What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2006 - 2016)

[kc2rock]

I've just read through this entire thread, and loved it!

 

I'm about to try my first batch of zucchini relish.  I diced the zukes for my neighbor when she made a batch, and she gave me a few jars of the finished product (along with a couple of massive zukes...).  It's delicious; spicier and tangier than store-bought, with a slightly softer texture. 

 

No peeling or seeding involved; just a 1/4" dice.  I may try the FP and grate instead, but not sure what that will do to the texture of the finished product..  Will add red onion, and sweet and hot peppers, spices, sugar, vinegar...still looking for an actual recipe!

[kayb]

I believe I have, in the past two days, gotten about as much as one could get out of a 30-pound box of tomatoes.

 

I took a gander at my "tomato shelf" in my storage room and decided, while 20 quarts of tomatoes and 15 pints of roasted tomato-garlic sauce were probably enough, I really didn't have as much tomato relish as I'd like to have, and I could stand another couple of quarts of tomato juice. (Home-canned tomato juice makes the BEST Bloody Marys....)

 

So I betook myself to the produce market and got a 30-pound box of tomatoes, for which I paid $29. Pricy, but it's late in the season.

 

From that, I have canned:

• 8 pints of tomato relish
• 3 quarts and a pint of tomato juice
• 16 four-ounce jars of tomato paste
• 8 half-pints of tomato sauce

 

 

The last half-pint of tomato sauce wouldn't fit in the canner. I was damned if I would process again for a single half-pint, so I stashed it in the freezer.

 

The tomato paste represents about half the box. I blanched, peeled, deseeded, and squeezed juice (into a colander) out of the tomatoes, pureed them, added 1 1/2 cups sweet red pepper puree, lemon juice and salt, and let it cook overnight on low in my slow cooker with the lid off. The resultant paste is not quite as thick, nor as smooth, as what you get in the grocery, but the taste is astounding. Glad I did this.

 

 

The relish is a sweet relish my mother made for years, that I love on beans and peas and in lots of other savory preps. It has tomatoes (juice drained), onion, sweet banana peppers, vinegar, sugar and pickling spice.I love it, and so do my kids.

 

Juice from all the tomatoes just got drained, strained, heated with a bit of salt and lemon juice, and canned. A quart of that, a cup of vodka, and all the accoutrements makes a marvelous pitcher of Bloody Marys for brunch.

 

The sauce was an afterthought. A friend had posted on facebook that she'd used tomato skins and cores from her canning session to make sauce. I decided to try it. The 30 pounds yielded almost 16 cups of peels and cores, which I cooked down, pureed, put through a food mill, and which resulted in 8 half-pints of unflavored tomato sauce (1/2 tbsp. lemon juice in each jar for acidification purposes). 

 

 

Just out of curiousity, I weighed the remaining skins and seeds after the sauce went through the food mill. It constituted 11 ounces, or about 2.1 percent of the original 30 pounds of tomatoes. I consider that a case of using just about "everything but the squeal." I was kinda proud.

 

I'm done for the year, unless the neighbors come through with persimmons, in which case I'l do persimmon jelly. But I'm ready for fall, and soups and stews!

 

[Shelby]

WOW, Kay, ya done good, kid!  

 

I'll have to try using the skins more next year.  I have about 10 lbs. of tomatoes on my counter now, but I feel like I'm done canning.  Maybe I'll get a burst of energy and do something exciting like your relish.  

 

Or maybe I'll just make a lot of BLT's lol.

[kayb]

WOW, Kay, ya done good, kid!  

 

I'll have to try using the skins more next year.  I have about 10 lbs. of tomatoes on my counter now, but I feel like I'm done canning.  Maybe I'll get a burst of energy and do something exciting like your relish.  

 

Or maybe I'll just make a lot of BLT's lol.

Thanks! I really thought the sauce-from-skins was a great idea. I mean, why throw away free tomato sauce?

 

The relish, should you want to make it, is:

 

15 pounds of tomatoes, peeled, diced, drained (I salt mine a bit to bring the water out)

6 sweet banana peppers, diced

4 large sweet onions, diced

3 tbsp pickling spice, tied in a cheesecloth bag (I actually use a big tea ball)

1 1/2 tbsp salt

3/4 cup vinegar (I usually use cider, but had to finish this out with white as I ran out of cider!)

1 1/2 cups sugar

 

Simmer, stirring frequently, until it cooks down, thickens and darkens. Process 30 minutes in water bath. Makes about 8 pints. This stuff is wonderful on purple hulled peas, and ain't half bad on a hot dog or hamburger.

 

You can also add a couple of hot peppers to this if you want. I've thrown some chipotle adobo in there just for fun, in the past. 

