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

[ElsieD]

We are freezing some more corn today.  While husking, we came along this little fellow, tied to his mom's apron strings, so to speak.

[Kerry Beal]

4 hours ago, ElsieD said:

We are freezing some more corn today.  While husking, we came along this little fellow, tied to his mom's apron strings, so to speak.

It's a boy!

[MaryIsobel]

24 - 250ml jars (that's half pints for those who don't do metric) of salsa. Our tomatoes are still green so bought a case when we were in the Cariboo last week. For anyone who is counting, the picture shows 23 jars, as the one and only that did not seal is in the fridge. I was impressed with the sealing rate as this was the first time I only washed and dried the lids (as per the new instructions) and didn't leave them to soak in hot water as I have always done in the past.

Edited September 26, 2022 by MaryIsobel (log)

[Shelby]

23 minutes ago, MaryIsobel said:

24 - 250ml jars (that's half pints for those who don't do metric) of salsa. Our tomatoes are still green so bought a case when we were in the Cariboo last week. For anyone who is couting, the picture shows 23 jars, as the one and only that did not seal is in the fridge. I was impressed with the sealing rate as this was the first time I only washed and dried the lids (as per the new instructions) and didn't leave them to soak in hot water as I have always done in the past.

Beautiful!!!

[MaryIsobel]

6 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Beautiful!!!

Thanks Shelby - that's high praise indeed coming from you!

[Shelby]

13 minutes ago, MaryIsobel said:

Thanks Shelby - that's high praise indeed coming from you!

It's such hard work...but so rewarding when you hear those "pops" of the lids  I always love seeing what people can.

[MaryIsobel]

3 minutes ago, Shelby said:

It's such hard work...but so rewarding when you hear those "pops" of the lids  I always love seeing what people can.

Love the popping sound - I actually asked my husband to turn the music down because I was listening for "pops". His reply? "You're strange" LOL

I am editing to add that I neglected to give credit for the recipe. It is Annie's Salsa and I have been making it for years. Annie is also known as Wonder Woman on another cooking forum that I frequent. She gardens acres of stuff, has cattle, horses and chickens, cooks everything from scratch, decorates cakes, hosts huge family dinners, works elections... Annie went to the trouble of developing this recipe then having it approved by her county extension office to make sure it was safe to can with the hot water bath method. She is truly an amazing woman anad I admire her greatly.

Edited September 26, 2022 by MaryIsobel (log)

[Shelby]

39 minutes ago, MaryIsobel said:

"You're strange"

HE'S strange for not enjoying the melodic sounds of all that work 😁

[DianaB]

Canning is something that I have never tried but having enjoyed reading the posts above I’m thinking it might be something to try next year.

 

This year garden produce has (as always) filled our freezer.  Small house limits storage space and even our small garden produces more than we can easily accommodate.  Tomatoes have either been dried in the oven or transformed into sauce to save on freezer space needed.  Fruits such as black currants and blackberries are frozen as they came off the plants. 
 

We have a first batch of cherry tomato sauce cooking this morning.  It is the first year we have grown more cherry tomatoes than we can eat so it will be interesting to see how the Sun Gold in particular transform.  They are certainly delicious just roasted as a side dish.  Just hoping that there will be a spare corner in the freezer to store it…..   

 

The greenhouse is still full of San Marzano tomatoes that we grew thinking that they would be ideal cooked.  They are fine but we have found that other types of tomatoes make a tastier sauce.  Not sure what we will grow next year but that decision can wait a few weeks yet.

 

Have really enjoyed this thread, all of those bottled veg look amazing 😻 

[SLB]

 

9 hours ago, DianaB said:

Have really enjoyed this thread, all of those bottled veg look amazing

 

@DianaB, right???  These Preserving threads changed my life!

 

Meanwhile -- this is a cross-post of mine from the Muscadine thread an hour ago (which may be against the rules) --

 

A good friend in AL sent up some juicy muscadine wonders, via overnight shipping:

 

 

I'm not going to be able to eat all of these, and am considering options.  The dehydrator thread has got me thinking -- a one-off muscadine leather.  But -- pureed skins or pureed with no skins???

 

I could also freeze them and deal later.

 

But -- aren't they pretty?  The aroma hit when I slit the box open.  I'm feeling loved!  Like, loved best.  

