My Canning Cellar

Season 2, Episode 5. Peas!

I looked on the National Center For Home Food Preservation and there all approved and everything was how to can dried peas. I will put the link in the show description.

What I used for equipment was a large stock pot, a wooden mixing spoon, a measure cup, a canning funnel, debubbler tool, a dish towel and I used the Presto digital canner.

What I used for ingredients was 4 pounds of dried split peas and water. That’s it.

I did the quick hydrating method which was after sorting and washing the peas, I covered them with boiling water in the stock pot. I let them boil for 2 minutes, then shut the heat off and let them soak for one hour. Then I drained them, covered them with clean water right from my tap, and boiled them for 30 minutes, keeping a close eye on them to avoid scorching.

The beans soaked up a lot of the water. I already had my jars hot from the warming cycle on the digital canner, so I was fine with the hot peas into the hot jars and then back into the hot water of the canner.

All I did was used the measure cup and the canning funnel to fill the jars, debubbled, and made sure they were filled to the one inch headspace. I wiped the rims with a vinegar cloth, put on the lids and finger tightened the rings.

I ended up with 4 quarts of peas (and a pint left over that I put in the fridge) and the processing time was 90 minutes.

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_04/beans_peas_shelled.html

Fair Entries, Bad Cord, Zucchini Jam

Two different kinds of zucchini jam using the same base recipe.

The equipment I used was my digital canner, a dutch oven pot, a wooden spoon, a food processor with the shredding attachment, a vegetable peeler, a paring knife, a skimmer, a dish towel, a canning funnel, a rubber daisy, a jar lifter, and I always wear the funky tomato pattern snap front apron my late mom gave me years ago. I ended up using 7 half pint jelly jars and 2 quarter pint jelly jars.

The ingredients I used were

1 zucchini about 10 inches long

1/2 cup bottled lemon juice

(2) 15 ounce cans of fruit cocktail

6 cups sugar

(2) pkgs of 3 oz orange gelatin which was to take the place of added pectin

I washed and peeled the zucchini, and shredded it with the food processor. I put the zucchini in the dutch oven pot with the lemon juice and brought it to a simmer and let it simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally with the wooden spoon.

While that was going, I drained the fruit cocktail and put the fruit through the same shredding attachment on the food processor. It turned out mostly mush but with enough chunks to make it look like a jam, in my opinion. I drained it again after shredding, and of course shredding it is using that term loosely as already soft fruit doesn’t exactly shred.

I added the fruit and the sugar to the dutch oven and brought it to a boil, stirring until the sugar was dissolved. Then I let it cook for another 7 minutes, skimming off as much of the white foam as I could, then I shut the heat off, and stirred in the two boxes of gelatin. The reason I skimmed the foam is because foam takes up space in the jars that would be better served by filling with the actual jam product. I never throw out jelly or jam foam, I put it in the fridge for eating.

Using my canning funnel, I put the hot mixture into the hot jars, leaving about a half inch of space, wiped the rims with hot water on a paper towel, put on the lids and then finger tighten the rings. The original recipe said to water bath for 5 minutes, but because my elevation is just over 1000 feet above sea level, I processed the jars for 10 minutes.

The orange gelatin of course colored the jam a very pretty color, but it’s hard to make out any of the fruit or zucchini pieces. So I decided to do another batch but use canned pears and clear Surejel.

I did the 2nd batch almost the same way I did the first, only this time using (two) 15 ounce cans of unsweetened pears. Because I didn’t like the looks of the zucchini seeds in the first batch although I did cut out some larger ones, this time I cut out all the seeds. I put the zucchini and then the drained pears through the food processor shredding attachment, and then let the zucchini and lemon juice simmer in the dutch oven pot for 30 minutes.

