Me and My Mason Jars

If you're going to be obsessed with buying something, you could do worse than a mason jar. After all, mason jars are cheap, useful and incredibly versatile. They're sturdy and strong and attractive in a sweet and simple kind of way. You can preserve peaches and pickles in them. Can't say the same about handbags. Unless you're a hoarder. Then we should have a talk. And an intervention.

I have used them for the traditional purpose of canning when my fig tree produced more bounty than I could possibly ingest whole. The process of preserving fruit and sterilizing jars made me feel rustic and relaxed and slightly older than my chronological age. 

But mason jars are good for so much more than preserving fruits and vegetables. And on a cold winter's day (17 degrees y'all!!), I decided to do some winter canning. Except it wasn't fruit I was preserving; it was dry bulk goods. 

Welcome to New York City. This is my pantry. As in, this is it. Technically, there's one more narrow section for oils and vinegars, but this is where all the dried goods go. It's not a huge amount of space, so I have to make the most of it. Most of the time, I can't find anything and just end up tossing stuff wherever there's an iota of open space. I also end up buying things at the grocery store that I don't need because I'm unable to see what I have lurking in there.

I'd wrestled up my frequently used grains in big containers. They were useful, but ended up taking up way too much real estate. So I had a thought...mason jars!

Oooh! Pretty!

Perfect fit for my regular bulk goods like brown rice, panko bread crumbs, red lentils and quinoa. They are very aesthetically pleasing, and they're also about to save me some money. I'll no longer buy things I don't need, and because they're air-tight the food will stay fresher longer. 

Opening my cabinet to see my jars makes me happier than I'd like to admit. Maybe I need an intervention. 

 I love my blue mason jars--I scooped these up at a flea market in upstate New York last summer and have displayed everything from candy to pasta to brown sugar in them. 

Mason jars are also great as inexpensive vases.

And work equally well for  homemade gifts and treats. 

Do you love mason jars like I do? What do you use them for?