[Smithy]

It took months for our potted tomatoes to take off, but when they did they headed for Near-Earth Orbit. Today I admitted that I simply couldn't use all the harvest before it went off. Frost is in the air. There are still green tomatoes on the vines that probably won't make it into fried green tomato territory, but I collected all the ripe and mostly-ripe tomatoes.

 

 

As a rule our extended family makes a 3-day weekend of salsa making on Labor Day weekend, but family issues prevented that this year. Today I decided on a solo salsa operation.

 

 

The aroma while it cooked down was intoxicating!

 

 

...as was the "pop" of those lids as they sealed. 

[Smithy]

It turns out that two of the salsa jars didn't seal properly. I know I could have reprocessed them and maybe gotten them to seal, but I've simply put them in the refrigerator instead. We'll go through them quickly enough that I'm not worried about their going off.

 

That leads me to a question, however: with all the acid (vinegar) and the canning salt in this stuff, is there really a need to worry about it developing pathogens if it stays out of the refrigerator?

[FauxPas]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

It turns out that two of the salsa jars didn't seal properly. I know I could have reprocessed them and maybe gotten them to seal, but I've simply put them in the refrigerator instead. We'll go through them quickly enough that I'm not worried about their going off.

 

That leads me to a question, however: with all the acid (vinegar) and the canning salt in this stuff, is there really a need to worry about it developing pathogens if it stays out of the refrigerator?

 

All I can tell you is that I have had commercial brands that got lost at the back of the fridge and developed mold. They had been opened, though. But if your jars aren't properly sealed then they are, in a way, already open, right?   🙂

 

I haven't canned my own salsa for several years, but didn't have any problems with unsealed jars or else I would have refrigerated them. 

Edited October 10, 2022 by FauxPas
typo (log)

[MaryIsobel]

3 hours ago, Smithy said:

It turns out that two of the salsa jars didn't seal properly. I know I could have reprocessed them and maybe gotten them to seal, but I've simply put them in the refrigerator instead. We'll go through them quickly enough that I'm not worried about their going off.

 

That leads me to a question, however: with all the acid (vinegar) and the canning salt in this stuff, is there really a need to worry about it developing pathogens if it stays out of the refrigerator?

I think that since there is no way to know how acidic your tomatoes are, suggestions err on the side of caution.

[Anna N]

2 hours ago, FauxPas said:

All I can tell you is that I have had commercial brands that got lost at the back of the fridge and developed mold.

I cannot begin to tell you how many jars of commercial salsa I have had to bin because of mould. They do not seem to have a long shelf life once opened even if carefully refrigerated. 

[SLB]

It's fall, and we've got HungryChris up in 'da house:

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by SLB (log)

[Steve Irby]

First greens of the season from Stewart Farms in Bay Minette AL.   Salad turnips & tops, rutabaga greens & tender root, and watermelon radish with the tops cooking down with the rutabaga greens.  

 

[RWood]

So, in late August we had seven cherry tomato plants come up. A raccoon partook off some of the ones we had planted earlier and crunched them up on the patio (didn’t like them apparently 🙄). We sweep them off, and got plants that did better than anything we planted. 

It got below freezing this past week, so before I picked all the green ones (6lbs). I made my grandmothers pickled green tomatoes. I haven’t had them in years. 

[Shelby]

7 minutes ago, RWood said:

So, in late August we had seven cherry tomato plants come up. A raccoon partook off some of the ones we had planted earlier and crunched them up on the patio (didn’t like them apparently 🙄). We sweep them off, and got plants that did better than anything we planted. 

It got below freezing this past week, so before I picked all the green ones (6lbs). I made my grandmothers pickled green tomatoes. I haven’t had them in years. 

This. Is. Awesome.

[haresfur]

I planted one cherry tomato this year and it promptly died. I do have a couple of volunteers that might do something. I still have some not great green tomato chutney from a couple of years ago that I should use up before I think about preserving more.

[Smithy]

6 hours ago, RWood said:

So, in late August we had seven cherry tomato plants come up. A raccoon partook off some of the ones we had planted earlier and crunched them up on the patio (didn’t like them apparently 🙄). We sweep them off, and got plants that did better than anything we planted. 

