preparing for canning and preserving foods

Well since we were married 42 years ago, I have always used an old fashioned large canner for all my canning needs, and have always wanted something that would separate berry seeds from pulp as my husband can't tolerate seeds and won't eat much of my prepared foods.

So

This spring I ordered myself a new canner and a new victoria strainer with the attachment package from Amazon.

They arrived this week..The canner is beautiful and will be so much nicer to use, even read the entire instruciton book front to back. This is a metal to metal canner with the screw down things on the top, supposed to be more accurate and safer to u se. Bought some more canning jars and had some I bought before, so I'm ready for a good garden season this year.

I also purchased the new victoria strainer and the accessory package with finer and coarser screens and shorter spiral, so that I can now remove seeds from berries and tomato just putting them thru the processor and can process several other things more easily, it even has a salsa setting which will be nice to use.

One problem that I would like to make known to anyone planning on getting the Victoria Strainer unit..it doesn't fit on my countertops or kitchen area tables..it requires a very flat board with no lip and a sturdy surface to attach to, big mistake here not seeing that. After realizing it wouldn't work on my counter I did some sleuthing in my house and I found a fairly sturdy bookshelf that it will fit on, but that will mean hauling that to my kitchen whenever I want to use the strainer, I'll be looking for a better solution to that as time goes on, but can use the bookshelf in a pinch (have to haul it from the laundry room or find a closer place to put it).

I tried a new storebought product this week, Outshine frozen fruit bars, they are really good.

That gave me a really great idea for making homemade fruit pops, once I get the seeds out of the berries and such, as I have 2 of those frozen popsickle molds I bought at Meijer last year..that is always nice to have in the hot hazy days of summer. Looking forward to trying to figure out what I need to do to make my own after de-seeding the pulp of strawberries and blackberries and grapes..(a great way to use those pesky seedy heritage grapevines I have (over 100 year old)..so that has me excited to fix some new things.

As I said in my last post, with my back pain I'm fairly happy spring is coming on slowly this year, as I hurt too much to do much, but it will still all have to be done when  spring does arrive..in the meantime I'm going to be reading up on new reccipes and ideas for using my new toys..later