Canning, anyone?

[bambu101]

Canning- anyone?

My latest hobby started with finally reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver) in July. I was inspired to dig out my old canner. I started back at the beginning of August by making wild blueberry jam, and things kind of took off from there. Since then, my water bath canner from 20 years ago has been getting some major “stove-time”. I have canned peaches in light syrup, peach jam, plum chutney, autumn fruit jam (pears, apples, and peaches), crushed heirloom tomatoes, tomato sauce, bruschetta salsa, dill pickles, and bread and butter pickles. I ordered a food mill last weekend, after deciding that it is too much work to skin tomatoes by hand, and plan on using it to make applesauce.

Has anyone else re-discovered or discovered this “forgotten art” recently? I am just tickled pink with the Mason jars all lined up on my shelves, neatly labeled, and filled with luscious fruits and vegetables. I have also been drying tomatoes in the food dehydrator. I really like knowing exactly where this food came from, and how it was processed. I am also looking forward to pulling out a beautiful golden jar of peaches on a snowy, sub-zero winter morning, and remembering that warm August day when I put them up.

[GLC1968]

I just started this year. So far, I've only done two batches of blackberry jam (one with seeds, one without) and a batch of applesauce. I will have to do MUCH more once we harvest the rest of the fruit (apples, pears and grapes still to come).

We got the veggie garden in too late this year to have enough to can - but we hope to be able to put up a ton of that stuff next year. By then, I hope to have put aside enough $ to buy a pressure canner.

I'd like to try canning milk (since we have a huge surplus), but I think I need a pressure canner for that...

I know what you mean about the joy of seeing those jars all lined up. I totally agree! I can't wait to add to it!

[Becky]

When I was younger, our family would can applesauce, all sorts of jams, peaches, beets, and we froze a lot of stuff too. Making applesauce was always fun

Now, I freeze a lot of things, but haven't canned anything yet. There's a big warning in the owner's manual for my gas stove about not canning on it, but no explanation why. Something to do with the pilotless burners maybe?

[spokewench]

I haven't had the canner out since I moved to Flagstaff. The gardening here does not produce all that much good produce and even local produce is hard to come by and not so great; so alas, without the stuff to can, I am canless!

When I was in California, I would stock up at the Farmer's Market and can to my heart's content. I have to say I miss it and probably always will as long as I live in this godforsaken gardenless climate!

[tulip]

Now that I'm in my house, I fully intend to have a big vegetable garden and do some canning. I'm thinking I'll start with pickles since my stepmother used to make pickles from the garden when I was growing up. It'll have to wait until next year, since I don't yet have a garden (or a kitchen, for that matter).

This is a good blog from my city (Richmond, Virginia):
http://www.rivercityharvest.org/

Granny Miller has all sorts of useful information (although she's taking a break at the moment).
http://www.grannymillerblog.blogspot.com/

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Last autumn we had free access to an old organic apple orchard. I made quarts and quarts of applesauce and apple butter. I thought it would all last for a year, but it was all gone in 8 months.
The apple butter was the big favorite. Plus, if you make each batch in a big slow cooker (crockpot)- a whole day for each batch, it makes the house smell so GOOD for a whole week.

[TahoeDirtGirl]

BG- fess up how to do the apple butter in the crockpot!

I wanted to try and learn how to can this year, but I figured I'll go easy and just freeze stuff. A guy at work convinced me to just freeze the tomatoes I'm about to pick out of my landlady's garden (she left a bunch behind and told me to 'have at em') which the guy told me how to do. Next year, if I'm staying put, I will canning a shot. I would love to make my own jam but I have no clue on how to. I still have to get that Animal, Veg, Min book I keep hearing about...

anddddd you people in Mass have Concord grapes growing EVERYWHERE! I smell them when I'm riding! All over the place...if I only could find time to make jam...

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

BG- fess up how to do the apple butter in the crockpot!

ok...

First, you cut up a whole SLEW of apples and cook them in a big spaghetti pot for about 45 minutes or an hour with an inch or so of water. Stir and mash occasionally....and you get apple sauce. Add a little sugar if its too tart.

Then, to make that into apple butter, you take batches of apple sauce you just made and continue cooking it on LOW for hours with the top propped open a little, to let it evaporate and get thicker. I use slow cookers for this, about 6 qt size ones. Be sure to leave at least an inch of space at the top when you fill the crockpot with apple sauce.
After about 12 hours in the crockpot on LOW, with an occasional stir every few hourts, it's brown and thick but tastes like very concentrated apple, not burnt at all. It should be stiffer than apple sauce. I then add some sugar and a little allspice and cloves (I prefer this to the usual cinnamon)....to give it a hint of spiciness. You could try coriander or mace too. At the end if it's too chunky, I give it a quick zap with my hand held blender stick to make it a bit smoother than my chunky apple sauce.
Let cool and pack into containers and freeze.
Note: Unlike stovetop cooking, you can safely leave your crockpots cooking on LOW overnight if you place them on a safe surface and prop the lids open a crack with a metal teaspoon handle. They need to be open a crack to allow the apple butter to thicken while cooking.

