Our Canning Day

Black Friday has become our canning instead of shopping day. I hate crowds of people and don't do the traditional Christmas shopping thing. A few years ago, I started canning to preserve some of the abundant amount of figs we had living on the farm in California. Since I moved to Maryland, I started canning apple butter and lemon curd (a family favorite). We have made it a tradition to spend the day after Thanksgiving canning while having a nice family day at home.

We (I say "we," but it's mostly my thing but I have A LOT of help from Eric with his peeling, zesting, squeezing, stirring, jar closing, and kid watching.)... Anyways, "we" usually cook the apples overnight for about 10 1/2 hours in a crock pot (this year we used three crock pots). Eric, who is a very helpful husband, will do anything that I ask especially if it can be done watching football. He peeled, cored and sliced (using the cool all-in-one tool that we have) about 20 pounds of apples while watching Thanksgiving football.

After the 10 1/2 hours, we cook it uncovered for

another 1 1/2 hours- it makes that whole house smell delicious!

While that is finishing up, we start on the lemon curd.

Avery and Elliott hanging out watching us work

Audrey helped Eric soften the lemons...

and squeeze lemons

She helped me stir the sugar and zest together

Lots of lemons and egg shells in the trash

Elliott needed to be relocated

Lots of jars waiting to be filled

This year, I sterilized them in the dishwasher-

it was so much easier than boiling them!

The apples done cooking- they cook down in

half and that is why I used three crock pots

I use the immersion blender to puree it

A whole lot of butter, eggs, lemon and sugar mixed together...

The lemon mixture needs to be stirred

constantly over a double boiler

Still stirring constantly

Eric helped me close the jars as I filled them.

He even got to watch football on his laptop during the process.

A happy boy up from his nap

Audrey came down after rest to help lick

the dirty dishes once we were done...

She loved that job!

Lots of dishes were done, this was the over flow pile.

We steamed up the whole house...

boiling the filled jars to steal them.

Canning day has become one of our favorite family traditions. We are thankful to not be traveling, shopping, or hosting during the holiday weekend so we had the energy for this marathon.