This batch cooked down almost all the liquid out so I had to pay particular attention to it to avoid scorching. Then I added the sugar and the pears, brought to a boil while I stirred the sugar until it dissolved, then again let it cook for about 7 minutes. After turning the heat off, I stirred in the one box of Surejel. I knew that if the one box wasn’t enough, I could always re-process the mixture with a 2nd box although I was really hoping that wouldn’t be necessary. And it came out so nicely that this was the jam I entered in the fair.

http://grandmasquickfixrecipes.blogspot.com/2012/02/quick-easy-zucchini-cherry-jam.html
https://www.britannica.com/technology/food-processor#ref197227

Using the Mrs. Wage’s packet:.

What I used was a stainless steel stock pot, a wooden spoon, paring knife, strainer, canning funnel, de-bubbler, jar lifter, towel, paper towel, white vinegar, and I used my digital canner.

I followed the directions on the package, and it was very easy seeing how it included the spices. All I had to do was wash the tomatoes, put into boiling water for three minutes, immediately put them into cold water and peel and core. I chunked up the tomatoes, added 1/2 cup of white vinegar and the pouch of seasonings, brought to a boil stirring occasionally and then letting it simmer for ten minutes. Because I wanted a thick salsa, I strained it into another bowl before filling the jars. I de-bubbled the jars, wiped the rims with white vinegar on a paper towel, and put on the clean lids and then finger tightened the rings. I only ended up with 2 pints of salsa and 1 pint of leftover liquid which I water bathed for 45 minutes per the directions. The directions called for 6 pounds or about 18 medium tomatoes and not thinking I had enough, I added a couple pints of my 2020 canned plain tomatoes.

I wanted to make a salsa using the large summer squash that a friend had given me. I ended up combining a couple of recipes using what I had on hand.

I also was using the water bath cycle on my digital canner for this batch. The equipment I used was a food processor, chopping board, paring knife, strainer, dish towel, debubbler, jar lifter.

The ingredients I used were 15 cups of finely chopped yellow squash, 2 quarts of my 2020 home canned tomatoes which I drained, 3 medium finely chopped onions, 6 cups of frozen finely chopped green peppers, 1 fresh jalepeno pepper that had been given to me, 2 tablespoons dry ground mustard, 2 tablespoons garlic powder, 1 1/2 tablespoons paprika, 3 cups white vinegar, 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, 3 tablespoons red pepper flakes, 1.5 teaspoons nutmeg, 1.5 teaspoons black pepper.

I used the food processor for the squash and the onions. Using my stock pot again, I combined all the ingredients and brought it to a boil, then simmered it for 45 minutes to help reduce the liquid. I drained the mixture saving the liquid. After filling each jar and using the debubbler, I wiped each rim with a vinegar soaked paper towel, put on clean lids and finger tightened the rings.

I processed 7 pints on the water bath cycle for 15 minutes, and I had 2 pints of the broth that I did on the stove using my stockpot as a narrower water bath canner. I put a dish towel on the bottom of the stockpot and then set the jars on it, adding another empty jar just as a filler. This was not an idea canner, it did boil a lot over the top, but I was trying to save time by doing two things at once.

Thanks for visiting my canning cellar!

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 1, Herb Potatoes

My equipment was the Presto Precise Digital Canner, a small pot, 2 large pots, a colander, a potato peeler, my favorite small paring knife, a canning funnel, a de-bubbler tool, vinegar and paper towels, an oven mitt, a jar lifter and a dish towel, along with my usual garb of the vintage snap front apron my late mom gave me many years ago.

What I did was wash and peeled the potatoes as I started the broth, letting the broth come to a slow boil. These were potatoes given to me and had no variety name on the bags so I can’t help anyone there. I diced the potatoes into pieces no larger than 2” for heat distribution reasons, and put them in a pot of cold water into which I’d added a dollop of lemon juice known as acidified water which I had to research to know what it meant.

My goal was to dice the potatoes as evenly as possible which goes against my hurry-up nature, but because I may want to enter a jar in our local fair, I wanted to do a little more even job.

I used about 5 pounds of smallish potatoes, discarding some pieces that were grayish. My sister gave me some fresh rosemary and thyme from my niece’s herb garden, and I also ended up using some of my dried rosemary and dill as I ran out of the fresh herbs and didn’t have any dried thyme on hand. I’ve never known how to use herbs so normally I don’t buy them…the dried rosemary came from our lovely neighbors.

