Canstravaganza 2025

Food in Jars blogger Marisa was holding a canning challenge that started in January. I happened across it after I'd already inadvertently completed the February assignments: frozen fruit and freezer excavation. I love that she includes a community-building item in each month. She also notes that this is all in fun and we should feel free to mix things up. I can say that I did at least one of the two challenges for each month at some point during the year, just not necessarily in the month she listed them.

January

• Food in Jars challenge: Root vegetables and brassicas. I didn't check this box. I've made banh mi mix in the past (shredded daikon and carrot in vinegar) and it lasts forever in the fridge so I'll come back to this at some point. Community-building assignment: Share a jar. Definitely did that; I took jars to meetings and gave them to friends. That happens just about every month, actually.

February

• Tayberry Jam Recipe by Chef Heidi Fink. 11 quarter-pints, 6 half-pints
• Classic Raspberry Jam Recipe by Creative Canning. 7 quarter-pints, 7 half-pints
• Blackberry Roasted Plum Preserves by Southern Fatty. 8 quarter-pints, 8 half-pints
• Blackberry Plum Fruit Leather: No recipe needed. Pureed blackberries and plums in the food processor, dropped in dollops about the size of a Nilla wafer on the dehydrator trays, and dried overnight to produce little fruity coins by the next morning. Those went into the freezer.
• The Food in Jars challenge was using frozen fruit, the community challenge was freezer excavation. For me, that came up when the freezer defrosted later this year. But I did make all of this month's jams from berries and fruits I'd harvested last year and stored in the freezer.

March

Working with green tomatoes frozen in 2024, 12 pounds of tomatillos frozen in 2023, I made:

• Tomatillo Lime Jalapeño Jam: 8 half-pints, 12 quarter-pints. I added 3 jalapeños to the recipe, wanting it to have a bit of heat because that felt like a fit.
• Green Tomato/Tomatillo Chutney: 12 half-pints, 7 quarter-pints. I linked to the recipe although I think in future I'll use my own Green Tomato Chutney recipe whether I'm using green tomatoes on their own or mixed with tomatillos. I can attest that the spicing mix in that is really, really good.
• Food in Jars challenge: Make a mix. I didn't make a mix in the sense of a muffin mix or salad, but I did mix green tomatoes and tomatillos. Community challenge, contribute to a community fridge or pantry. I think we did drop something off at the food shelves by the community garden on Yew, and I gave away some herbs when I had more than I could use later in the year.

April

• No canning, but the Food in Jars community challenge was to plant something and I did that. The canning challenge was herbs and alliums. I collect and dry herbs when the pots cry out for harvesting, so that happens when it happens.

May

• No canning. Food in Jars challenge was berries. Mine are still growing at this point. The community challenge was to learn from a friend. I swap canning recipes with my friend Stefanie' we have different pickled cherry recipes and I like mine.

June

• Sweet & Salty Pickled Cherries,: 26 half-pints (I'm not messing around this year. It took a great deal of discipline to stretch last year's cherries to this spring!)
• Food in Jars challenge: Jam. I cover that in other months. The community challenge was to attend a potluck. Our neighborhood potluck is in August and I went to that.

July

• Tayberry Rhubarb Jam: 9 quarter-pints, 8 half-pints
• Food in Jars challenge: Pickles, and I made those pickled cherries in June. Community challenge, support a local farmer or grower. I do that with regular trips to the Olympia Farmers' Market, and I buy eggs from the "farmette" stand down the street.

August

• Apple Cardamom Rosemary Jam: 4 quarter-pints, 4 half-pints. Read my notes on seasoning adjustments in my piece on making lots of use of apples
• Froze 8 pounds of sliced apples for future apple-pear butter; the apples are ready ahead of pears this year
• Food in Jars challenge: Sauces, which I'd thought I would make this year. I ended up doing this in November when I experimented with ketchup (never again!) and ended up making a chutney sauce. The community challenge was to gather or glean, and this time of year I'm picking blackberries. I also get apples as they ripen from a couple of publicly located trees.