Edited September 26, 2015 by kayb (log)

[cyalexa]

 

I'm done for the year, unless the neighbors come through with persimmons, in which case I'l do persimmon jelly. But I'm ready for fall, and soups and stews!

I have 6 or 8 persimmon trees on my property. You can have all my persimmons. Come to Stillwater or maybe we can meet in Little Rock!

[ElainaA]

I believe I have, in the past two days, gotten about as much as one could get out of a 30-pound box of tomatoes.

 

 

I'll second Shelby's WOW! I am VERY impressed! Not only at what you produced but that you did that in 2 days! 

I still have a big bowl of tomatoes sitting on my counter if you want some more.........

 

I did turn some of them (most of my plum tomatoes) into 6 half-pints of ketchup yesterday. I combined my usual recipe (from Better Than Store Bought) with the ketchup recipe on the NCHP web site.  I've been trying to decide what to do with the rest (and if we don't get frost soon there are more ripening). I might try Kay's relish.

[MrRemy]

I went to the farmers market last weekend and got just over 50 lbs of tomatoes. I did it differently but I think I got nearly as much out of them as kayb. 

 

• 40 lbs got peeled and seeded and made into a simple tomato sauce that we froze in single portions. 
• 7 or 8 lbs got peel and seeded and pureed and then dehydrated into tomato paste.
• 5 lbs are being fermented and turned into conserva crudo di pomodoro out of the Katz fermentation book. 
• The seeds from all the tomatoes got made into a tomato "essence" I found in the Washington Post special tomato issue a few years ago. They get sauteed with garlic and chiles, passed through a strainer to remove the seeds and just keep the flavored gel and then frozen in an ice cube tray. I use the cubes to stir into a pan sauce or throw into a sous vide bag with meat. Basically it's a super intense tomato paste that doesn't thicken the way tomato paste does. 
• All the tomato peels got dehydrated and ground into tomato powder. 
• The gallon and a half of tomato water is being fermented first into tomato wine and then I'll add some live vinegar and turn the tomato wine into tomato vinegar, which will be ready sometime around Thanksgiving. 

All in all we yielded 50 cups of sauce, a pound of paste, probably roughly 3/4 of a pound of the conserva, 1 1/2 cups of tomato powder and probably 2 quarts of vinegar when all is said and done. 

[kayb]

Fascinated by the tomato essence and the tomato vinegar. Will put those on the list for next year!

[RaucusBacchus]

This was my first go at canning and Peach Chutney was the recipe that tipped my scale. I tweaked the recipe a bit opting to add Spiced Cinnamon & Orange Tea. The Jalepeños were a little mild so wishing I had a Serrano to perk it up as I prefer Chutney with some oomph, but the flavor is good regardless. Now we play the waiting game to see how it'll really taste once it's had a chance to mellow. ~m

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Hi RaucusBacchus,

 

Welcome to eG, and your peach chutney sounds good.

 

You can always stir in hotter peppers before serving, if you like, and it will add to the texture too.

[Smithy]

In the last month I've made a batch of Shelby's quickles, another batch of refrigerator pickles from my friend April's recipe, and two batches of sauerkraut.  It's all coming to fruition - er, fermentation!  Yippee!

 

April's refrigerator pickles went into one very large jar - good for packing, not so easy for distribution:

 

 

They were packed earlier than Shelby's Quickles, so we got into them first:

 

 

Meanwhile, Shelby's Quickles got several different treatments.  This photo is from the initial packing, not after they'd had time to ferment.  We've been taste-testing and deciding that the addition of a dried chipotle to a quart jar gives a pleasant kick.

 

 

I packed 2 crock's worth of kraut some 2 or 3 weeks ago.  Yesterday was the first taste test.  It's coming along nicely.  It still has a way to go, but it's well on its way to being proper kraut:

 

[Shelby]

Smithy, everything looks WONDERFUL!

 

 I will definitely remember to try some chipotle next year.  Does it add a smokey note at all?  

[Smithy]

Smithy, everything looks WONDERFUL!

 

 I will definitely remember to try some chipotle next year.  Does it add a smokey note at all?  

 

I can't detect any smoke.  There's only one dried chipotle per jar, and I admit it's old, but it's potent enough to give a small kick.  Thanks so much for your recipe!

[Shelby]

I can't detect any smoke.  There's only one dried chipotle per jar, and I admit it's old, but it's potent enough to give a small kick.  Thanks so much for your recipe!