The process was after rinsing the potatoes that had been in the lemon water, letting them drain in the colander, then letting them all sit in fresh plain cold water for about 15 minutes, I put some of the diced potatoes into the jars then added a teaspoon of herbs, then filled the potatoes to the top at about the inch mark then added the hot chicken broth, de-bubbled and added more broth if needed to the inch headspace. Because I assume the judges will fault me for decreased liquid as many food items are prone to having, I knowingly overfilled the jars. I wiped each rim with a vinegar soaked paper towel, put on the lids which I had sitting in a little pot of from the tap hot water, and finger tightened the rings.

Pressure canner time was 35 minutes for the pints.

I have often found it to be true that if any jar comes out of my canner with the food not bubbling, then that jar may not seal. I actually had two jars not visibly bubbling this time yet they both eventually sealed. And despite over filling the jars with broth, only two are at a level I think would satisfy the judges. But I have never entered home canning at a fair before so I may be off the mark here.

Lots of canners including myself get very discouraged by lids that buckle while processing. I am very careful to only finger tighten my rings on lids but it happens sometimes. And sometimes those jars will still seal and when they do they make a loud pop. I think that the generic lids are sometimes made thinner so they just don’t take the pressure well. That said, I HAVE had success with generic lids.

I have noticed that most of my lids this summer have sealed without the lovely sound of the ping…I miss that sound but as long as the jars seal I can deal with the lack of fanfare, albeit reluctantly.

Recipes for coleslaw and herb potatoes, using the basic directions and adding or detracting ingredients depending on what I had on hand.

https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/side/vegetable/canned-cole-slaw.html

https://www.canningandcookingathome.com/dianes-blog/herbed-potatoes-for-pressure-canning

http://www.buymeacoffe.com/mycanningcellar

#homecanning #cannedfood #mycanningcellar

Welcome to My Canning Cellar, episode 25, Season 1 finale

http://buymeacoffe.com/mycanningcellar

Equipment: large stockpot, a cutting board, a vegetable peeler, a large sharp knife, the two largest bowls I have, several measure cups, a food processor, a canning funnel, a jar lifter, a stainless steel scraper blade, and a slotted spoon, a paper towel soaked in white vinegar, and my Presto digital canner, and my 16 quart stainless steel water bath canner.

Ingredients (netted me 7 pints and 1 and half pints of brine)
2 cups apple cider vinegar
3 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons celery seed
3 teaspoons ground mustard powder

2 heads of cabbage
4 carrots
2 onions
1 orange pepper
4 tablespoons canning/pickling salt

The first step I did was put the vinegar, sugar, water, celery seed and the mustard powder together in the stock pot and let it come to a boil, then let it boil for 2 minutes.

Chopped the cabbage into strips, used food processor for onions and carrots, cut up pepper.

I put the cabbage, carrots, onions and salt in one of my large bowls, then dumped it into another slightly larger bowl and mixed it up to distribute the salt as evenly as I could. And as a FYI, if you use your large Pampered Chef collapsible bowl like I did, then the carrots will stain the inside bottom. The brine was left in the stockpot to cool as the cabbage mixture settled with the salt.
After letting the slaw mixture sit for one hour, I rinsed and drained it twice. It was easier to do this step in halves as there was so much of it and even my largest colander was a bit too small. A larger colander with smaller holes that pieces of chopped carrots can’t stick into, is on my wish list.

Then I added it all to the brine which I had put into the larger water bath canner as my regular stock pot was too short.

This is a water bath canning food because of the acidity of the vinegar and because the brine was only lukewarm by the time everything was ready to be put together, I had filled the canner with lukewarm water and while I did warm up the jars, I by-passed the jar warming cycle on the digital canner. The food temperature has to match the jar temperature has to match the canner water temperature in order to protect the jars from shock which could cause them to break.

