{This post may contain affiliate links. You can read our Disclosure Policy HERE.}

Progress is not always defined by a number. That is what I am reminding myself this year with our preserving. In the past, we had more jars canned and more things froze. We made bigger batches, we spent more time, we stressed more, and stayed up to the wee hours of the morning finishing our huge project. It was exhausting. But this year, we have learned to be rather proficient in small-batch canning and that is a success in itself. I will share with you our 2019 Preserving Totals with tips to increase your canning and our top 10 pantry staples. I also share the new canning recipes we tried and loved this year. And our Final Numbers for the Put ’em Up Challenge!

New 2020 Put’em Up Challenge Printables
Coming Soon

2019 Preserving Totals with Tips to Increase Your Canning (and our top 10 pantry staples)

We have come a long way since our first year of canning. If you are just beginning your preserving journey, it is unrealistic to think that you will fill your pantry with everything from your garden immediately. It takes time to learn and it takes repetition to become proficient. We use the Put’ em up Challenge sheets to keep track of all our preserving and motivate us to do more. It’s fun to look back and see how far we have come. You can get your free copies too by subscribing to our e-mail list. New 2020 Put’ em Up Tracking sheets coming soon! Subscribe to our e-mail list below and we will notify you when they are available.

We also had a lot of jars leftover from last year. It is a priority for us to go through those first before eating our goodies from this year. Some years we preserved an abundance of some items and have little to no need to can that particular item the next year. For instance, we put up so much jam and jelly last year, we only canned a few of our favorites this year.

How did we break so many jars?

When we first started canning it was a huge stressful project. Both of us needed to be there, working together, wiping up jars, and putting them into the canner. We re-read the canner instructions 100 times and we hoped that our jars wouldn’t break in the canner (seriously, we broke SO many jars the first year) and we impatiently waited for our jars to seal after. We were unsure of ourselves and canning was a big stressful project. We didn’t give up. We kept trying and learning. And soon it became stress-free, comfortable, easy.

It takes time

I can’t help but laugh now at that first year. How did we break so many jars? It was the temperature of the jars for sure, but I am still in wonderment of how we didn’t figure it out sooner. (Tip: Make sure your jars are hot before adding hot food and/or putting them into hot water. We now fill our sanitized jars with burning hot water and leave them on the counter until we are ready to fill them.). We haven’t broken a jar in years.

14 years later, I am happy with how easy canning is for us now. We know the process, know how to prepare things, and just have to look at the times quickly before tackling the job. This did not happen overnight.

I am happy with how easy canning has become. It is no longer a burden for one of us to have the pressure or water bath canner going while we continue with our day. I can easily heat the food and can it while we are doing school. In return, we were able to try a few new recipes and learn some new skills.

Tips to Increase Your Canning

Preserve Free Food

A close friend of ours asked us if we would want carrots for canning. We hate wasting food and said yes. She brought us a  whole crate of free carrots. It was such a blessing! And fresh food doesn’t last long, so we had to get busy and can those carrots up.

After preserving, we ended up 28 pints of cut carrots. All free! Can’t beat that.

You can find deals like this everywhere if you look in the right places. Check food pantries, grocery stores, etc. Ask what they do with their almost expired food. Sometimes food trucks also can get large amounts of food. Check with local food distributors or Do you have a harvest season?  It never hurts to ask.

You will want to make sure that the food is still good before canning it. You do want the food to be fresh and be picky with what you use. Food safety is very important. If you do find some good deals or free food, be prepared to can it right away. Big batches can be time-consuming but worth it.

Canned Meat

We learned how to canned meat and LOVE IT! I don’t know if there is a better way to preserve venison than by canning it. All you have to do is cut up the meat, toss it into a sterile jar, and then put it in the pressure cooker. The meat cooks in the jar and marinates itself in its juices. Once it is canned, you can toss it in stews, skillets, pasta bakes, whatever. It’s completely delicious.

Another plus to canned meat is that you will be saving precious freezer space and no need to worry about freezer burn.

Homesteading Family made this wonderful video on Canning Meat (Super Easy Raw Pack).

