This summer marks the 4th year anniversary of my grandmother’s passing. I wrote a little bit about her and our relationship back when it happened as a form of self-therapy, but one thing I left out was her love for canning.
Growing up, my grandparents owned a farm out in Creemore, Ontario which was treated sort of like the family cottage. We would spend all of our summers and each holiday up there with the entire family – all 16 of us!
One of my most vivid memories of my grandmother is her spending hours and hours in the kitchen, slaving away at making everyone jars and jars of their favourite jams and jellies.
My personal favourite was her “Million Dollar Relish”. I loved the relish so much that every time she was down to the last jar of a batch she would bring it to our house for me to have.
Since she passed, my family and I have chatted about having a canning party in her memory a few times. This summer, we decided that there was no time like the present!
As much as I wanted us to make her famous relish when we looked at the recipe it seemed quite complicated for us first-time canners so we opted to make my second favourite of her recipes, red pepper jelly. It only had three ingredients, making it much more manageable for us first go at canning.
Benardin’s Home Canning Starter Kit made the entire process a whole lot easier, so if you’re a first-time canner like us I’d definitely recommend that you pick one up for yourself.
Here’s what it came with:
Bernardin Home Canning Starter Kit
- Canning rack
- Bubble remover and head space gauge
- Jar funnel
- Magnetic lid lifter
- Jar lifter
- Original pectin
- Four 250 ml jars
- Home Canning instructional DVD
I’m a visual person, so the DVD that was included with the starter canning kit was especially helpful for a first time canner like myself. Let’s get to the recipe!
[yumprint-recipe id=’224′]This jelly is so versatile. We put it on everything from sandwiches (turkey is my favourite!), to serving it along side a charcuterie board.
I’m really proud of how everything turned out and I can’t wait to tackle another one of her canning recipes next time. We had such a blast so my goal is to work my way up to being able to make that “Million Dollar Relish” – wish me luck!
Are you a canner? If so, what are some of your favourite recipes? I’d love to know!
While this is a sponsored conversation in collaboration with Benardin and I may have been supplied product and/or compensation for this post, all opinions expressed are my own.
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