1st Attempt at Canning

I got suckered into buying something through my couponing. Several weeks ago there were coupons to buy this...

  

I've been looking through the contents for about a week now. I went to the recommended website to get some more information. That website gave me TONS of recipes that I want to try someday. With recipes, comes another trip to the store. When I was there I saw a preserving utensil set and just had to have it. This has turned into a money pit.

I decided to make strawberry lemonade concentrate this weekend. It was fairly easy. Cleaning up was the most time consuming part. 

First I hulled 2 lbs of strawberries.

Then I pureed the strawberries.

Alex helped out by squeezing the lemons. If you look in the pot you'll see a hill of sugar. 6 cups!!!

Then the lemon juice, strawberry puree, and sugar were stirred and heated together.

Then I got real busy checking the temperatures of the jars, lids, and mixture (everything had to be at a certain temp. for safety concerns) and forgot to take pictures. I put the mix in the jars and sealed them. Then they sat in a boiling water bath for 15 min. Here are the results:

It is yummy and reminds me of a sonic drink. I made 6 half pints and 3 pints.

I plan on making more of the recipes from the ball website. I'll let you know how it turns out.