Originally uploaded by Range Kleen

Home canning has come back to the mainstream. Many home chefs are canning gourmet versions of common foods, saving the bounty from a garden, and making gifts for friends and family.
If you are thinking of doing some canning for the first time, or scaling up your operation, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Take advantage of farmer’s markets and sales on in-season produce. Right now, berries are at their peak. Jam is an obvious choice, how about also making some cans of blueberry pie filling to keep ready for a quick weeknight dessert? Tomatoes are also in season. If you are making a batch of your family’s famous tomato sauce, make the batch a bit bigger and can some to enjoy later.

• Home canned goods make great gifts: housewarmings, hostess gifts, holidays, reunions, gift baskets and more. Make some signature flavors and keep them on hand, your friends and family will appreciate that your gift is practical, healthy and made with love. But, watch out! You may get more requests than you can handle!

• When making big batches, it can be difficult to keep an even temperature with your heating element weighted down on the stove. The heat builds up underneath and can also cause discoloration to the stovetop. We make a  Canning Kit http://www.rangekleen.com/index.php?cPath=16_35_384 with a taller, sturdier element and deeper drip pan to eliminate these problems.

Also, check out our canning recipes at www.rangekleen.com

http://www.rangekleen.com/recipes.php?pID=5&category=Canning&submit=View+Recipes)

Originally uploaded by Range Kleen

A little something that you might think about when you are on the go: you can use an insulated bottle to keep things hot as well as cool. Not just for drinks, we make wide-mouth food jars in a variety of materials and sizes. The expanded opening is perfect for hot food: stews, curry, stir-fry, pasta… dishes that are easy to cook at home in a single pot are perfect to eat on the go, and the insulation of a food jar will keep them hot and ready. Or, pack a cool dessert like parfait to finish your picnic. You’ll save money, reduce waste in landfills, and you can control the calories!

If you make extras of the chicken you can also have a salad for lunch one day at work – just take your salad in your GO GO Salad and there you have 2 meals.

Once you have chosen your recipe you will need something to make it in – Range Kleen offers several different types of Dutch ovens that would be perfect for making your soup, from stainless steel to Enamel coated cast iron.

Once you have the soup cooked you might be thinking “How can I take some of this to work?”  Well, Range Kleen also carries a wide variety of Food and Beverage bottles that you would be able to utilize.  These bottles will keep your soup warm for up to 6 hours if you follow this little tip – place very warm tap water in the bottle for about 10 minutes, dump it out and then fill it with your hot soup. 

Wanting a salad with your soup try the GO GO Salad, available in 2 sizes depending on how hungry you are.  Just wanting some fruit and dip or veggies and dip, then you will want to try to the GO GO Veggie, it keeps your dip separate from your fruit or veggies.

Originally uploaded by Patrick Q

Give kids the energy they need to make it through the day with a healthy lunch. Studies have shown that if you equip your children with healthy food to eat at school, they will be better prepared to study and learn. Although there are lots of convenience products available to make packing your kid’s lunchbox a snap, those products are often loaded with saturated fat, calories and sodium. The kid-friendly lunch ideas in our collection take little time to prepare and will help keep lunches enjoyable and healthy. Fruits and vegetables add color and crunch while providing beneficial vitamins and minerals. Foods like wraps, smoothies and dips are fun to eat. Give your kids something to look forward to at lunch every day with a variety of options they won’t trade away!

Get the family involved. Allow your kids to participate in the grocery shopping and encourage them to choose healthy snacks. This will increase the likelihood that they will eat these snacks instead of less healthy ones.

Delight kids with dips. Diving vegetables and fruits into yummy dips makes lunch more fun. Offer apple slices with a half cup of low-fat vanilla yogurt; serve carrot sticks with a side of hummus. Use the GO GO Fruit/Veggie by Range Kleen – this leak proof container holds the dip in the center of the container with the fruit or veggies in the outer part of the container.

Kick up the calcium. There are creative tactics you can employ to make sure your child is getting plenty of calcium. Add low-fat cheese to meals and snacks: put Cheddar in an omelet; add a slice of cheese to sandwiches; create mini pizzas by topping whole-wheat English muffins with pizza sauce and part-skim mozzarella; make grilled cheese sandwiches appealing by using cookie cutters to create fun shapes.

Drink juice judiciously. “Fruit drinks” are not the same as “fruit juice.” Usually, fruit drinks are sugary solutions fortified with vitamins. Fruit juice does contain natural sugars but it also provides other good stuff (vitamins, minerals, antioxidants) from the fruit. The one exception: fiber, which gets processed out. So don’t drink juice as your primary way to meet your 5 to 9 fruits and veggies each day. Whole fruits are more filling and take longer to eat, leaving you more satisfied. Opt for juice occasionally—and when you do, choose 100% fruit juices.

Fill up with fiber. Few kids crave a fiber-rich meal. But fiber is filling and when combined with drinking plenty of water, helps prevent constipation. A high-fiber food has 5 grams or more of fiber per serving and a “good” source of fiber is one that provides 2.5 to 4.9 grams per serving. Some fiber-friendly foods include cooked navy beans (9.6 grams of fiber for cup), a medium baked sweet potato with skin (3.8 grams) and bran flakes (5.3 grams).