Posted on 08/09/2009 6:58:26 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
We’re not making sauce, just diced tomatoes for vegetable soup. I think I’ll probably get more than 9 or 10 pints from 50 pounds of tomatoes.
Start off learning to can with something simple. Tomatoes are no brainers as are beans and peas. Clearing off enough counter space for pickles is the hardest part.
After that, try your hand at preserves and jellies. Preserves are easier than jellies because you don’t have to stain them. However, here’s a tip to help use up as much of the fruit as possible. Strain your fruit for jelly but save the pulp. The pulp can then be made into preserves or fruit butters such as apple butter, etc. (hope you know this isn’t butter made from cream but fruit spreads, right?) Butters are such comfort foods. They want a little extra spice such as cinnamon or nutmeg to give that homey warmth taste.
If you have lots of tomatoes, make tomato preserves... yummmm!
Then try your hand at meat.
For those who find they have some old preserves, make filled cookies. I use the filled cookie dough recipe from an old 1950’s Betty Crocker cookbook but you can make a basic sugar cookie dough (but not too sweet). Roll it out and cut into 3-4” circles. Put a spoon of preserves in the middle of the circle and cover with another circle of dough. Seal the edges, prick the top with a fork for vents and bake. These are the best! They put poptarts to shame.
Make tomato preserves!
Like my dad I love to take a quart of canned whole tomatoes in a big bowel with lots of sugar on them. I remember seeing him put canned tomatoes on his Shredded Wheat because I drank all the milk. My First Wife makes jelly with our frozen blueberries. also great BB and Raspberry pies...
Am in absolute agreement with you. The lids/seals are the issue, not the jars themselves.
I use old peanut butter and oyster jars, but use new lids and never have a problem.
That's a special man right there. :0O
Do you mean that new lids in the box more than two years old should be tossed, and new lids purchased before canning?
Or do you mean sealed lids on processed jars can't be trusted to stay sealed beyond two years?
In either case, if the lid seals when the jar cools, the jar is sealed; if you check the seal before opening a jar, it is obvious whether it is still sealed.
I have used new in-the-box lids that had been "lost" on a shelf that were at least ten years old, and all of them sealed, and stayed sealed, until the jars were opened.
When we bought this ranch, it had not been lived in for about 25 years, and there were several shelves in the basement full of canned produce, mainly corn label-dated 1972 that were still tightly sealed, and looked fine, and smelled fine, when we opened them and dumped the contents into the outhouse.
Bottom line: ALWAYS make sure each jar sealed before storing; ALWAYS make sure the seal hasn't failed before opening for use.
Others have mentioned reusing lids, but I have never done so, and I wouldn't recommend it.
Last night, it was off to the movies. First stop, our local elderly widow neighbor...bag of zucchin & pattypan for her. At the theater, a bag of same each to the manager and the snack bar gal.
Today, out neighbors, who bought 20 acres from us and had their garden wiped out by hail, will be by to pick up more.
He’s an Anglican priest, and a member of the local Ministerial Association, which runs a food bank, so later on in the season....
My wife has been “canning her tail off” (to use her own words) this summer. I’m gonna have to build her a bigger pantry.
We do buy new lids for our canning. I never reuse the lids. They are cheap enough and don’t keep a lot in stock.
Either get a decent guide to canning jars at your library, or buy a recent copy of the Red Book of Fruit Jars.
Also check the Web & eBay for current prices.
The rest, as long as they're in decent shape should be perfectly usable.
See my #67...we've been there; done that.
Could I have that recipie? I have quite a few zucchinies and we are looking for recipies to fix them with.
I like pressure cooking, myself, and plan on buying my wife a modern pressure cooker, w/ pop-off valve.
I do still have all the parts and pieces of my mom's old time cooker :)
If they’re not dented at all, and the rubber seal looks fine, then yes, I do.
No problems to date.
I think a lot of time you need new lids because someone pops it off with an opener and bends it a little. In that case, it won’t re-seal, of course.
“Instead, growing crops like potatoes and squash gives much more food value for the same area. They are also less prone to insect attack.”
Agreed, to an extent.
I think if varies greatly by geography. I have clay soil, so root crops don’t grow well for me. I grow potatoes above ground in tire rings, and my onions are grown in my much-improved flower beds. Carrots? Fuggeddaboudit!
Thirty miles north of me is ‘sand country’ and I can get onions, potatoes and root veggie for a song...so they’re not worth the garden space to me.
But you’re absolutely right. To be totally self-sufficent takes some planning and hard work. I’ve had my farm for 15 years now and I’m about a QUARTER of the way there between my garden, orchard and laying hens. I really, really REALLY want a milk cow, but Husband isn’t budging on that.
For now...LOL! :)
You’re welcome! I was considering subscribing, but I think I’ll absorb all I can from their website instead. ;)
I’m hungry for tomato soup now! :)
Oh, Yum! Thanks! :)
Thanks, Diana, for the canning thread. I started making perserves a few years ago, and have made pickles recently for the first time, and my wife has always made blackberry jelly. I would like to see a regular canning thread, and other pertanate subjects, like drying or cooking. These are a bit outside of FR’s conservative poltical arena, but they do cut us some slack. :)
If it wasn’t so dangerous ... it would be funny. to this day I HATE things under pressure.
I’m a physicist by training and if people knew what just 5lbs above atmospheric is capabale of .....
An old farm boy ... tire shops used to come out to the farm and put new tires on dual wheel sets for then Big tractors 5020 John Deeres and large combines. (they are small now) To air them up, the tire guy would put a snap lock hose on the schraeder valve ... then go to the other side of the truck, eat lunch and take a snooze while the service truck/compressor (often a VW engine with 2cylinders pumping air and 2 cylinders firing) filled the tractor tire. We had a service guy killed when he failed to wake up in time. Blew him a way. Literally.
I am also a gun nut ... back to the pressure thing ... Does anyone have a clue what shootin +p loads on a 38 or 357 frame do for a revoler not rated??? Damn ... I shudder every time someone tells me don’t worry .. I do it all the time. Or that some hot shot is always bragging about reloading and reloading hot ....
but alsas .. I digress .... happens a lot in my old age .... bear with me please...
But fortuantely this old pressure cooker does have a pop off valve, and yes, The first thing I did was tried it out along with a brand new seal in a safe bench/cage area in the garage. Works dandy.
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