September

• Last September was a canning frenzy. This September wasn't. I went on a two-week vacation starting Sept. 27 and needed to get things done to be ready for that.
• Food in Jars challenge: Condiments, and host a swap. I did the ketchup effort in November. A canning swap sounds like a fun idea; maybe I'll organize that one of these years.

October

• Also not a canning month, but the "October Surprise" of a defrosted freezer guaranteed I'd be canning in November.
• Food in Jars challenge: Drying and dehydration. I did that back in February with fruit leather, and over the course of the summer I harvested and dried some of the herbs I grow. Community challenge, share your knowledge. I write blog posts to capture and share my recipe explorations so check, did that.

November

• Blackberry Jelly: 15 quarter-pints, 6 half-pints.
• Tayberry Jam: The tried and true Chef Heidi Fink recipe I used last year. 
• Sour Cherry Amaretto Jam: I used the no-pectin sour cherry jam recipe from Sourdough Brandon, enhanced by the amaretto suggestion in the recipe from DishNTheKitchen.
• "Razzbuzzy Jam": 7 quarter-pints. Followed the Classic Raspberry Jam and stirred in 3 T. of raspberry liqueur. Not very buzzy, but tasty!
• Spiced Blueberry Jam: 7 quarter-pints.
• Smoky Spicy Tomato Jam: 3  half-pints, 11 quarter-pints. This Food in Jars is on repeat from last year and it's my go-to.
• Green Tomato Chutney Not-a-Ketchup Sauce: 8 half-pints, 11 quarter-pints.
• Salted Caramel Pear Butter: 2 half-pints, 7 quarter-pints
• Cranberry Orange Jam with Crystallized Ginger: 3 half-pints, 13 quarter-pints
• Read my comments on the Serious Eats site. Allow for more cook time to get softened citrus and cranberries. Try reducing the sugar a bit. You don't need pectin.
• This is also the point in the year when I start thinking I should have put up more half-pints, ordered more quarter-pint jars, or both! I like the quarter-pint size for gifts.
• Spiced Apple Butter: 4 half-pints, 3 quarter-pints, 1 6-oz jar, an experiment in reusing a commercial jar and lid that went into the refrigerator because I wasn't confident about the seal.
• Food in Jars challenge: Apples. Yep, got that covered. Community challenge, barter with a friend or neighbor. I do a lot in our Buy Nothing group, both giving and receiving. That space doesn't permit bartering but it feels as if it's in the general spirit.

December

• Food in Jars challenge: Use it up! Is she kidding? I make far too much to use it up in a year! Community challenge, bake for others. Yep, did that.

Not the blowout year that 2024 was, but then I still have jars of product from that year on the shelves. Anyone want some jam? Chutney? Green tomato sauce? Anyone? And I did actually end up hitting the mark on the Food in Jars challenge, just in different months.

Winter Solstice 2025

In Western society we give ourselves assignments at the new year to make a whole new self. Unrealistic assignments, of course. Between one day and the next we're not really going to flip a switch and go from zero exercise to five days a week at the gym. If we manage that for a week we'll pay for it in aches and pains anyway.

Instead of commitment by calendar, and instead of "improvement" schemes, I'm practicing other ways of marking turning points. This year I got the book Requiem, Invitation, and Celebration: A Collection of Seasonal Practices by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and Lucy Wormald, from the publishers of Emergence Magazine. It's a collection of 50 practices grounded in the evolving cycle of the seasons. (More about the book in a talk by Vaughan-Lee)

The book includes "Savoring Light, for when it's the shortest day." The practice: 

"Take a walk in the afternoon for as long as the light is present. Give attention only to the rhythm of your breath and footsteps until your mind softens. Take in the presence of the light. Mid-winter, how does your body instinctively savor it? As the light of day quickly becomes dusk--the light grainy, the world looking like it belongs to a roll of old film--what does the fleeting quality of the light open in you before you are lost to the dark?"

