Okay, in truth, I started doing this years ago at a time that I was very broke. I wanted to give everyone I knew a super-terrific Christmas present, but I had a very limited budget-- so I decided to give everyone something homemade. I learned how to can stuff.
I just finished canning a large batch of my *world famous* Bloody Mary mix this past weekend and-- realizing I haven't posted a blog in the 'Rain for a while, I thought to myself... "hmmmm, this would make an excellent closing gift."
And writer's block has been temporarily defeated!
Homemade Gifts for Home Buyers
It seems like an appropriate gift to me. The label could say, "From my home, to your new home." But I'm sure you can come up with something better than that. But I do think it's a real "homey" gift and thus, it seems like a really cool gift for your new homebuyers...at least, to me.
First of all: canning isn't hard and requires no special equipment if you are canning acidic things (like Bloody Mary mix). You need a pressure cooker to can green beans, but who wants green beans as a present?!? You just need a pot deep enough to cover your submerged jars and a good recipe.
Make sure the can itself is beautiful from the inside. Take a look at the Bloody Mary I canned this weekend; I apologize for the camera-phone photo.
Do you see the iime wedge? The bunch of dill? There are also two pickle halves in there and some garlic cloves, but you can't see them in this shot. When they open the jar, they get the added bonus of super-spicy pickles to eat.
Labels: You can have mason jar labels printed with your picture, your logo-- anything you want. Of course, if you're going to give away a basket of homemade stuff as a closing gift, I think you should invest in really nice labels.
My friend Melanie Drouhard is a graphic designer, with (professional) label-making experience. She's working on a new label design for my Bloody Mary's now; I'll post it once I have them.
Or, you can download these really nice labels I found right here for free: http://limeshot.com/2012/free-printable-mason-jar-labels
They are free and "printable", but I just found those for this post, so I don't have any experience printing them out or how that works. Please let me know if you try it!
The Super, Top-Secret Bloody Mary Recipe: I make this in large batches, so I did my best to break it down into the smallest unit: a 32 oz. mason jar.
1. Clean and sanitize your mason jars. That means washing them well with soap and then I like to rinse them with lightly bleached water- which amounts to a couple of capfuls in your hot rinse water.
2. For one 32 oz. jar pour in:
- 23 oz. V-8 vegetable juice
- The juice from one lime, then drop the lime halves in the jar
- The juice from half of one lemon, discard the lemon
- A nice clump of dill (as much or as little as you want). I don't believe you can ever have too much dill.
- 4 peeled garlic gloves
- Two heaping tablespoons of grated, prepared horseradish (but you can always add more)
- 2 oz. worchestchire sauce
- 2 tablespoons hot sauce, your choice
- 3 oz. pickle juice
- 1 oz. olive juice
- 1 heaping tablespoon celery salt
- 1 teaspoon of FRESH ground pepper
- 1/2 tablespoon salt
- Cut a pickle in half and drop the two halves in last
The thing is, depending on how big the pickle is, it may displace too much of the liquid. You need room in the can for air expansion. So if your jar is filled too high (above the fill line) you'll need to pour a little out.
3. Wipe the rim dry and clean. There can't be any drops of liquid or food on the threads before you tighten the lid.
4. Get a pot that's deep enough to submerge your jars in and fill it with very hot tap water. Put your jars in and make sure they have about an inch of water over the top.
Turn the heat up to a medium-boil and boil the jars for 25 minutes.
When you take them out, set them on a cooling rack. (I just put mine in the cold oven below.)
5. The next morning, add your labels and stock away your jars for quick gifts when you need them!
I hope you enjoyed the post. It's easy to can just about anything and I think this makes for a really neat gift.
Good luck!
Comments(12)