My canning memories are quite exciting. We were at my aunt's one year and she had a ton of tomatoes to can. I was 10 maybe. Her husband grew huge gardens - had almost 1/4 acre in tomatoes alone that year. No, NOT kidding. I got the super fun job of peeling them after they had been dunked in boiling water. I didn't like tomatoes before then. Tomato juice burns about 15-20 min after you start soaking in it, esp if it is hot and your skin is scalded from pulling peels off of them.
A few years earlier my mom and her bff (the aunt up above) wanted to can spaghetti sauce. They did not include me, thankfully! I don't know what happened, but something did and my aunt dropped a 5 gallon pot of spaghetti sauce. It was HILARIOUS to see the aftermath.
At some point between these 2 escapades, my mom and her bff decided to try to make grape jelly. Surely the spaghetti sauce explosion was a fluke, right? Right?? RIGHT!!??!!!
As mom was carefully carrying the jelly to the table to pour it into the jars, my uncle decided to surprise her. He came up behind her and startled her.
Did you know that a pot of grape jelly will bounce when you drop it? and that it will hit the standard sized ceiling an look like a splash in a pool of water, but upside down, if you get a chance to ever see that. It looked so dang awesome, and was soooooooooo funny!
My mother will never can again. Ever. My uncle had to help clean up, but when e oved year later we found grape jelly behind the stove, fridge and even the cabinets! It is HARD to clean back there!
I make freezer jams and I freeze instead of canning.
Janet, homemade apple butter will thicken as it cools. Homemade apple butter is often not as thick as store bought, but it tastes soooooooo much better! Apples have pectin in them so it isn't always needed as a separate ingredient (depends on the recipe). If it is too thin or you don't want to have to attend to it often, you can do apple butter in the crock pot. It is super easy, esp if you have a food mill (saucepan shaped thing with a fine colander like bottom and a gizmo that pushes the food against the bottom so that all the peel, seeds, etc are separated out and the rest of the fruit is smooth. they are wonderful.
As for a mandolin, there are all sorts of them and all sorts of prices. Ask carefully about what you are getting and the safety features. Those things can hack you up really easily if they don't have the right guards (or you don't use the guards).
For food processors, I absolutely ADORE my cuisinart 14 cup. I had a cuisinart 7 cup that was a wedding present. It was a total workhorse, able to do almost anything I wanted. I used it instead of a mixer for years if we were in small apartments. It was a wedding present and worked even after the replacement until one of the kids dropped it because he didn't want to do the dishes.
When you get a food processor let me know. I can recommend some incredible books using it. Well, you can use them with-o a food processor, but it does speed things up to superfast!
I know I have mentioned this book a lot here, and Hound Dog can tell you why I totally rely on it, but The Compleat Tightwad Gazette (by Amy Daczyn) has some really helpful sounding tips and ideas for canning. A reference my aunt swears by is Putting Food By, but I don't know the author.