I have to say that I'm not "lost to the dark," though, as the sun slips below the horizon, our part of the globe rotating away. I'm simply in the dark, which has its own sounds and sensations. Without the darkness, the glowing lights on my neighbors' homes wouldn't gleam so brightly. Owl wouldn't fly to find food. The coyote pack that sets up a chorus each night in the nearby park wouldn't sing their laughing songs. 

The globe keeps turning, and we're really always turning toward the light.

Poems and readings for this year's Solstice, with brief excerpts and links to the full pieces:

I read a lot of poetry but have relatively few committed to memory. One of these--ish--is Robert Frosts's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". The "ish" led me to look it up to refresh my memory of the spot where I usually get stuck "between the woods and frozen lake." I know the rhyme scheme so if I can get past that I can keep going. 

For some reason,  reading it this time I realized it's actually a winter Solstice poem. Why, you ask? This line: "the darkest evening of the year."

"Solstice Poem"
Margaret Atwood

This is the solstice, the still point
of the sun, its cusp and midnight,

the year’s threshold
and unlocking

"Winter's Cloak"
Joyce Rupp

This year I do not want

the dark to leave me.

I need its wrap

of silent stillness,

its cloak

of long lasting embrace.

Too much light

has pulled me away

from the chamber

of gestation.

"Winter Solstice"
Kate Belew

Winter is magic

in decay, look what changes,

on the threshold of the year. Oh holy,

hinge. Step across the hearth

(earth and heart as one).

"How the Light Comes"

Jan Richardson 

I cannot tell you

how the light comes,

but that it does.

That it will.

That it works its way

into the deepest dark

that enfolds you,

though it may seem

long ages in coming

or arrive in a shape

you did not foresee.

And so

may we this day

turn ourselves toward it.

"On the Winter Solstice"
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

And I have been waiting—

which I might have denied,

snuggled in deep as I was,

drowsy and night-drunk,

certain of my joy in the dark,

but oh, such a way to wake,

discovered by the light of a star

Brianna Kocka, in What the Winter Solstice Asks of Us, provides suggestions for how we might mark the day with rest (all seven kinds), ritual, and restorative practices.

From Starhawk's Winter Solstice Message, a reminder that this year Solstice and Hanukkah occur together, both reminders of the light, and these lines: 

"And the message of Solstice, retold every year, is that just when the world grows darkest, the sun will rise again.

"We are each a little light, a small flame that needs sacred fuel to burn. Yet we can keep that flame alight, longer than we might expect, if we commit to acts of courage and compassion. On this longest night, as the Great Mother labors to bring forth the sun of the new year, we are midwives. We tend, we comfort, we empathize, we do the work. Let us bring to birth the warmth of compassion, the fire of commitment, the light of truth this year. The wheel is turning. After each night comes a new dawn."

Jennifer Hall's Lessons from the Universe essay "The Winter Solstice: Sacred Pause Before the Light Returns" reinforces the idea that we can sit with who and where we are without seeking improvement in a season of rest. She offers this invitation:

"The Winter Solstice isn’t here to rush you into the future.

It’s here to remind you that light is inevitable, even when you can’t yet see it.

Honor the pause.

Trust the dark.

Let the return of the light meet you where you are.

That’s how cycles close with grace.

And that’s how new ones begin with clarity."

Brigit Anna McNeill shares beautiful illustrations by several artists in her piece "Winter Solstice: The Long Night that Knows Our Names." She closes with this blessing:

"May this solstice meet you gently.

May it remind you that you are not late, broken, or lost.

You are wintering, as all living things must.

And somewhere beneath the quiet, the light is already on its way."

