Canning Party

I hosted a Jarden Home Brands House Party.  This is the company who own Ball and Kerr jars.   They provided coupons for jars and all kinds of stuff!  They sent me pectin, a ball canning discovery kit, three ball books, gift bags, berry mashers, and more!  Here is a picture of the book which I used a LOT since I have never canned before.

We made apple butter, we had to core, peel and chop 20 lbs of apples.

I had my party at church since the kitchen is bigger and has two stoves.  My kitchen is a galley and you can't walk through if the dishwasher door is open!  We then cooked the apples and water until soft.

Make sure you turn on the right burner though, otherwise you will be cooking for a VERY long time!  Siouxsie then pureed the apples in a blender for us.

Whoops!  It's a good idea to use the clips that come with that particular blender!  At this stage we have applesauce.  Next we added 20 cups of palm sugar, cinnamon, and cloves into the sauce pot the apples were in.

While this was cooking down to thicken, we made end of garden "pickles".  Everyone brought a pound of veggies to add.  We had squash, zuchinni, fresh from the garden green beans and pearl onions.

I can't wait to try them!  Forgot to take pictures during this process!  While the apples were thickening we cleaned up.

Tabitha and Valerie cleaned with a smile!  Then we ate lunch while the sauce was still thickening.  We think it might have taken longer because of the palm sugar?

We took turns stirring that big pot!

Aren't my shoes cute?

Doesn't it look delicious?  It got a dark brown.

 And look at all that steam!  I got a great steam facial today!

Can you see the line on the pot from where it condensed down?  Now it is time to start the canning!  We had the jars boiling to keep them warm.

We had an assembly line going.  One person handing us the jars to fill.

Then two people filling the jars:

We took turns.  Then we had a couple of people adding the rims and bands. 

Then we put the jars back in the water for processing.

Then you need to lick the pot!

Here are the finished jars!

This is only half of them though!  Sorry about the long post, just had a lot to share!
Thanks for joining my party today!
Missy