I love grocery shopping from shelves of colored jars and bulk goods in my own home. I try and get some canning done every week. Summers are real busy on a homestead, with gardening, foraging, running our apothecary, and playing outside, but preparing for winter is important too. Sure you could just go to Walmart and get some canned goods for cheap, but I assure you, they don’t taste like summer!

This week I canned pickled eggs and beets (believe me, it’s amazing), get recipe here. I will never forget that dusky summer evening out in the country at our late friend’s house. We sat laughing at the ducks running by with the chickens. Nancy brought out a platter of pickled eggs and a bottle of wine. We were wary of the sunset looking eggs, beautiful in their swirls of orange and purple, dyed from the beets, but after one bite, she had to go in and get a second jar! Delicious.

Some of the best things come from mistakes. Yesterday, I set out to can juice. I had bought a bundle of rhubarb from the farmer’s market, but it is a little late for rhubarb and I could tell it was going to be stringy when I got home. I had bought two quarts of organic strawberries on sale at the grocery store. I decided to can rhubarb-strawberry juice. Then I thought of adding lemon juice and making it lemonade sounded fun. I boiled the rhubarb for about a half hour in 6 cups of water. I blended the strawberries in the Vitamix with three cups of water until well blended and added that to the rhubarb. A pinch of salt and three cups of sugar (1/2 organic white, 1/2 organic brown sugar). I simmered the mixture until the sugar was dissolved and the mixture was hot. I wanted to make sure that I had enough acid for the canning process, so I added 1 cup of lemon juice and 1 1/4 cups of lime juice (bottled). (You could use all lemon juice, I just ran out!) This made a delicious tasting…not juice.

It immediately took me back to when I was a young mom, and I came upon a strawberry champagne soup at the store. It was cold and delicious and tasted of spring and alfresco dinner parties. I have made it here and there from scratch over the years. This juice was too thick to be a drink, but tasted like a better version of strawberry soup. Strain through a sieve twice. I canned it in pint jars for 10 minutes plus 1 minute per 1000 feet above sea level (16 minutes here!).

Serve this cold with a splash of champagne, sparkling wine, or non-alcoholic cider. Garnish with mint if desired. This will be lovely to start out Christmas dinner or in early March. It made 6 pints.

Happy Canning!