I went on a fabulous trip to England this fall with family and finally got to see Stonehenge, a lifelong dream. I couldn't go right up to it since they have it roped off. The benefit of that was that we could get pictures of the stones without people all around them. We also visited Avebury, a much larger circle although without the lintel crosspieces and much more worn, and the Rolling-Right standing stones, a small site. At Avebury and Rolling-Right we saw the remains of offerings people had left there at the equinox, just a week or two before we visited. This picture of Stonehenge isn't mine; I'm sharing it for the glow of the sunset through the stones, which people will view on the winter solstice. 

When we watch the light pass, we have to remember to watch (and work) for the light to return.

Related Reading

• Winter Solstice 2024
• Winter Solstice Readings and More
• Winter Solstice Readings
• A Solstice Post: Gifts I Give Myself by Riding in the Winter
• How to End One Year and Begin Another
• Walking a Path
• Commitment, Bite-Sized and Tasty

Spiced Apple Butter Recipe

Admittedly not the biggest tweaks I've ever made to a recipe, but here it is. In this year's food preservation I found myself going back to last year's canning posts for recipes and links and I'll keep this running tally going.

I had rounded up quite a few apple butter recipes when I invented my Chai Apple Butter Reciped last year. I wanted one that used apple cider vinegar for the extra tang; some recipes don't include that, or don't use much. For this batch I started with The Pioneer Woman's apple butter recipe. 

Since I was simultaneously working on two other recipes I used the slow-cooker method that Food in Jars uses for her Salted Caramel Pear Butter (made a batch of that two days ago). My slow cooker has a steam vent hole in the lid. For the first stage of cooking in this recipe I block that with a chopstick to keep the moisture in and cook the flavor into the flesh of the apples. That comes out for the later stage when I need the liquid to cook off.

The Pioneer Woman calls for adding a cup of water. I substituted apple cider. Why not make it even more appley when you have the chance?

Earlier this year I processed a lot of gleaned apples with my corer/slicer and had both skin-on and peeled in the freezer. For this recipe I used the ones with the skins, for the extra pectin and flavor. This saves the peeled ones for a future apple pie or other dessert use. Go with what you have and what you prefer. You can run the cooked mash through a food mill if you started with unpeeled apples and don't want the extra fiber.

Of course, per the title here, I oomphed up the spice. She called for 1 teaspoon of apple pie spice or pumpkin pie spice for three pounds of apples. I drew some inspiration from British Mixed Spice, discovered along the way in my never-again-will-I-make-ketchup research. I wanted it to be cinnamon-forward. This might sound like a lot of seasonings but it didn't taste overly spiced with that dusty quality I've created at times with over-enthusiastic perusal of the spice drawer.

I needed to deal with the aftermath of the Great Freezer Defrost of 2025, so my quantities are larger than my starting-point recipe: 4 pounds of apples. More than this quantity of pears had worked just fine in the slow cooker. You can scale this back to the quantities in The Pioneer Woman's recipe.

Ingredients

4 lbs. apples, chopped. These can be frozen or canned, skins on or off according to your preference

1 c. apple cider vinegar

1-1/2 c. apple cider or apple juice

3/4 t. salt

1-2/3 c. brown sugar

2 t. vanilla paste or vanilla extract, if you have it on hand

2 t. flaky sea salt or kosher salt

1 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. black pepper

1/4 t. nutmeg

1/4 t. mace (optional; for me this is the essence of pumpkin pie spice)

1/4 t. cardamom

1/8 t. cloves

Directions

Place apples, vinegar, cider/juice and salt in slow cooker and stir to combine. Turn it to high. Cook for 60-90 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want the fruit to be soft enough to be blendable.

Blend with an immersion stick blender if you have one. Or remove a couple of cups at a time, blend in a blender or food processor, then return all the blended sauce to the slow cooker. Be careful when blending hot semi-liquid foods. Don't fill the container at or above the halfway mark, keep a towel over the top, adjust the lid so you're letting steam escape rather than build up. All of this is why I prefer my immersion blender.

Mix the dried spices together, then add the brown sugar, vanilla and spices to the pot. Prop the lid slightly ajar so steam can escape, maybe with your spatula or a chopstick laid crosswise so the lid can rest on it on one end. 

Cook on high, stirring often, until it's the color and consistency you want. If you want to be thick and spreadable this will take a while, 2-3 hours. If you stop much sooner, congratulations! You have made a spiced applesauce. 

Stirring often means every 15 minutes or so. Food in Jars says to stir every 30 minutes but if I waited that long I'd have apple butter stuck on the bottom of the pot. You can let it go a bit longer early on when the pot has plenty of liquid in it. The more it cooks down and thickens, the more you need to be sure to scrape the bottom thoroughly. 

How hot your slow cooker gets will be a factor only you can judge, and that will affect your stirring frequency and total cook time. Food in Jars blogger Marisa notes that the older Crock-Pot had a gentler low temperature than newer ones. That's my experience with my newer model; I really can't go off and leave it.

Prep your jars for canning according to the safe canning practices from the National Center on Home Food Preservation. Process 15 minutes at full boil.

My yield: 4 half-pints, 3 quarter-pints, 1 6-oz. jar in a reuse experiment from a commercial product (nice straight-sidded jar)

Canning posts usually show something like this as the triumphant closing shot, or maybe a close-up of the delectable contents. 

In reality the closing scene is more like this. 

I should have taken a picture even earlier I was making full use of every flat surface in the kitchen and had three recipes going at once. Maybe next time.

Related reading and recipes

• In Which I Say Never Again to Making Ketchup
• When Life Hands You a Defrosted Freezer, Make Jam
• My Circular Economy of Apples
• Making Taybarb: Tayberry Rhubarb Jam Recipe
• Canstravaganza! Food Preservation 2024
• Blackberry Apple Chutney Recipe
• Green Tomatoes. So Many Green Tomatoes.
• Apples, Apples, Apples!
• Zucchini Tomato Salsa (Everyone Needs Salsa, or, What to Do with a Really Giant Zucchini)
• Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!
• Pears, Pears, Pears!
• Future Marmalade
• All my posts on food, gardening, and the environment

Green Tomato Chutney Not-a-Ketchup Sauce

I may have noted recently that I don't think green tomato ketchup is worth the effort.

Also noted: Large quantity (~6 pounds) of green tomatoes plus chopped onions plus canned apples, all prepped and in the fridge under the assumption that I'd be making another ketchup recipe.

Third note to file: Lots of green tomato chutney and green tomato/tomatillo chutney already on hand in all their chunky goodness from last year and earlier this year.

Hence the thought experiment: What if I followed a chutney recipe but then blended it to make it smooth like ketchup? I should have some pretty screamin' awesome sweet/tangy sauce that would be great with fries, tofu, on oven-baked yams, maybe over rice, with cheese on crackers if it wasn't too runny to sit there, blend with yogurt to make an interesting dip. Many possible uses! Although not a ketchup! (And yes, blended green chutney sauce looks quite a lot like split pea soup.)

I give quantities as if you had diced or chopped things. I heartily endorse throwing ingredients for this into the food processor and whirling them up to save time. You're going to be pureeing and smooshing to get the lumps out anyway.

This makes a big batch! I'd already committed myself with the earlier prep. This could be cut in half with proportionate adjustments to everything. Cook time will vary depending on how juicy your tomatoes are.

Inspirations

• Green Tomato Ketchup recipe by From the Larder
• My own Green Tomato Apple Chutney Recipe, developed last year
• Creative Canning Green Tomato Ketchup, which was the winner of the two recipes I tried last weekend

Wet ingredients

• Green tomatoes: ~6-8 cups, yield from ~6 pounds
• Yellow or white onion: 1-1/2 cups, diced
• Apple: 2 cups, diced, canned, or even applesauce if that's what you have
• Green bell pepper (or another sweet bell pepper color if that's what you have): 1 whole pepper, diced
• Dried fruit: 1 cup of whatever turns your cranks. I like a combination of dates and dried cranberries
• Vinegar: 1 cup. Malt or apple cider vinegar preferred; white vinegar will be sharper; red or white wine vinegar is fine. Just needs to be labeled 5% acidity.
• Brown sugar: 1-1/2 cups. OK to substitute white sugar if that's what you have
• Green or red chilis, optional: 1-2, diced, if you want to add some fresh chili heat. Substitute 1-2 t. crushed red pepper, tasting and adjusting for your heat preference as the recipe cooks down
• 1 T. fresh grated ginger, or ginger paste from a tube (so handy!)
• 4-5 garlic cloves, crushed, or 1 T. garlic paste from a tube
• Optional: 1-1/2 T. vegan Worcestershire sauce, if available. Regular is fine if you don't have vegan, but then you should label this for any gift recipients who might prefer vegan
• Optional if you want a thinner sauce: 1/2 c. sherry, cooking sherry, or something you routinely substitute for these (apple cider or apple juice could work here)

Dry ingredients/Seasonings
Stir the dry spices together in a small bowl, then add to the wet ingredients. Yes, yes, you can absolutely dump the measurements straight into the sauce without mixing them first, but combining them first gives you a better distribution in the liquid than if you end up with a surprise clump of ground ginger.

• 1 T. fennel seeds, whirled in a coffee grinder or pounded with a mortar and pestle
• 1 T. ground mustard
• 1 T. salt
• 2 t. ground cardamom
• 2 t. ground black pepper
• 1 t. smoked paprika
• 1 t. cinnamon
• 1 t. ground cardamom
• 1 t. ground ginger (or increase fresh ginger above)
• 1/8 t. nutmeg
• 1/8 t. cloves

Put all ingredients except for the optional sherry or apple juice in one big stockpot (takes longer) or divide across two pans, preferably wide saucepans or Dutch ovens with plenty of surface for evaporation of the liquids.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a rapid simmer/low boil, and cook, stirring often, for around 60-90 minutes. Tomatoes spit when they boil so wear mitts, pay attention. Don't cover the pans; the goal here is some evaporation. Frequent stirring is essential to prevent some of the sauce burning to the bottom of the pan. Ask me how I know.

At 60-90 minutes the vegetables may not be entirely soft yet. Taste the seasonings and oomph up flavor notes you'd like to have a bit more of. Go carefully here, maybe 1/4 t. or 1/2 t. at a time if it's something that could end up overpowering.

Continue to cook until everything is soft enough to blend. I tried my immersion blender first, then went to the regular blender. Be careful blending hot liquids. Put in less than half the container's capacity, have the lid cracked open a tiny bit to let steam out, start on a low pulse and step it up as the contents puree and liquify.

Return to the kettle and cook a bit longer to reach the consistency you want. This is ready to can now, though. 

If it's thicker than you want and you'd like a more pourable sauce, add 1/2 cup of sherry (idea borrowed from the Creative Canning recipe linked above), apple juice or apple cider, and cook another 5 minutes or so.

Follow safe canning practices from the National Center on Home Food Preservation. Process 15 minutes at full boil.

Yield will vary depending on how juicy your tomatoes are. My yield: 8 half-pints, 11 quarter-pints.

Related reading and recipes

• In Which I Say Never Again to Making Ketchup
• When Life Hands You a Defrosted Freezer, Make Jam
• My Circular Economy of Apples
• Making Taybarb: Tayberry Rhubarb Jam Recipe
• Canstravaganza! Food Preservation 2024
• Blackberry Apple Chutney Recipe
• Green Tomatoes. So Many Green Tomatoes.
• Apples, Apples, Apples!
• Zucchini Tomato Salsa (Everyone Needs Salsa, or, What to Do with a Really Giant Zucchini)
• Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!
• Pears, Pears, Pears!
• Future Marmalade
• All my posts on food, gardening, and the environment