It got below freezing this past week, so before I picked all the green ones (6lbs). I made my grandmothers pickled green tomatoes. I haven’t had them in years. 

 

My father used to reminisce on the chow-chow that his mother (my sainted Nana) made. Dad didn't know much about it, except that it involved the green tomatoes from the garden...and he liked it. Despite the lack of information, I fantasize. How do you make your grandmother's pickled green tomatoes? And what do you do with it, once you've made it?

[RWood]

9 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

My father used to reminisce on the chow-chow that his mother (my sainted Nana) made. Dad didn't know much about it, except that it involved the green tomatoes from the garden...and he liked it. Despite the lack of information, I fantasize. How do you make your grandmother's pickled green tomatoes? And what do you do with it, once you've made it?

As far as what you use it for, it was always for me, an accompaniment to pinto beans. I’m not one that cares for a bowl of beans like the rest of my Southern family does. But, my grandmothers were pretty good, and she always had green tomato pickles that she gave me. You can use them for anything you like something pickled with, sandwiches, cheese plate, etc.

 This recipe isn’t that specific, like most old recipes. I wrote it out years ago, and it was probably how my grandmother just knew how to make them. 
Mix up equal parts water, sugar and white vinegar. Combine with the sliced green tomatoes (or halved like I did for the cherry tomatoes), sweet onion, a little salt and either a sliced hot pepper or chili flakes to taste. 
Bring to a boil, and simmer about 20 mins. You can taste and adjust the sweetness and/or heat before they finish cooking. Then put the tomatoes in hot jars and fill with the liquid and seal. 
I looked at some recipes online, and most were like refrigerator pickles. 

Edited November 21, 2022 by RWood (log)

[FauxPas]

On 11/20/2022 at 8:05 PM, Smithy said:

My father used to reminisce on the chow-chow that his mother (my sainted Nana) made. Dad didn't know much about it, except that it involved the green tomatoes from the garden...and he liked it.

 

I've enjoyed cooking from Andrea Chesman's books, including Pickles & Relishes (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). She has quite a few recipes for green tomatoes, including Chow Chow and/or Piccalilli. It's one of those books that you can pick up for just a few dollars if you are ok with a used book. Not sure if you are interested in this, but thought I would mention it.  🙂

 

[FauxPas]

Back in October one of the local farms was selling off jalepenos and I bought a few pounds or so, without really thinking about what I wanted to do with them. Not wanting to let them sit around too long, I decided to do a quick pickle with them. So I sliced them and filled a 1-liter (1 qt) jar with them along with a bit of garlic and then topped that with a hot vinegar brine with some pickling salt and a tiny bit of added sugar.

 

Not wanting to process a single jar, I knew they would keep ok in the fridge for at least 2-3 months. But I kept thinking that we still might struggle to use them up, it seemed like an awful lot of jalapenos when I looked at them packed into the jar.

 

But here we are, 4-6 weeks later and our jar is seriously depleted. These were so good and just a nice amount of heat that we were using them on nachos and Mexican dishes but also on sandwiches and with cheese and crackers. And without the processing, they have retained a pleasant bit of crunch. 

 

Almost gone! 

 

 

And even fewer in the jar now. Yum. 

 

 

[Shelby]

12 hours ago, FauxPas said:

Back in October one of the local farms was selling off jalepenos and I bought a few pounds or so, without really thinking about what I wanted to do with them. Not wanting to let them sit around too long, I decided to do a quick pickle with them. So I sliced them and filled a 1-liter (1 qt) jar with them along with a bit of garlic and then topped that with a hot vinegar brine with some pickling salt and a tiny bit of added sugar.

 

Not wanting to process a single jar, I knew they would keep ok in the fridge for at least 2-3 months. But I kept thinking that we still might struggle to use them up, it seemed like an awful lot of jalapenos when I looked at them packed into the jar.

 

But here we are, 4-6 weeks later and our jar is seriously depleted. These were so good and just a nice amount of heat that we were using them on nachos and Mexican dishes but also on sandwiches and with cheese and crackers. And without the processing, they have retained a pleasant bit of crunch. 

 

Almost gone! 

 

 

And even fewer in the jar now. Yum. 

 

 

YUM for sure!

 

I do the same thing.  They don't last long around here either.