Home Canning: Salsa!

[frigilux]

I have a canning partnership with friends. They grow the vegetables, I provide all the canning supplies and the kitchen. We split the finished products. Win-win!

With a hard freeze predicted for the overnight, they made a final mad dash through their gardens yesterday after work, and we canned salsa (very) late into the night. These are my jars from the divvy.

We also can a zesty tomato/vegetable juice we call V-Ain't (trademark, LOL), and something we call Goop, which is a seasoned tomato sauce used as a casserole/red sauce starter. And, of course, we made several batches of jam (strawberry/rhubarb; blueberry; peach) earlier this summer.

Three cheers for organically grown homemade canned goods! They're great to savor through the long Minnesota winter.

Who else in the AW family is canning/preserving this fall?

[this post was last edited: 9/15/2011-06:43]

 

[westie2]

Apple Pie filling

We will be doing about 30 quarts of apple pie filling. I posted the recipe in an earlier post thread 36436. Your salsa looks great in the jars and I bet it tastes so good.

 

[kenmore71]

I'm a pretty "hard-core" canning enthusiast.
I've always canned some, but a few years ago I got much more serious about trying to eat local as much as is possible. This year so far I have done:
12 half pints of Strawberry jam
12 half pints of Rhubarb jam
12 half pints of Rasberry jam (from my neighbor's bushes)
4 half pints of colorado peach jam
9 pts of whole local strawberries
15 pts of whole local rasberries
12 pts of whole local blueberries
15 pts of local pear halves (from Brand Farms in Farmington)
30 pts of Colorado peach halves
10 qts of sweet corn
7 qts & 23 pts of green peas
7 qts of wax beans
7 qts of green beans
12 pts of carrots
10 qts of dill cucumber pickes
8 pts of spicy pickled beets
20 qts of sliced potatoes (used for german potato salad and scalloped potatoes)
24 qts of tomato juice (from my own plants)
3 qts of stewed tomatoes
18 pts of beef stew (part of "MRE" meals-ready-to eat regiment)
8 pts of hamburger vegetable soup
12 pts of chili

Still to be done: about 20 qts of applesauce and 30 or so qts of apple cider.

 

[kenmore71]

another view of the larder
some of this is still from last year

 

[kenmore71]

The first of batch of MN pears!

 

[kenmore71]

Another day in the kitchen

 

[kenmore71]

My All-American 921 pressure canner

 

[westie2]

Mark

You have some beautiful canned goods.

 

[kevin313]

Mark- what an AMAZING bounty! Those pears look so good - it all does. I have only canned high-acid foods like pickles and beets. Your pantry is real inspiration to expand my home-preserving horizons!

 

[xraytech]

So far on my shelves I have:

 

18 pts of green and wax beans

72 quarts of tomato sauce

6 pints of tomato sauce and hungarian hot peppers

6 pints black raspberry jam

4 12 oz jars black raspberry jelly

4 pints sour cherry jam

4 pints purple plum jam

 

I've still got to do applesauce yet and I'll do about 15-20 pints of applesauce and I'd like to try doing apple juice as well, and I'm aiming to get another bushel of tomatoes to put up yet

 

[appnut]

Wow, I'm impressed and amazed!!!

 

[frigilux]

Sam and Mark, you certainly do a lot of canning!  Thanks for all the great photos, Mark.  The All-American canner is considered the Lexus of canners, from what I've read.  All the canning we do is with high acid foods, but we've talked about expanding that for next season.  It would be a great excuse for me to get an All-American, LOL!

 

I notice, Mark, that you take the rings off your shelved products.  Most everyone I know (including me) leaves the rings on.  I've read about removing the rings during storage, but never have.  Is it a food safety issue?  Does leaving the rings on increase the chance for a vacuum failure?

 

One more question:  Does anyone use pH strips to gauge whether or not a product should be water bathed or pressure canned?  I know a person who stuffs far too many non-acid vegetables in his tomato products to be canned in a water bath.  I won't eat anything he cans.  My neighbor lady across the street doesn't use a water bath for her tomato sauce.  She uses the inversion method (jar gets turned upside down for a couple of minutes immediately after filling).  I think that's insane, and I've told her so. She's been canning for 40 years and has never had food poisoning.  Makes me cringe!