Not sure what to make with it? Can the concentrate

Our neighbors have the most beautiful grapevines and offered for us to come and pick them before the frost. Well anyone who gardens knows that you typically have a ton of work when you know frost is coming. It’s a mad dash to pick everything and get it stored away. We had a lot on our plates at the time and almost passed on the grapes, but changed our mind and went picking.

The vines were filled with beautiful grapes and it was so much fun to fill a huge container with them.

We were not sure how we wanted to use those grapes and had other things going on, so my husband came up with the idea of making a concentrate and canning that. It was a great idea. The concentrate can be turned into grape jelly, grape juice, or whatever. It’s also so pretty! It’s nice to know that the grapes will not go bad and we can make something in the wintertime when we have more time and maybe ready for some cooking projects.

Tried New Recipes

Orange Marmalade– It’s the middle of winter, you can’t wait to get outside and start your garden, but you can’t yet. What do you do? Make marmalade! This is a fun recipe to try if you are itching to preserve some food, would like a fancy treat for your table or a guest, and you can find inexpensive oranges.

Old Fashion Strawberry Jam– This recipe from Completely Delicious adds a twist on strawberry jam. It adds in balsamic vinegar and vanilla. The consistency was great and it was tasty. I will be making this one again.

The Best Homemade Salsa– I found this recipe from Mel’s Kitchen and was ecstatic because I finally found a homemade salsa recipe that was thick and compared to store-bought. I love the consistency of store-bought salsa but it’s hard to find that in a home recipe. Here’s a tip from me: there is no shame in using tomato paste. Okay, I said it. Now you don’t have to feel bad thickening up for your tomato dishes with it. We don’t have to spend hours boiling down our salsa if we don’t have to. This was a really good recipe.

Some of Our Pantry Staples:

You can learn how to preserve most of these recipes right in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving.

• Cut Green Bean
• Diced Tomatoes
• Applesauce
• Pizza Sauce

• Sliced Jalapenos
• Strawberry Jam
• Bone Broth
• Pickle Relish – We found this favorite recipe for pickle relish in Put’em Up by Sherri Brooks Vinton.

• Pesto (frozen) – Pesto is a staple in our home and store-bought does not hold a candle to the stuff we can make with our fresh basil. I make sure that I grow a nice batch of basil every year so that I can make enough pesto to last us until Summer. You can find my Perfect Pesto Recipe here. I pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze overnight. The next day, I break them apart and put the cubes in a freezer bag. Now you can take out a few cubes, defrost, and use as needed.
• Maple Syrup– This year we built a Maple Syrup Evaporator and were able to drastically improve our maple syrup making game. We could boil down 100 gallons of syrup in a day with our new cooker. In previous years, that would have taken us a week. Next year, we will be tapping more trees and hopefully increasing our maple syrup production. I also learned that maple syrup can be used as a vanilla substitute and I am excited to implement this one.

Our 2019 Preserving Total

You can see that our Tracking Sheet has seen better days, but it did its job. We were able to write down and make notes on what preserved this year. Here is everything we made this year.

In 2019 we preserved 154 and a 1/2 pints, 51 quarts, and 50 frozen items. Making our 2019 Total to be 306 preserved items! Yay! That is a lot of food that we were able to make on our own and we did not have to buy from the store.

I hope you enjoyed our 2019 preserving total with tips to increase your canning and our top 10 pantry staples. Remember, progress is not always defined by a number. Any food you can put away and store for later is a success! Continue to learn new skills, use what you have, and fill up your pantry and freezer.

If you haven’t already, check out our Put ’em Up Challenge planning and tracking sheets. (Newly Updated 2020 Put’em Up Tracking Sheets coming soon! Make sure you are subscribed to our e-mail list and we will notify you when they are available. Subscribe below). They are a great resource to help you focus on what you and your family eat, recipes you want to try, and plan out your garden accordingly. You may also like to read Canning… the Great Mystery and Quickstart Guide to Canning.

Is there anything you would like to work at or learn when it comes to preserving food? What are some of your preserving successes of the year? What are your pantry staples? I would love to hear them. Comment below.

Pin me for later!

-Lindsay from Life on Misty Acres

Please follow and like us: