After giving away way too much honey last year as Christmas presents, and having to buy honey from the store, (something we thought we were done with now that we have bees) I decided to make everyone a trio preserves! That way we could still give away our honey, but have some left for us too. And since a baby food size jar of honey is not much, a sampling of other homemade little spreads would be cute. It sounded like a great idea and a lot of fun to do.
This summer we picked berries, pears, and in the fall spent a whole day cooking up pumpkin. We made blackberry jam, pear butter and pumpkin butter far ahead of time to be ready for our Christmas presents. They tasted great and looked so cute in the baby food jars. Since I couldn't figure out how to make them seal I used canning wax to seal them. They sat perfectly fine for a month while I waited until the lids were spray painted in beautiful green, red and yellow. I put on the lids and hand painted lovely little labels for the cute little jars.
They turned out so cute and I thought were going to make a great little gift. However, come the day before we were going to give them away, I opened one to see how it faired. Not well. On the top of the wax seal - mold!! I opened more and they were all the same. I guess I have a lot to learn about preserving. All of that work and time in the trash. Good thing you don't have to can honey! Everyone is just going to have to be okay with one tiny little yellow jar.
Or a cute picture of us. It doesn't taste as good - but it doesn't go bad either.
2 comments:
Well I think you're sweet to even want to give gifts to so many of your friends and family. I'm sad about all that wasted time and resources, but I'm sure the honey will be wonderful.
"It's the thought that counts", and "Live and learn", as the sayings go. Everyone will enjoy the honey and be grateful, even if it's a small amount. We're certainly enjoying ours. Love the labels - you are so creative. We're looking forward to the new tradition - "Skyping" on Christmas day. Any snow this year? Can't wait to see baby Pella in February. Bet she's growing and changing already. I love you so much. Please give all the kids hugs and kisses from Nonnie.
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