added to a pickle can be customized safely.

Spicy Pickled Asparagus

Liquid ratio: 2 cups white vinegar to 1 cup water.
Depending on how many jars you are filling you will need more or less of this liquid mixture.


Per Jar:
1 garlic clove
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 sprig fresh dill (or 1/2 dill seeds)
1/4 tsp salt

I hope you guys are not sick of this canning series yet because I am still really excited to be able to share it all with you and I have so many recipes and tips to share!  Earlier this week, I went through the process for making jam.   There is one thing I left out of that post because I thought it needed it's own post - it's called "testing for gel".  It's much easier than it sounds. Testing for gel is simply making sure your jam pectin has done it's job and made that "jammy texture".

Do you have to test for gel?
Nope, you can absolutely skip that step but you may end up kicking yourself if you do. The process is simple and it gives you a chance to make sure all your hard work is producing the kind of product you like and it also gives you a chance to fix it if it is not quite right. Once you scoop that jam into jars and give them a bath - it's over & the jam is what it is. Taking a moment to test for gel will just give you confidence that you are making a great batch of jam.

When you are starting your whole process and doing prep, take a metal teaspoon out of the drawer and put it down in some ice water (or throw it in the freezer - but if you put it in the freezer be sure to use a hot pad or something when taking it out! Cold metal + skin = ouch) and let it get nice and cold while you are working on your jam. After you have brought your jam to the second boil (the first boil is with fruit & pectin, then adding the sugar will require an additional "bring to a boil" phase) and all your ingredients are in, it is time for the gel test. Take that spoon and dip it in to get a little spoonful. Set that spoonful down for a minute or two and let it cool completely. Once it cools, you can turn it to the side to see how it flows off the spoon to eyeball the gel - but I like to just touch it. It's easier for me to feel the texture than see it. It should feel thick, but not too solid.


This is pretty ideal for me. The texture holds together like a solid, but still has movement.

Now on to the diagnostics that come up when testing. There are 3 common things that you may discover in your gel test:

Jam stays very liquid and runny even though it is completely cool. This is probably the most common problem and the good news is that it is an easy one to fix! It means you were short on pectin, sugar, or did not let it get to a hard boil. Just add another half packet of pectin to your jam and bring to a hard boil for one more minute. The hard boil is important. Don't get nervous or over excited and just simmer for a minute, that just won't activate the pectin in the way you need to with jam.

It's stiff and feels like hard jello. If you jam is stiffer than you'd like then this could be a result of several things: your pectin to fruit ratio is off (check the recipe just to be sure); it's been overcooked (letting the second hard boil happen for just one minute rather than 10 really is important after all).  If this happens, there is not much you can do to repair the batch, but you should still save it - It will melt down nicely to make a lovely syrup topping for ice cream or a marinate for your chicken. All is not lost, you just need to get creative!

The jam is crunchy. The good news is that this is probably a really basic error, it's another overcooking issue, so next time you will keep a better eye on it, right? The bad news is, you can't really fix it. You took your sugar and brought it to the "hard ball stage" of sugar crystallization as most confectioners call it...it's trying to become a hard candy.  I suppose the best you could do it go ahead and cook it fully to make some yummy crystal candy!  I've never really had this happen to me after 100+ batches of jam, so don't worry much about this!

It takes time to figure this part out. If you've never made jam before, it may take a bit of time to get this gel test down perfectly, but give it a shot!  You won't learn until you try.  And if you have questions, get in touch, I would be happy to do my best to answer them!

There are few things to me that are more simplicity beautiful than homemade strawberry jam.  It's soft sweetness brings me back to beautiful childhood memories.  Once you make your own strawberry jam, you will never want to buy grocery store jam again.

This recipe is my tried and true secret strawberry jam recipe.  I've been perfecting this recipe for almost a decade & it even won me a red ribbon when I entered it in the Oregon State Fair a few years ago!  It's really a simple take on an old fashioned recipe with just a few dashes of updating.
There are two parts to this process - making the jam and then the canning process. Both parts are simple and just require a few basic steps.  The wonderful thing is that once you get that second part down, that is what you need to be able to make any kind of jam, jelly, relish, or pickle your heart desires.  This may seem like a lot, but don't be intimidated!