Using my canning funnel and slotted spoon I put an equal amount of cabbage mixture in each jar pushing it down but not trying to make a solid pack, poured in the brine to one half inch head space. Wiped rims with vinegar cloth, put lids on, finger tightened rings.

After the jars were done processing, which was 20 minutes for my altitude of just over 1000 feet above sea level and yes with the Precise digital canner I do have to adjust water bath manually, I removed the canner cover and let the jars set for another 10 minutes, just to help in case they are still boiling pretty good, it made me feel a little safer, then I removed them using the jar lifter and set them on a dish towel on my canning table, where they sat for 24 hours.

I actually did two more cabbages worth but was out of raw bell pepper so I only used cabbage, carrots and onions, and I added the previously made brine to this bunch. My first 7 pints had about one inch brine on the bottom, so I extra packed the last batches with the cabbage mix, and the jars look totally full.

We opened a jar of the coleslaw and it did indeed stay crispy, this is definitely a go-to recipe and method for me.

Total was 17 pints of cabbage coleslaw and one pint of brine.

This is an example of the stainless steel scraper:
https://tinyurl.com/bwwjvscu

Welcome to My Canning Cellar episode 23, Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls.

I surfed the web and came up with my own recipe for unstuffed cabbage rolls using some parts of this one and some parts of that one, so while the name isn’t original to me, the recipe is the result of my tweaking. There are recipes all over the internet, so of course use whichever recipe you are comfortable with, as again, I don’t mean to tell people HOW to can, I want to tell them how “ I “ can.

The equipment I used was a large dutch oven fry pan, a chopping board, a couple of good cutting knives, and of course I have to have dish towels handy, plus my canning funnel, a de-bubbler, a one cup measure cup, a tablespoon, a teaspoon, and I used my Presto digital canner because I knew it’d be a small batch. Sure enough, using the following ingredients, I ended up with 3 quarts.

• 1 pound ground hamburg
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 medium cabbage, chopped, and I had the more common green cabbage
• 1 large orange pepper
• 2 small cans of diced tomatoes
• 1 eight ounce can of tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• I chopped the onions, cabbage and pepper while the hamburg browned in the large dutch oven fry pan. After the hamburg was cooked, I drained it in a heat resistant bowl so my dog could have some on her food later, and because it was store bought hamburg and not our own lean hamburg, I also rinsed it with water, draining it into a large metal can.
• Then I cooked the onions with the minced garlic, and when the onions were translucent I added the cabbage, tomatoes, tomato sauce, the water, salt and pepper. I cooked this until the cabbage was tender.

Because this was a hot food into hot jars into hot water canning process, I had my jars already through the warming cycle on the canner. I filled each jar to 1 inch headspace using my canning funnel, wiped the rims with a vinegar cloth, put the lids on and finger tightened the rings.

• I processed these for 90 minutes and the reason I processed them for so long is because they had meat in it. And because I used the digital canner, I did not have to manually set any pounds for my altitude above sea level as the canner does it automatically.
• I was thinking of making more of the cabbage rolls but am out of store bought diced tomatoes, and while I have some jars of my own homegrown and canned tomatoes in my canning cellar it seems redundant and a waste of time and energy to open those just to process again.
  
• My next cabbage canning adventure will be cole slaw. I have never canned cole slaw before but evidently it’s a thing, so I’ll talk about that in the next episode, number 24.

I’d like to mention my other podcast called Readings from old diaries. The diaries are actual ones found in our 1790 farmhouse when we bought it. That podcast may be ending soon because I’m running out of diaries. The diaries start back in the 1800’s, and I read nothing personal, so go listen if you are interested.

Thanks for visiting my canning cellar. If you’d like to help defray the monthly cost of keeping me on the air, please go to http:buymeacoffee.com/mycanningcellar. My tiny piece of the podcast world isn’t bound to generate any sponsorship interest, so anything is most welcome and appreciated. Talk Soon. Stay Safe.

Orange Juice Jelly, episode 22

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mycanningcellar

https://www.medibank.com.au/livebetter/be-magazine/food/the-history-of-orange-juice/