Canning - Preserves and Pickles

This is probably not the best time of year to be talking about canning (I suppose it's more of a spring/summer activity), but I've been thinking/doing some canning lately during my holiday break - about 2 weeks in, yay!

For preserves, I like to do an organic strawberry or mixed berry preserves with some red wine (merlot or cabernet) using frozen fruit.  I think the first time, I didn't use enough pectin and too much wine (whoops!), so it didn't firm up very well.

...But now they turn out gorgeous and lovely.  I just bought a few bags of frozen strawberries from Trader Joe's, so let the winter canning commence!

(And the pot afterwards!)

I started pickling cucumbers when we were going through so many jars of store-bought pickles and me being increasingly wary of yellow dye and high fructose corn syrup so often among the ingredients list (urg).  I still have yet to master those scrumptious bread-and-butter pickles you get at the store, but I have increased the sugar content - though some recipes call for several cups of it, oof!

I also add some pickling spice, salt, some vinegar-based barbecue sauce for heat (I don't add too much - don't want a Bloody Mary-looking jar!), and regular white vinegar.  So far, so good.