Canning for the Apocalypse
So we have joked, regularly, that I can for the apocalypse. I make an incredible variety of preserves in massive quantities. We eat a fair bit and we gift out quite a lot. Here are two of my four canning cupboards.
I have 51 recipes in my jam (and jam adjacent) recipe list that I make regularly. Eleven of those have been added in 2025. Most of these are of my design, or have been heavily altered from their inspiration.
In the past, my canning was more about fun. But there is an admittedly more serious approach this year. I'm not new new to dehydrating; I have a very basic dehydrator with absolutely no bells or whistles. You plug it in and the heating element kicks in. This is also something I'm stepping up on. In March, I finally got round to processing the tart cherries in the freezer - the overall yield was 63.75 pints worth of cherry preserves. New recipes are marked with an *
Cherry Rumbellion (cherry with white rum) *
Just Cherise (a plain cherry jam)*
Cherry Citron (cherry with a strong hit of lemon)*
Mjölnir Cherry (cherry that requires cherry pits and a hammer)
C4 Cherry AwesomeSauce - It's the Bomb (the best cherry sauce on the planet)
With the growing concerns of food insecurity I admit, I started looking at what is edible in our yard. Do not eat the lilies. However, lilacs, peonies, and roses are edible. I've been making a rose petal jam since the pandemic, so this wasn't a reach for me.
In May, I harvested lilacs and tried out a Lilac Jelly from Practical Self Reliance. I don't normally do jellies, so once I'd mastered this, I modified my Rose Petal Jam recipe and made Lilac Jam, which I personally feel is superior, but my husband disagrees. The color is meh, but the taste is amazing.
I also dried some lilacs to make bath salts.
I spent three days in June processing peonies. This resulted in four new recipes, all influenced largely by my own past experience.
Peony Jam
Peony Jelly
Peony Sauce
Peony Simple Syrup
The sauce was a fortuitous accident. I was canning late into the night and made a miscalculation on the pectin. It was supposed to be a massive batch of peony jam. It is marvelous in yogurt and oatmeal, and on ice cream. The simple syrup inspired my youngest to have mocktails at her 17th birthday party this weekend.
Peonies are humbling. The jelly and jam both made me second-guess my skills, but they turned out in the end. I've also got some peony sugar scrub started and some dried peony petals for bath salts.
Given the hubby's preference, and the fact that we actually have quite a bit of rose petal jam available from last year, I modified my jelly recipes and made a rose petal version of that last week as well. And given the success with the peony simple syrup, I've produced a rose version as well. I've also got some petals set aside to turn into sugar scrub and bath salts.
Jars have gotten expensive, and I think more people are recycling them than donating them to reuse or thrift stores. I found an off-brand canning lid that I like and can get for much cheaper than Ball lids, and they've been working really well.
We're just starting strawberry season, but my usual pick-your-own place will only be selling pre-picked berries due to the heat stress on the plants. Not sure we can afford that, but I'll be checking. It looks like our raspberries and black raspberries should deliver something this year, so that's a bonus. And I'll be doing vanilla roasted rhubarb off and on throughout summer. If the veggie garden produces well, I'll be doing a variety of veggie pickles. If it doesn't produce well, I will cry (I'm basically running an urban farm in my backyard and my garden plan is 74 pages long), but we'll maybe hit the farmers' market if that happens.
We will probably have to empty more cupboard space in the basement (where will the tools go?) to store the impending hoard. It gives me a little reassurance in this time of massive instability, and I'll take whatever stress relief I can get.
