What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2016–)

[kayb]

6 hours ago, curls said:

It is easy to tell if they are sealed. The "tab" on the rubber gasket will be pointing down & after the jars cool and you remove the metal clamps, the glass lid will be sealed to the rubber gasket. Enjoy your new Weck jars.  ;-)

Cool! Thanks!

 

[Shelby]

I used my pressure canner for the first time yesterday.  I hope it gets easier as I get more used to it.  I had a hard time adjusting the heat just right....the instructions that came with it said that the thingy should only jiggle 1 to 4 times per minute but when I would adjust it down the pressure would go down--I needed it to stay at 15 lbs.  Anyway, it was exciting and I'm thrilled to have some beans from my garden done

 

 

However, I screwed up and I don't really know what I did wrong.  I rinsed the pot and the lid with warm water and a bit of soap before I used it.  I didn't scrub it hard, just washed it with a sponge.  After I was all done I looked inside and it has turned completely black up to where the water line was!  It isn't greasy and it doesn't smell.  It's just black.  I tried to scrub it and I can't make a dent.  It's not burned.  Just black.  I don't mind it I guess as long as it's not leaching some weird chemical into my canning lol.

[JohnT]

Your pressure canner must be aluminium! If so, next time add a bit of acid (teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice) to the water. Aluminium pots often go black or dark grey when the liquid in them has no acid in it. I am not in any way a specialist in metals - just what I have been told or experienced myself.

[Shelby]

6 minutes ago, JohnT said:

Your pressure canner must be aluminium! If so, next time add a bit of acid (teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice) to the water. Aluminium pots often go black or dark grey when the liquid in them has no acid in it. I am not in any way a specialist in metals - just what I have been told or experienced myself.

It is aluminum!!!  Thank you!!!!  This was driving me crazy.  So, if I do that next time will it take the black away?  

 

Edited to add that unless I missed it in the instruction book--and I could have--I didn't see anything telling me to do this.  They should at least warn a person that the pot will turn black lol.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Shelby (log)

[JohnT]

It will disappear over time - this is my experience. Otherwise, I would not worry about it as it is just a metalegical reaction and you are only canning sealed bottles in it. It will not affect any of your canned goods.

[Shelby]

7 minutes ago, JohnT said:

It will disappear over time - this is my experience. Otherwise, I would not worry about it as it is just a metalegical reaction and you are only canning sealed bottles in it. It will not affect any of your canned goods.

What would I do without you??  Thank you so much!!!  

 

Well, I know what I would do...I'd be scrubbing the hell out of that heavy canning pot with no results happening lol.

[kayb]

My Weck jars came in today. A half-dozen each 1-liter tall cylinders (pickles, asparagus, etc.); 1/2 liter mold jars (oh, who knows what these might hold?) and 1/2 liter tulip jars (SO pretty -- will hold such pretty pickles!). Think I will try the mushrooms in them, water-bath processing instead of boiling the mushrooms first. Will now be haunting Aldi until they put mushrooms on sale.

 

My mother is laughing at me from her grave. I do love to can.

 

 

 

[kayb]

Today we pickled some more, because we took advantage of a break in the rain to dash out to the garden and see what had transpired in the week I had been gone. In addition to a good handful of tomatoes, two small zucchini, one oversized yellow crookneck, and two peppers, there were a dozen MASSIVE cucumbers (and four or five reasonably sized ones). The giant ones weren't soft, though, so I went ahead and brought them in.

 

What to do? Pickles! I made six half-liters and a half-pint of bread and butter (as I had a big bag of Vidalia onions), and four pints and two quarts of a new recipe, sweet spicy hot pickles, along with a couple of half-liter jars of those for refrigerator pickling.

 

 

Cucumbers on steroids. They were as long as my arm, and two inches in diameter.

 

Bread and butter pickles. First water-bath effort in the Weck jars, as Kroger was out of lids for my wide-mouth pints.

 

 

Sweet spicy hots. Brine is 4 cups cider vinegar, 4 cups water, 2 cups sugar, 3/4 cup salt. Jars are prepped with garlic cloves, peppercorns (I used a combo of red/green/black and red pepper flakes, and whole coriander. Weck jars are the refrigerator version; remainder are shelf-stable.

