Domestic Goddess??

Ok, Domestic Goddess is going a bit too far, but I have always wanted to use that term. I felt like one over the last couple of weeks because I decided to can. Yes, bottle fruit for our growing food storage. Rich found a sweet deal on fruit and since he's canned several times before, he asked if I would try it. We only bought 2 cases of peaches and 1 case of pears because we weren't sure how I was going to like canning.

Prior to me canning, I went to and hosted an Enrichment activity on canning and I tried to learn as much as I could but still felt lost. Luckily, my dear friend, Mignon came to my rescue and offered to come over and help as well as can her fruit at the same time. She is a canning expert! She came over last week and I quickly learned why I have never canned before or even had the desire! It was the worst two days of my life...no kidding! My back hurt, my feet hurt, my hands hurt, my kitchen was a DISASTER and I ruined our grass in a few spots. BUT, do we have some BEAUTIFUL bottles of fruit or what?! I never thought fruit to be so gorgeous until now.

We bought a Camp Chef this year for camping and it came in handy for our canning! We did all of the "water-bathing" outside on that and the blanching, peeling and syrup making inside. The house got so steamy! For some reason, our smoke detector can't tell the difference between smoke and steam and continued to go off throughout the day. We finally had to take it down and hide it under the covers on my bed!

So, after my days of canning, I decided I would never ever can again. When I tell people this they tell me that I will love eating what I have canned throughout the winter and will be looking forward to doing it again next year. We'll see...

The trusty Camp Chef

Water-Bathing

The Mess (it actually looked a lot worse than the picture portrays. It

doesn't show how sticky the floor was!)

The beautiful peaches!

The beautiful pears!