[OakLeaf]

My tomato plants, such as they were, didn't produce much this year, so I won't be canning and drying , though there may yet be some tomato sauce and paste.

I have a few pints of black raspberry jam left in the pantry from this summer.

After the first frost I'll put up a mess of applesauce.

Those are about all I bother with - sweet or acid foods that get canned in a boiling-water bath. I have a pressure canner, but rarely use it - once every few years for tomatillo salsa, or if I grow shell beans.

[smilingcat]

please be careful when canning tomatoes. USDA now considers tomato as low acid. so you do have to use a pressure cooker to can the tomatoes. Some heirloom tomatos are okay.

Freezing tomatoes will cause it to lose its flavanoids (flavors) and being high water content, it will only be good for sauce.

If you do deicide to dry, brush bit of vinegar to retard mold and bacterial growth. You can also freeze the dried tomatoes. It was yummy in tomato sauce, on pizza ...

I would love to get back to canning but we just don't grow enough. Peach, pear, apricots we would have to buy. Same with berries of any kind.

[wildhawk]

I love canning! We always grew a huge garden when I was a kid and I would stay up all night helping my Mama with the canning and preparing the veggies. Now that I am in Florida I haven’t done much, but this summer we put in a raised garden and I am going to can some tomatoes first chance I get. We are setting up rain barrels too and everything is organic. Yummy! We are hoping our next property will have enough acreage to grow fruit trees - I would love to have a peach tree and some apple trees!! It is a great thing to get into and can save you so much too. And not to mention how great those veggies taste in the winter! Have fun!!

[bmccasland]

I have some blackberries in my freezer waiting to be made into jam. When the berries were ripe, it was just too bloody hot to cook. Fortunately hurricane season hasn't put me out of power for very long - thus ruining my berry collection.

I tend to make jam more than anything else. I don't own a pressure cooker, so haven't canned vegetables the way my grandmothers used to.

[Deborajen]

We have a cherry tree that produced 62 pounds of cherries this year. It had a lot of "pent up energy" - we hadn't gotten any cherries the last two years due to late freezes, and three years ago we'd gotten about 25 pounds, which had been the record.

Needless to say, lots of picking and pitting this year. I ended up making jam, jelly and freezer jam, plus fresh pie, several batches of frozen pie filling, more frozen cherries, and I'm trying making wine for the first time.

I've canned jalapenos in the past as well as strawberry jam, etc., but it's been a few years.

Deb

[bambu101]

Here is some information about safely canning tomatoes at home in a water bath canner (instead of a pressure canner):

"Canning Tomatoes
Only boiling water or pressure canning methods are recommended for canning foods. Older methods, such as oven canning and open-kettle canning, have been discredited and can be hazardous (Equipment and Methods Not Recommended from the USDA Complete Guide to Canning 1994). The risk of botulism poisoning determines the choice of either boiling water or pressure canners for canning foods. In foods that are acid (pH 4.6 or lower) the microorganism that causes botulism cannot grow. Therefore it is safe to use a boiling water bath canner. All other foods must be canned using tested pressure canning processes (Ensuring Safe Canned Foods).

Tomatoes for many years were considered high acid. However, new varieties, over-mature fruits, and tomatoes from dead or frost-killed vines may have a pH greater than 4.6. The USDA and University-based researchers have determined that to ensure a safe acid level for boiling water canning of whole, crushed, or juiced tomatoes, add 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice or ½ teaspoon of citric acid per quart of tomatoes. For pints, use 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice or ¼ teaspoon of citric acid. Acid can be added directly to the jars before filling the jars with product. Add sugar to offset acid taste, if desired. Four tablespoons of 5-percent-acidity vinegar per quart may be used instead of lemon juice or citric acid. However, vinegar may cause undesirable flavor changes."

As long as you aare careful and follow recipes precisely, canning tomatoes is safe. I would rather can at home as much as possible instead of worrying that the produce I just bought at the supermarket has e-coli or salmonella contamination.

We are fortunate to live in the midst of a watershed area (12,000 acres)where there are many abandoned homesteads from the late 1800's, with apple trees and Concord grapes everywhere. I am planning on gathering some apples this weekend for applesauce.

[OakLeaf]

Yep, that's not a change actually. I'm still using the 1976 edition of Putting Food By, and although I believe processing times have gone up since then, she recommended citric acid even way back then. (It's great to have around the house as a cleaning solution too so I buy it in bulk!)

IMO the key is to be religious about using PERFECT fruit. Touch wood, I've never even had a case of flat sour spoilage. Any tomatoes that aren't perfect get sauced and frozen. (1 pint of sauce in a 1 qt ziploc, they lie flat and stack once frozen, saves a ton of space in the freezer!)