1 box of low sugar pectin
5 cups of  chopped strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries
4 cups of granulated sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (optional)
1 teaspoon salt (optional)


Hull your berries and roughly chop.  Mush with a potato masher - just enough to break it all down, but still leaving some nice whole chunks of fruit in the mix.*  Measure it out and also measure your sugar and set aside.

Next, you want all of your supplies ready. You want everything you you need right at your fingertips before you start. Click here for the hardware guide to see what tools you need.

Heat your waterbath (aka large pot of water with your canning rack inside) over high heat, it will take a bit of time to get to full boil. As soon as it reaches a full boil, you want to put your empty jars in. They need to be in the hot waterbath for about 10 minutes or so to sterilize them. You will remove them as soon as it is time to can. You can also use your dishwasher if there's a sterilization and heat hold setting.

Mix 1/4 cup sugar with 1 box of pectin. Stir together with a fork.  I add the sugar to help keep the pectin from clumping.

Combine your berries, lemon juice, and pectin in a large pot. Add the balsamic & salt - these are both my secret ingredients to help round out the flavors just a bit and boost the natural strawberry flavor, but they aren't traditionally added, so feel free to skip them. Cook on high heat, stirring often.  Bring to a rolling boil. (this is rolling boil #1).

Once you have a nice boil, add all the sugar and stir well.  Keep on stirring.  This is the part where you do not want to take your eyes of your jam because it will be quick to burn.  Bring back to a rolling boil. (that is rolling boil #2).  Boil, stirring constantly, for one minute.

After one minute, your jam will start to thicken, but it will be a little hard to tell just what the final cool consistency will be since it is so hot.  At this point you want to test for gel to make sure it set to that perfect jammy texture.

Your jam will have a top layer that is foamy and lighter colored.  This is totally normal, just skim of this layer with a spoon and put it into tupperware.  The foam is delicious and perfectly safe to eat, it can just make your jam look a little unsightly and discolored if you leave it in, so skim and keep it in the fridge to enjoy first.

*I like to do this step the day before.  It is a big project to take on, so I think it is nice to have that taken care of in advance.  If you prepare the fruit in advance,  1/2 cup of sugar to the chopped berries & store in the fridge to allow it to macerate and really absorb some sugar and create lovely maceration.  It's not necessary, but it's a nice touch.

Congratulations!  You made jam!  You could stop here and just put your batch in the fridge and devour it within a few weeks, but what is the fun in that?  This is a canning lesson, so let's can it!

This is where the magic happens that lets your jam last in your cupboard for up to a whole year.  It's actually way easier than the jam part...just a few quick steps!  Once you have this basic canning process down, you can pretty much can anything!  The very same steps are used to can pickles, jelly, chutney, sauces, ect.  The difference will just come in the processing time, so be sure to just follow your recipe.

Canning Pot or Canner

I have been canning for about 10 years.  When I started, it was just once a year - I would pick strawberries and make one big batch of jam and can it.  This was the recipe and the process that brought be back to childhood...back to the kitchen with my mother and grandmother hoisting me up over the stove to stir the thick pot of strawberry jam as the intoxicating sweet smell filled the room.   When I made jam, it made me feel so connected to that memory and to them.

After awhile. I started to realize that there were so many more things that I could do with that big beautiful canning pot.  I started to experiment with other recipes and I started to find all kinds of new inspiration at the local farmers market.  Canning started to become more than just a connection to a memory, but a connection to food and a connection to eating seasonally.   In recent years, as the popularity of canning has risen, it has also given me a community of wonderful and inspiring people that share my love.  I really want to add you to that community and that is why I am doing this series on my blog.

People tell me often that canning is just too intimidating to try. I know it does seem like a lot of information at first. Remember that it's just like any other new craft or multi-step recipe you've done before - there are just some new terms, techniques and steps that you need to learn, but once you get those down your possibilities become limitless! Over the next few weeks, I will share the basics of canning with you - the terms, the hardware, the process, and the troubleshooting...and of course the amazing recipes you can make!   I really hope that you will get inspired and give it a try!