 

Tomorrow: 50 ears of sweet corn to cut off and freeze, and a batch of blueberry barbecue sauce to make and can.

[kayb]

Good God. There are more cucumbers this morning. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when the zucchini take off. I'm thinking these latest ones will turn into sweet pickle relish, something i use a lot of when I make potato salad, etc., so I might as well make my own.

 

If you're coming through northeastern Arkansas for anything, let me know and I'll load you down with cucumbers.

[Okanagancook]

Ha, I just picked another four zucchini to go with the 8 that are in my fridge from earlier in the week.  Making the serious eats lighter version of zuc gratin.

Beef jerky.  It was done in about 3.5 hours.  I love my Excalibur dryer.  Simple but classic spicing:  soy sauce & Worcestershire as the main flavouring.

[Shelby]

21 hours ago, kayb said:

Good God. There are more cucumbers this morning. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when the zucchini take off. I'm thinking these latest ones will turn into sweet pickle relish, something i use a lot of when I make potato salad, etc., so I might as well make my own.

 

If you're coming through northeastern Arkansas for anything, let me know and I'll load you down with cucumbers.

  Attack of the cucumbers!  How many did you plant?  I think I have 5-6 that survived the various storms.  I've only picked one so far, though.  I hope more come on or else Ronnie is going to be without pickles and I don't know if he can handle that lol.

 

Did more green beans yesterday.  It went a lot smoother which must mean I felt more comfortable with my pressure canner already.  I really enjoy not having to lift the jars out of the boiling water bath.....so much so that I might use the pressure canner for tomatoes (if I get some).

 

[kayb]

I have joined the ranks of those with multiple freezers. I've been looking for a used upright freezer in the 20-something foot range for ages; no success. A friend offered me her small chest freezer, as she was no longer using it. I could have it, she said, because she knew I'd feed her from it along the way. My kids went and picked it up and brought it to me today; it is a twin for the one I have, meaning I have in the neighborhood of, well. 20 or so cubic feet (as I think these are both nine-footers, possibly 12). 

 

I'm going to defrost this one and clean it out (there are some bits and pieces that need to be picked out of the corners, etc.) and go purchase a significant number of plastic crates that will fit inside it, in the vain hope of keeping it moderately organized. Then I will move things like the Schwan's frozen seafoods (I have salmon, cod, halibut and tuna) and a few other of their dishes) into it, then organize the beef, pork and chicken into baskets and move that over. Then I'll defrost the other one. It can then be used for veggies (more crates!) and fruits from the garden and area farms. The extra refrigerator freezer can then be limited to stocks and frozen homemade TV dinners and entrees. And THEN I'll attack the side-by-size freezer section of the kitchen fridge, and rid myself of things that are old enough to draw Social Security; it can them be limited to stuff I use often (nuts, etc.), leftovers that need to be used by a specific date, and so on.

 

And this is a regimen on which I expect to stay for, oh, about two weeks before everything is a hopeless mess!

 

So, NYAH, @rotuts! I now have Freezers A, B, C and D! 

 

 

[rotuts]

guess I better look into Sales  w free home delivery to the basement 

[Jacksoup]

@kayb  those are just the pickles I need too make, bread and butter, sweet pickle relish.  Then I need to make some dills.  Not enough cucumbers out of the garden yet to make a batch of pickles worthwhile.  Soon though. @Shelbyo you're getting comfortable with the pressure canner?  I'll probably have more tomatos than freezer space this year, am worried about regular canning and the pH.  But it seems like you've canned tomatos for years, I want to can sauce, just no garlic.  Have you canned that

Edited June 26, 2017 by Jacksoup
Spelling (log)

[Shelby]

9 hours ago, Jacksoup said:

@kayb  those are just the pickles I need too make, bread and butter, sweet pickle relish.  Then I need to make some dills.  Not enough cucumbers out of the garden yet to make a batch of pickles worthwhile.  Soon though. @Shelbyo you're getting comfortable with the pressure canner?  I'll probably have more tomatos than freezer space this year, am worried about regular canning and the pH.  But it seems like you've canned tomatos for years, I want to can sauce, just no garlic.  Have you canned that

 

