Winter lovin' for my canned goods.

I need to tell ya somethin'. And before you judge me, I know I'm weird, and don't have interests typical of most mainstream 26-year-olds. (Piiissshhhhhh. Mainstream. Whatever the hell that means.)

Anyhow, I digress. I love to can. As in, preserve food.

I love it. I love cooking. I love being in the kitchen. I love gardening. I love taking produce from my garden and eating it before I make it back to the kitchen. And with the produce that John and I can't consume fresh? Yeah, I preserve it.

And eat it in December.

And you should be jealous, because I am enjoying kick-ass strawberry jam (with no preservatives or scary stuff) that I made myself from strawberries I picked myself.

Strawberry jam on the left - peach salsa on the right. This peach salsa is awesome with chips or on grilled chicken.
Boom. 

I also use a lot of the stuff I canned in concoctions and recipes throughout the year. For example, I made some jalapeno jelly, which I rarely use unless its with cream cheese and crackers.

I made some meatballs and needed to whip up a spicy sauce. With a heaping spoonful of jalapeno jelly, a big squirt ("squirt" - such a gross word) of ketchup, and a half jar of homemade BBQ sauce I managed to make an awesome sauce for oven-baked meatballs.

Canned goods in one of my built-in pantry cupboards. Ahem...I noticed that I need to organize these a little better. Don't judge. 

A few loner jars of strawberry jam, pasta sauce (which looks like it is separating - bummer), and pickled peppers. 

And as you can see, I still have plenty of canned goods to enjoy throughout the rest of the winter. Take that, suckas!