Spiced Apple Butter

I really feel like the art of canning goods is going by the wayside, and that makes me really sad.  Canning is a really easy to do, but a lot of people get intimated by it.  So far this year, I've canned strawberry jam and some homemade tomato sauce!  Last year I made an amazing peach butter, that honestly tasted like summer in a jar.  I wish I had made more of that, or at least, made some this year.  But, I'll make some for sure next year!
Fruit butters are something that I never paid much attention to growing up; as a matter of fact, my husband was the one that really brought my attention to them.  He grew up with his mom making apple butter, and it was (and still is!) a favorite of his, so I figured I should make some up for him!  I've been making this for a few years now, and there is always a jar of it in the fridge!  

Canned homemade tomato sauce

One thing I really wanted to tackle this year was making canned, homemade tomato sauce.  I even planted two tomato plants, in hopes of getting some for sauce (I knew I wouldn't get enough off of two plants to can, but I had hoped to toss one or two of my own in there!), alas, no luck.  My tomato plants look good, but I haven't gotten any tomatoes off of them.  Yet.  However, the local farm in my area is selling pecks of tomatoes for $10 each, so I took my daughter out to the farm, and we bought two pecks for this adventure!

Strawberry Jam

Every year, around summer time, my fingers start to get itchy for all of the amazing produce that I know is flooding the farm stand in my area.  They have a fairly large variety of fruits and vegetables, but one that almost always comes home with me is strawberries.  My daughter and husband will eat their weights in the berries, and I have to fight them off so I can have enough to make jam and can it!  I love, in the middle of fall or winter to just open up a jar and get all of the flavor of summer, without any heat or humidity!