Yeah, I think the pressure canner and I have made a little progress on our relationship lol.  I've canned tomatoes in a water bath for like 20 years now.  I think early on I canned spaghetti sauce but I decided that I'd rather just can the tomatoes and then make the sauce later out of those.  OR, I make the sauce and freeze it.  No problem with canning it, though.  Now, if you put a lot of stuff in it like mushrooms etc.  I'd pressure can it, but if it's mostly tomatoes you'd be fine in a water bath IMO.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Yeah, I grew up canning garden tomatoes. They are naturally acidic enough that you don't need to worry about pressure canning. We always froze squash, green beans, unbaked apple pies and other stuff though. We did can a green tomato pepper and onion relish without pressure, but it had added vinegar. We did what others around us were doing before the internet and easy research, but it worked fine.

[kayb]

Rule of thumb from canning with my mother as a child: water bath is fine for tomatoes, any kind of pickles, jams or jellies. Everything else needs the pressure canner. 

 

I have a recipe for canning green beans in a weak vinegar solution, and then you drain and rinse the beans before you use them, which allows water bath canning of green beans. They're OK. 

[haresfur]

15 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

Yeah, I grew up canning garden tomatoes. They are naturally acidic enough that you don't need to worry about pressure canning. We always froze squash, green beans, unbaked apple pies and other stuff though. We did can a green tomato pepper and onion relish without pressure, but it had added vinegar. We did what others around us were doing before the internet and easy research, but it worked fine.

 

Some of the newer tomato varieties are less acidic. I think it probably doesn't matter but follow the instructions in the Ball Blue Book (get your mind out of the gutter) and add citric acid for safety (1/4 tsp/pint, I think).

[chromedome]

On 2017-6-24 at 2:32 PM, kayb said:

 I can't imagine what it's going to be like when the zucchini take off.

I find that eating the blossoms and fingerlings takes much of the sting out of zucchini season. The "ounce of prevention," as it were. If you pick them young and tiny, you can actually serve 2 or 3 zucchini per person as a side dish.

[kayb]

Hey, fellow food preservers -- a question. Can one freeze watermelon puree? We have a BIG watermelon we did not so much as cut into over the holiday weekend. I don't want to waste it. I can use frozen puree in sorbet or ice cream or a sauce (as well as cutting up a bunch of chunks to eat) and any number of other things. I guess I could can it, but at first glance, it seems freezing will make more sense.

 

[Shelby]

10 minutes ago, kayb said:

Hey, fellow food preservers -- a question. Can one freeze watermelon puree? We have a BIG watermelon we did not so much as cut into over the holiday weekend. I don't want to waste it. I can use frozen puree in sorbet or ice cream or a sauce (as well as cutting up a bunch of chunks to eat) and any number of other things. I guess I could can it, but at first glance, it seems freezing will make more sense.

 

I've seen watermelon granita before so I think it would be ok.

[heidih]

Yes but thinking some sugar & acid like lemon juice best added before freezing - better preservation result

[chromedome]

18 hours ago, kayb said:

Hey, fellow food preservers -- a question. Can one freeze watermelon puree? We have a BIG watermelon we did not so much as cut into over the holiday weekend. I don't want to waste it. I can use frozen puree in sorbet or ice cream or a sauce (as well as cutting up a bunch of chunks to eat) and any number of other things. I guess I could can it, but at first glance, it seems freezing will make more sense.

 

I did that last year, and it seemed to work fine. I made sorbet with some, and the rest went into watermelon lemonade. 

[MelissaH]

We've frozen watermelon puree, nothing added, portioned into bags and vacuum sealed.

[Okanagancook]

Marinated mushrooms (button) from Foods of the World:  Cooking of Italy.

 

1 lb mushrooms, cleaned and roughly similar sizes

2/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup water

juice of two lemons

1 bay leaf

6 peppercorns

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1/2 t salt

 

Bring everything to a boil (except the mushrooms) in a sauce pan, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Strain the marinade and put back in the pan.  Add mushrooms and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes turning the mushrooms over a few times.

Put the whole lot into a glass jar and let cool on the counter.  Will keep for two days refrigerated.

Serve at room temp.

One of my favourite recipes made over and over again.