 

 

 

[frigilux]

Found an answer to the question of removing rings to store home canned products.  Yes, you should remove them for these reasons:

 

1.  If a jar of product should go bad, the lid will pop off, letting you know you do not want to consume the goods.

2.  A jar that is going bad can explode violently if the ring is left on.

3.  Corrosion can occur under the ring, which in turn can cause contaminates to enter the jar.

 

Guess I'll go remove all the rings from my canned goods!  

 

[hunter]

WOW!

I'm envious, that canning looks awesome!

 

[kenmore71]

Removing rings

I remove the rings because they are not necessary once a good seal is achieved and the jars are handled relatively gently. My mother always left the rings ON and I have memories of the swearing, wrist-wrenching and the occasionaly broken jar as a result. The most important thing, in my opinion, is to get the rings off within about 24 - 48 before any of the sugars or starches that might have boiled out during processing have time to really "set". I then wipe down the outsides of the jars, especially the threads, with a damp cloth. Whenever I need to transport jars farther than the cupboard or basement, I will put a clean ring on it just to be safe and make sure there are no accidents. That way, I also know that if a jar is unsealed after transport that it happened during transit and that it is still safe to eat right away or be refrigerated or frozen.

 

[xraytech]

I leave my rings on things like pickles and jams and jellies since when opened they wouldnt be used up in one use, everything else the rings come off.

 

I am another canner who does NOT process my tomatoes in a waterbath, I use the inversion method here, I do the same with all my jams, jellies, pickles and beets as well, and I dont know anyone who doesnt use the inversion method

 

[frigilux]

You live life on the edge, Sam! I don't even use the inversion method for jam, anymore. To me, it's not worth the risk of contamination.

 

[lordkenmore]

I've never canned, but it's something I'm interested in. Particularly tomatoes--I use them heavily in winter, and I'm concerned about the BPA in tin cans issue. So far, however, I haven't tried any canning--partly because of a bad kitchen, partly because the only way of getting stuff to can is buy it, which reduces the cost savings rather dramatically. (I garden a bit, but the garden isn't big enough to really supply a winter store.)

I am trying freezing this year for the first time, however. Again I get into the problem that a lot of stuff is not cost effective. But I'm dabbling a bit with summer fruit. It'll be interesting to see how interested I am in my frozen stores come winter. For me, I have historically eaten with the season, and things like peaches seem like a summer only thing. I've never had any interest in commercially canned. (Yes, I'm sure it's likely commercial isn't very good compared home canned. But it's the only point of reference I have here!) But freezing is something new to try, and who knows--it might be welcome come January.

In fact, the owner of a place where I do a large part of my produce shopping in summer and I talked about this. She's heavily into freezing, and she said she really loves having frozen fruit come late winter/early spring. By that point, she feels apples aren't as good as they are in fall. Thus, she feels a package of frozen peaches, while not as good as summer fresh peaches, is a beacon of sunlight in late winter.

 

[xraytech]

Lord Kenmore,

 

I buy a good portion of my tomatoes for canning, I get some freefrom a friend, and a bit comes from my garden. I bought 1 bushel of tomatoes for $15 and I got 19 qts o sauce so even after buying my new lids it comes out to about 90 cents a quart, not a huge cost savings but still some, then when I figure in the 2 bushels I got for free and about 1 1/2 pecks from my garden helps bring the cost down.

For freezing if you can find tomatoes cheap or free try freezing them, you simply wash the omatoes and cut the cores out and freeze whole in gallon ziploc bags, when you thaw them the skins will slip right off and then you can break up the whole tomatoes for cooking.

 

Frigilux, I feel the inversion method is acceptable for use as the family has been doing it that way for 60+ years, I am very careful with making sure everything is very hot and make sure I get a proper seal. My canning guide I use gives proper instruction for the inversion method, it is the 1950 Hazel-Atlas canning book