Homemade Strawberry Jam Labels

I love homemade strawberry jam.

I remember as a little girl devouring my grandma's strawberry freezer jam.

I slathered it on fresh bread, toast, and graham crackers. Heck I ate it by the spoonful right out of the container.

I lived for that jam.

Once in college after some affectionate begging, I even got some jam from her. Yup, it is true. Freezer jam on ice given to me while so far away from home.

Then when I was newly married I decided it was time for me to learn how to make my own freezer jam. After some fingernail biting, I called her and she told me how to go about it.

And went about it I did.

From then on, every summer I gathered fresh strawberries and went about making our family a freezer full of jam.

This summer was no different...

Okay so it was a little different.

First, we did not go traipsing about our favorite Ohio strawberry farm picking and eating strawberries to our hearts content.

No strawberry picking here. Sad.

So instead we relied on our good old Zaycon Foods. Remember when I wrote about it HERE?

So we picked up our strawberries...our lots and lots of strawberries.

Before we set out to make jam, we had ourselves some berry eating.

Then I made up some freezer jam up. I mean, I had to it is tradition.

However, the other difference to jam-making this year...

Well friends, I busted out my ever growing mad canning skills and I made some cooked jam.

Booyah.

I decided to try making cooked jam because then I could put it on the shelf in our food storage. Hence, not cramming my itty bitty chest freezer full of jam leaving no room for oh, like, I don't know, things like chicken, beef, frozen veggies...minor details.

I bought myself a water bath canning pot (that is the technical term for it).

Then I got to work.

When all was said and done I had jars and jars of jam.

Beautiful and yummy jam.

In fact I made so much I have enough to hand some out here and there as little homemade gifts.

All I had to do was top the lid with some cute fabric and put a simple label on the front.

I made up these simple labels, and I am gonna share them with you.

Just 'cause you know I like ya and all.

Just right click on the image below and save it your computer as a jpeg.

Then all you need to do is open it in a document like Word and print it off. Someday I will master the whole pdf thing. Be patient with my technical ignorance.

Back to the jam.

Add your name. Put it on a jar of your own homemade jam.

Make someone super duper happy.

In a Nutshell: Canning, Beef, Coupons

So...um...I am a super late in posting this today. I am running behind in a couple things lately, but I have decided to embrace it. All my running slower is for a very good reason, so I am not going to let it bother me...most the time anyway...hahaha.

I was pretty productive at the beginning of this week and there was a second round of pressure cooking canning at our house. Since my first attempt at the end of Summer with beans went without anything blowing up, I decided that I could give it another go.

I washed the jars and got the lids ready...aren't they so cute and country looking?

I loaded in my canning ingredient. Then I loaded up the pressure cooker.

With a little more confidence I got it locked and loaded and started. I am still a little unsure of everything so when it took a little longer and didn't go exactly like I thought it should, there may have been tears and a frantic call to Hubby and a friend.

No worries though, all worked out. About an hour and half later I had 16 jars all canned and sealed.

So are you wondering what I canned?

No judging...

No seriously, do not judge me.

I canned chicken...say what?!? Yup that is right I canned chicken!

I was totally skeptical when I first heard about canning chicken. I have a friend who had done it and when I spent the afternoon at her house we used a can to make chicken salad sammies. Well, they were just about the most delightful thing. The chicken was awesome. Once I got past how it looked in the jar, I let the taste of the yummy chicken convince me to give it a try.

Luckily I tried this chicken and made the decision right before getting a huge pick up of chicken from a company called Zaycon Foods. PS Thanks to my friend Melanie for introducing us to this company! If you do head on over, we get a referral bonus, so either click on the link above or you can enter LarissaZ in the referred by section when you register. Thanks for sharing the bulk meat love!

I will have to give a little rundown on this company soon.

This is our second time ordering the chicken. This time we were also able to put in an order of ground beef. Forty pounds of 93/7 for $2.99 a pound. YEAH.

So after I canned some of the chicken, prepared and stored the rest, I had to split up the beef into 1 lb portions and store. AND if any of you were wondering if I was going to can the beef...um no. Word on the street is you can...however I felt that my adventures in chicken were enough for now.

So after a day of chicken and beef I was all meat-ed out. I did feel a lot of accomplishment though.

In saving money and frugality fashion, we have also lightly  reinstated this little chore...

Oh couponing...how I am not a huge fan of you. However, our large stock up pile has severely depleted since we moved. So we decided to start up again. We did our first couple shopping trips this week and while we definitely will not qualify for "Extreme Couponing" ever anytime soon, we have stocked up some things again and it feels good.

I have good intentions of showing you guys some projects this week. I have some Valentine printables to share. Maybe a room reveal or two. I am starting to work on Oldest's party projects.

BUT we will see...I can't predict when I am going to need to sit down, chill, and let the only project be growing this tiny human in my belly. Six weeks to go and man am I feeling it.

See ya soon everyone!

Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit...

...the more you eat, the more you...

Forgive me my 10-year-old boy humor. I come by it honestly...just ask my dad who taught me all these phrases to begin with...

Anyway, back to the beans.

Last week I had one of my new neighbors ask me if I canned. My response was, "I have done water bath canning once with help". She proceeded to ask me if I would like to give it another go and can some green beans. Fear gripped my heart and shouted "NO!" But my practical and adventurous side got the words out of my mouth first with a falsely confident "Sure, why not".

The next day she brought me over two big of garden fresh green beans...

Glorious. Then she brought in her pressure cooker. AHHHHHH!!! I don't know how to use this thing. Don't these things blow up on people? What if I do it wrong and I give my family botchulism? Can you tell I am a little high strung???

Well after she gave me a quick run through, I was on my own armed only with my false confidence, a minor level of intelligence, her verbal instructions, and her cell phone number.

Middle and I snapped and cleaned all the beans. I assembled the beans in the jars as instructed. Then I turned to the pressure cooker, looked it straight in the proverbial eye and said, "I am not afraid of you."

Which of course was false.

I knew it. The beans knew it. The pressure cooker knew it.

Would you believe that thing called my bluff? No? Would you believe that I chickened out and desperately started calling all my new neighbors (the one who gave me the beans was traveling out of town that day) trying to get someone to help me not blow up my house? Why, yes you would believe that wouldn't you.

Thank heavens one of my fabulous new neighbors came and gave me another quick refresher on getting the beans in the pressure cooker. I am happy to say that I took her instruction, then she left and I still did it all myself.

Yep, after a long day and a battle with my confidence and the pressure cooker, I turned these...

Into 18 pints of these...

Pretty, right? Are you proud of me for not giving up?

With one round of pressure cooking canning under my belt, I think there may be more in my future. All these green beans are lonely in our food storage, they told me. They have requested some apple pie filling. I can't tell them no now can I.

Now that the canning bug may be in my future, I would love to know what I should can. Do you can? What is your favorite thing to can?