Yesterday, my daughter and I, had a great time canning.

We didn’t can in the morning like I’d originally planned. I was much too busy for that.  Also, we only canned one type of jam but, but we still had a lot of fun. Yesterday morning we had to rush to the store to purchase canning jars. I completely forgotten that I’d given all my small “jam and jelly” jars away to a friend who didn’t have any canning jars. And so… off to the store we went to purchase canning jars.

Here in the USA, it seems that many people use Ball or Korr jars for canning. They’re also referred to as ‘Mason jars’. A case of Ball canning jars contains twelve jars. We bought three cases. Two of the eight ounce canning jars, and one four ounce. I spent less than $8 per case.

I asked my daughter what she wanted to make, and her quick reply was peach jam. Fortunately, our peaches were picked and processed the day before (Wednesday). They were washed, cut and added to storage bags. Since our two peach trees are producing a lot of fruit, we had several bags to be put into the freezer.

Peaches from our garden. They’re getting ready to be turned into peach jam

When we returned home, I pulled out two bags of peaches from our storage freezer.

Before canning, you need to sterilizing the canning jars. Here my daughter is pouring water over the jars that will be sterilized.

My daughter enjoyed sterilizing the canning jars. When cooking, she knows to be careful, and of course I’m right there to supervise everything she does.

She’s already a knowledgeable/experimental cook. Which is an awesome accomplishment for a nine-year old — in this age at least. She’s so much fun in the kitchen.

The water and the sterilized Ball jars look so pretty, but it’s look but don’t touch since the water is scalding hot.

Have you  heard the expression, “A watched pot never boils?” Which really is a way of saying, when we’re impatiently waiting on something, the time spent waiting can seem to take forever.

We did watch this stockpot, and yes it finally started boiling… Yippee!

It’s always smart to set your freshly sterilized canning jars on something like a towel, setting them on a cool surface could cause them to crack.

Sugar, spices and few squeezes of lemon were added to peaches, and the end result was peach jam had been created!

Yeah, it’s time to add the peach jam to the canning jars…

A few spills were made, whoops! But most of the delicious jam ended up in the sterilized Ball jars.

Once the sterilized jars were filled with peach jam, I wiped each jars rim with a paper towel that I’d ran under warm water. I then screwed on the two piece lid.

And then added the peach jam into the stockpot, and made sure the jars were covered with about 2″ of water. It’s time for their hot water bath.

Hooray, all of our canned jars of peach jam have sealed!

The canned jars of peach jam were set aside on the towel seal. I spaced them about 2″ apart. I told my daughter not to touch them, since they needed to cool down from their boiling bath. The types of lids we purchase, allows you to hear the canned jars seal.  They make a popping noise.   For me, that sounds never gets old. It still makes me smile.

Later today we’ll be canning fig jam, and perhaps some salsa too. We won’t be doing that until this evening. My morning is busy, and this afternoon, my daughter has soccer practice.We’ll be making grape jelly tomorrow.

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