I got away from sharing food preservation this year…I’m sorry!!!
But hey, let's chat about it a bit, shall we!
There are so many things you can preserve, even if you didn’t grow them yourself. Just the other day, I whipped up some cranberry juice! I didn’t grow the cranberries, didn’t even get them locally, but hey, I still managed to preserve them. Why? Well, now I know exactly what’s in our cranberry juice, it’s a tad cheaper, and it's more eco-friendly.
Usually, I grab the biggest bags of cranberries I can find, and they're not usually organic. But this time, all I could snag at Walmart were organic cranberries for $2.58 a bag. A bit pricier than what I usually pay, but hey, I had the time to make juice, so I snagged ten bags.
All you need for cranberry juice is sugar and water, and luckily, I had both! I even found some organic raw sugar leftover from last year's ketchup canning adventures that I never used (it’s fancy and I was saving it forever because of that ), so I thought, why not use it since the cranberries are organic. And since it's been sitting in my pantry for a year, let’s just pretend my juice still cost less than store-bought.
Here’s the lowdown on making cranberry juice:
Toss 1.5 to 1.75 cups of washed cranberries in a quart-sized jar
Sprinkle in 0.25 to 0.50 cups of sugar in each jar
Top off each jar with boiling water
Wipe the jar rims, pop on the lids
Hot water bath can for 25 minutes
Let it sit for 4-6 weeks and enjoy!!
My husband even munches on the cranberries after the juice is gone, so nothing goes to waste! I skimped on the cranberries and sugar in each jar to make more jars (I ended up with 14 quarts from my 10 bags of cranberries)
Preserving doesn’t have to take all day; this juice only takes about 30 minutes from start to finish for one canner batch. And it’s totally cool if you didn’t grow or source the food locally.
Our jars will get another life instead of ending up at the recycling center or landfill. The cranberries will be devoured instead of tossed. We know there are no funky artificial stuff in the juice. Sure, it’s got sugar, but hey, everything in moderation, right?
Happy canning!!!
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