Canning Recipes (and Canning How-To)

[caption id="attachment_372" align="aligncenter" width="529"] Image © Ball Canning Jars[/caption]

I don't can. I love the jars, I love the stuff inside the jars, I don't love steps that have to be performed perfectly. I'm more of a, "Oh look, a pretty picture with a recipe! Hmmm, I don't have that ingredient, or that one, but I bet I can wing it. And I only have a round pan, not a bundt cake pan, but that'll be fine." kind of a cook.

So when it comes to canning, I tend to think, "I'll do that next summer."

But now I work for a bunch of family-run ACE hardware stores, and Ball canning jars are all over the place right now, which leads me to think, "Well, maybe this is the summer after all.

And come to find out, canning is actually pretty easy. You do have to follow some basic steps, but I can foxtrot, so surely I can can. Right?

Here's the canning how-to guide I'm going to follow this season, and it includes carefully marked steps as well as a video. I can do this!

[caption id="attachment_376" align="alignleft" width="300"] Image © Andrea Nguyen[/caption]

I happen to love pickles, I happen to have a good friend who grows cucumbers, and my family happens to hail from the Midwest, which predisposes in me a penchant for bread and butter pickles, so I'll start there.

This recipe is coped in its entirety from Freshpreserving.com:

Makes 2 (32 oz) quarts
For when you want to make just a few jars of Bread & Butter Pickles, use this recipe featuring Ball® Bread & Butter Pickle Mix - Small Batch with Pickle Crisp® Granules for crunchier pickles!

You will need:

3 1/2 lbs pickling cucumbers (about 14 small to medium)
2 1/2 cups vinegar (5% acidity)
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup Ball® Bread & Butter Pickle Mix
2 Ball® Quart (32 oz) Fresh Preserving jars with lids and bands

Directions:

1. PREPARE canner, jars, and lids according to manufacturer's instructions.
2. CUT ends off cucumbers. Cut into 1/2 inch slices.
3. COMBINE vinegar, sugar, and contents of pouch in a medium saucepan. Heat to a boil.
4. PACK slices into jars. Ladle hot pickling liquid over slices leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rims. Center lids on jars. Apply bands and adjust to fingertip tight.
5. PROCESS in boiling water canner for 15 minutes, adjusting for altitude*. For best flavor, allow pickles to stand for 4-6 weeks.*Increase processing time: 5 minutes for 1,001 to 3, 000 ft; 10 minutes for 3,001 to 6,000 ft; 15 minutes for 6,001 to 8,000 ft; 20 minutes for 8,001 to 10,000 ft.

-Jocelyn Broyles

Maker Faire 2012

A large congregation filled with explosive creativity, unique inventions, enthusiasm for knowledge, and countless fans certainly deserves an official event....maybe its own faire? Is it even possible to contain such diversity all in one place? Well of course! And congratulations if you guessed this event right because I am talking about the famous Maker's Faire; the perfect heaven for an invention junkie!

There are many reasons to attend such an event, and for those who have not had a chance, it is time to clear room on the calendar. Not only is this a perfect family attraction to attend, but it is also embedded with a dash of engineering fun and a pinch of science and technology. You can even learn how to pick a standard lock and solder together a ring! Inspiration is everywhere and those at the faire who had harnessed its capabilities really showed their success with flying colors.



Where else can you find a giant umbrella sculpture that whenever a listener of curiosity presses a button, flames shoot into the air with magnificent fury? Where else can you find two Teslas being fortified as a musical instrument while simultaneously sending out bolts of electricity onto a cage filled with enthusiastic children? Where else can you find motorized cup-cake cars manned by people zipping around in the crowd?

Whatever inspired the Making Warriors to create such oddities, it also helped foster the rebounding spirit of creating things by hand, not soullessly mass produced by machine. And that right there is the significant heart of what Maker's Faire is all about. Adam Savage applauded this current movement during his speech on the last day of the Faire. He used several stories from his “making” career as a foundation of encouragement to inspire listeners, especially children, to be resourceful and to take the pledge to create whatever they wanted. This pledge is meant to kick down any doors that would prevent someone from making, let's say, a giant, obnoxiously florescent, fabric covered, bike driven float that screams total awesomeness. Every single attendee in the faire had traveled to that event because somewhere, somehow, they have been touched by the magic of innovation. Not only can you learn from this innovation, you can also catch its fever and continue the making trend; from imagination, to engineering, and to production.

-Brianna Harbinson; All Images © Brianna Harbinson