 

   I felt kinda cool when I saw your jar labels 

 

I'm glad you enjoy them.  Even my pickle-picky husband likes them this year (he didn't last year for some reason)

[hummingbirdkiss]

ok no real photos sorry but my whole world smells like Kimchi, fish sauce and prahok  right now and while it is not pleasant to others it is really one of those "reminder " smells to me and I love the smells .. my husband on the other hand saws we will be condemned ..when everything is "pungent" at once .the kids and friends stop visiting ..but soon they will all be eating it and enjoying the results 

 

so that is what I am preserving my last batch of "winter"  kimchi, and first and only batches of prahok (this is my first year making it and I think it is going to be really good!) and fish sauce (I have made this once before it was so good! ) … to use up the last of the vegetables and the gifted fish 

 

it is ripening not rotting I keep telling my husband but he doesn't believe me

[ElainaA]

I finished my 3 day pear and ginger preserves:

 

Day 1: Chopped pears, ginger threads and sugar ready to sit in the refrigerator overnight, getting acquainted.

 

 

Day 2: Fruit and syrup cooked until the pears are transparent and candied. The instructions said it would take about 30 minute; I cooked it for about 45.

 

 

Day 3: Fruit and syrup are separated. The syrup is cooked to the gel point, the fruit is added and boiled for 1 minute. Then into jars and processed 10 minutes. (5 if you are closer to sea level than I am.)

 

 

 

[Shelby]

Gorgeous, Elaina!  I'd like a big dollop on a piece of toast right now!

[Ashen]

There is some awesome stuff getting put by in this thread, giving me an itching to do some more. 

 

 

we are pretty lazy this year.  We jarred up some tomatoes, did a double batch of tomato jam and 4 batches(so far) of hot pepper jelly.  We picked up some paper lantern Habs yesterday at the farmers market so at least one more batch will get made.  

[JoNorvelleWalker]

To the best of my recollection I've never preserved anything in my life.  Unless you count sewing together and drying strings of cayenne peppers.  Which still come in handy thirty some years later.

 

However I thought this was a fabulous time to put up picked okra.  I wanted to make a fresh pickle, not one that was cooked and shelf stable.  I sterilized canning jars.  Not sure this was really necessary but every pickled okra recipe said to do it.  I used about two thirds champagne vinegar to one third water.  Kosher salt.  Lots of garlic, dill, coriander, black pepper, and mustard.

 

Time will tell.

[Ashen]

yum, I love hot (spicy) pickled okra.  So different from the  mucilaginous  fresh stuff. bleh

[cakewalk]

Last week I was leaving for vacation and I had a few plums left in the fridge (a bit less than a pound). I didn't want to throw them out. So I took a stab in the dark and cut them in half, leaving skins and pits in, threw them in a pot with about half their weight of sugar and a few basil leaves that I also didn't want to throw out. Let it cook to a full boil then simmered for a while, added some lemon juice, strained out the skins, pits, and basil, and ended up with four-ounce jar of jelly. Went away for a week, came back last night and had some on crackers. I was surprised at how good it is. (And just about everything I know about canning I learned from this thread. So thank you.)

[FauxPas]

I'm not doing a lot with apples right now. I did make several pies and some apple sauce. But nothing to keep for long. I saw this Alice Waters recipe for making apple cider vinegar from peels and cores and it made me smile. From her new book, My Pantry:

 

http://www.marthastewart.com/1127863/alice-waters-my-pantry

Edited October 10, 2015 by FauxPas (log)

[Shelby]

I bought a food mill (finally) based on Kerry's recommendation and it arrived yesterday.

 

So shiny!

 

 

Thus, I made some V8 juice from a bunch of straggling tomatoes that Ronnie picked from the garden.  Thanks to Elaina and Kerry for their recipes.  The texture of the juice is perfect.  I didn't have any parsley.   And, I didn't have the right amount of celery but it tastes quite good.  Ronnie and I both had some for breakfast.  He deemed it very good and said he would also like me to add cream to it and make soup

 

 

(I used a washed out V8 bottle...I swear I really did make the juice lol)

 

 

I gotta find more things to mill.  I had a blast last night using my new toy.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Shelby (log)

[ElainaA]

 

 

 

 

I gotta find more things to mill.  I had a blast last night using my new toy.

The V8 looks great - it freezes really well if you get into making it in quantity.

I use my food mill for applesauce and tomato sauce. You don't need to peel the apples or tomatoes - use the food mill to remove the peels and seeds. I do core the apples though. I usually put things through the coarsest disk first, then move to the fine or medium disk if it looks necessary. I find it is a lot less work than going for the fine disk immediately.

I also have a recipe that I really like from Patricia Wells' Trattoria that calls for putting canned tomaotes through a food mill directly into the pan.

[Kerry Beal]

Tomato Soup

• 11 quarts tomatoes
• 1 head celery rib or just leaves
• 4 med onions
• 1 bunch parsley
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cloves
• Later
• ½ cup flour
• ½ cup butter
• ⅔ cup sugar
• salt

Cook 2-3 hours then put through fine blade of food mill. Meanwhile cook together butter, flour, sugar and salt. Add to strained soup and boil a few minutes.