My name is Marisa McClellan and I’m on a campaign to inspire people to can (and to help them release their fears about the process).

I picked up my first jar during my sophomore year of college. It was a pint-sized Ball jar, with the bailing wire clamp-style closure. I got it to hold the sugar I kept in my dorm room for tea and coffee. At about the same time, my mother started replacing her plastic food storage containers with canning jars, liking how they never retained the flavor of the food and that you could see everything you had with just a glance.

Over the years, I’ve amassed an impressive collection of canning jars (my husband mocks them, but I adore my jars). I use them to store just about every item in my pantry (they do an impressively good job of keeping those nasty bugs out of grains and pastas). I stash leftovers in them (my favorite jar for this task is the discontinued wide-mouth 20 ounce Ball) and on occasion, I’ll use one in place of a water bottle.

In the last year, I’ve finally started using all those Ball and Mason jars for their intended purpose. Last summer, I canned batches of sour cherry preserves, apple and pear butter, blackberry, blueberry and plum jam and lemon curd. This year (2009) I set a series of canning goals for myself, including 40 quarts of tomatoes, more jams and preserves (I’d like to experiment with more exotic flavorings and get some herbal infusions into the mix), dilly beans, pickles and sauerkraut. All told, I processed more than 200 jars of tomatoes, pickles, jams and preserves over the summer and fall and have more than 150 left that are a boon to everyday cooking.

I also recently got my hands on a pressure canner, which allows me to can chicken stock and soups, as well as other items that are lower in acidity and aren’t safe to can using just the water bath method. Living in an apartment in the middle of Center City Philadelphia, I don’t have the space for an additional freezer, and so having the ability to preserve homemade stocks will be a huge boon to my daily cooking.

The goal of this blog is to document this canning journey and get as many people excited about canning as is possible. In between canning projects, I’ll also be writing about some of my favorite cookbooks, as well as a few other of my favorite recipes and preservation projects.

If you’re interested in learning more about me, here are some links:

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If you have a burning question, feel free to get in touch. You can reach me at foodinjarsATgmail.com