Weck Jars - my new favorite thing!

So several family members gave me money for my birthday this year, which always leaves me feeling a bit overwhelmed... what to buy with these special dollars?? Luckily this year I had already been drooling over weck jars - that is, glass canning jars with rubber gaskets. With money from my parents and some of my great in-laws (thanks guys & gals - you know who you are!), I went online and ordered Weck jars from their U.S. site. I was a bit worried what shipping would come to, because unlike most websites I order from, they didn't calculate shipping until you had entered all your information. It turned out that shipping was a quite reasonable (for 2 large fedex-ed boxes of glass!) forty dollars. I could have ordered more jars!

I ordered 7 different types of jars - tulip and mold jars in a variety of sizes, and apart from the smallest which comes in a 12 pack, I got 6 of each. Not bad for what I spent, and knowing that there is no BPA, no parts to throw away (based on a great post I read a while ago on the ability to reuse the rubber gaskets), and seeing how pretty they look makes it even better!

With so many styles and sizes, I had a hard time choosing, so I first sat down and thought about the things I would be using the jars for. I started with the definite uses and moved into the dream uses. For example, definite uses would be apple sauce, freezer jam, tomatoes, while dream uses would be home made pizza sauce, canned green beans. Obviously some or all of these definitely uses will happen this year, while only some of my dream uses will happen this year (no pressure canner and no more green beans to harvest = that dream being a next year event).

So far I have only used them for freezing things, no true canning, but that is on the list of things to do this week, as we have a whole heck of a lot of apples waiting to be made into applesauce. Just look how pretty the ground beef looks in there surrounded by plastic baggies of meat...

I can only imagine how much more food we will be able to fit (and organize well!) in the freezer with these jars! I am thinking I might be needing more jars soon... :)