Long day of canning

Whew! I just finished a marathon session of canning, which started
yesterday afternoon, with only a few hours off for sleep overnight. During
this time I canned:

19 pints of peaches
14 quarts of roma tomatoes
7 quarts of green beans

This included picking the green beans from the garden this morning. I did
all the work myself because my husband and youngest daughter were off riding
in a charity bike ride out of town.

I pressure canned the tomatoes because I didn't want to deal with the water
splashing out of my graniteware BWB canner today. Besides, it only takes 10
minutes to pressure them. Even including the heating up and cooling down
times, I think it was faster. I used the waiting time to work on the next
canner load anyway and clean up the kitchen.

I also picked another round of tomatoes that are turning yellow in the
garden. They're setting in single layers of newspaper in produce boxes in
my kitchen waiting to ripen so I can juice them.

Oh, and earlier in the week, I canned 19 pints of salsa. I hosted a "how to
can salsa" night at my house on Wednesday and did a demonstration on how to
make salsa and can it. I also taught about the difference between BWB and
pressure canning. Most of the ladies who attended had only done BWB
previously because they were a little scared about pressure canning.
Hopefully I allayed some of their fears. One of them just purchased a
pressure canner and is excited to can green beans from her garden for the
first time. Up until now, she's just pickled them. I made handouts with
lots of links to trusted web sites concerning canning. The UGA site was at
the top of the list, but I included many cooperative extension sites from
universities.

I've also offered to demonstrate how to can turkey when the turkeys go on
sale for Thanksgiving here in November.

--
-Marilyn

"Marilyn" <[Only registered users can see links. ]> wrote in message
news:h9mf45$q3d$[Only registered users can see links. ]...

WOW! You've been busy! Wish I had enough tomatoes to do all of that!

I think it's great that you took it upon yourself to teach someone how to
put up salsa. I can't tell you how many people I know who think they can
jsut make their favourite recipe and put it in a jar - scary!

Kathi

"Kathi Jones" <[Only registered users can see links. ]> wrote in message
news:[Only registered users can see links. ]...


The tomatoes I canned were not from my own garden. I got them from the
co-op I belong to. The tomatoes I used in the salsa, however, were from the
garden. The peaches were from the co-op, too. Supposedly this is the last
week the co-op will be making runs to the other side of the mountains to get
produce for the year, but I haven't seen an order form yet.

Yes, one of the ladies was saying she used to do applesauce and put it in
jars hot and just put the lids on and it sealed. I explained about
"open-kettle canning" and how that's no longer considered a safe method.
Just 'cause she never got sick doesn't mean it's safe, just means she was
lucky.

--
-Marilyn

Marilyn wrote:


I hope that all of you pressure canners remember that freezing many
things is also an option. Frozen applesauce is terrific when thawed.

gloria p

Gloria P wrote:


I freeze applesauce; it works wonderfully. I'm trying to clean out the
freezers because they are full, but there's 20 pounds of sourish apples
out in my truck and I can't eat that many before they get mushy. And
it's still very early in the apple season. I think I'll be filling the
freezer with applesauce this year, and the "cleaning out" will just be
to make some room. :-)

Right now I'm chopping peppers and onions to make picante sauce (USDA
recipe.) It calls for 1 cup of vinegar and I don't want to use that
much. So I'm trying to decide whether to replace half of the vinegar
with bottled lemon juice and proceed with BWB canning, or reduce the
vinegar (maybe use 1/2 cup, or 2/3 cup) and pressure can it.

Bob

"Gloria P" <[Only registered users can see links. ]> wrote in message
news:[Only registered users can see links. ]...


I did talk about vacuum sealing and freezing, too, in my demonstration. The
only thing I didn't cover was dehydrating. I guess I prefer to can the
majority of things simply because it doesn't require that I have a huge
freezer...and it's not dependent upon electricity, at least not once it's in
the jar. Although, I could say even the canning itself isn't dependent on
electricity as I could do it on my propane stove outside if I chose.


--
-Marilyn

zxcvbob wrote:

Cider! :-D


BTH

Wow thats amazing Marilyn!! That is a marathon . I like to cook in bulk
and keep going until I finish. I think its wonderful, how you showed people
pressure canning. Wish I could sprout wings and come see the Turkey demo.

I was wondering when you mentioned heating and cooling times. Do you mean
you waited until the canner was at zero pressure and then took your bottles
out, or waited until the whole pot was cold? How long should I wait, before
taking my bottles out? I have planted 40 tomato bushes and have no idea of
how much produce I will get, but if all goes well, I can see some marathons
coming up where short timing will be important.

Do you have a link for your selsa recipe? I'd like to pressure can most
things, as so far it seems easier.
Thanks for answering all the questions your a great help.



"Marilyn" <return.to.sender@address.unknown.net> wrote in message
news:h9obak$cja$1@tioat.net...

"Green Newb" <[Only registered users can see links. ]> wrote in message
news:k0gxm.44676$[Only registered users can see links. ].au...

Turkey is extremely simple to can and if you've had experience pressure
canning, it's easy. Here's my instructions. Roast your turkey just like
you normally would. In fact, I usually roast the turkey, we eat some for
one meal and the leftovers get canned. Anyway, strip the meat off the
bones, take the bones and skin, cover them with water in a stockpot to make
broth. You can add onions, carrots and celery to it to make turkey stock if
you want or just straight broth. Or you can turn it all into turkey soup or
what my mom-in-law called bone soup. That's not part of the turkey canning,
unless you want to can the broth, too, which you can do.

Back to the meat. Put the meat in the refrigerator overnight. Next day,
take it out and cut it up into chunks. Fill hot jars, pints or quarts,
whichever you prefer, with meat chunks, leaving one-inch headspace. I like
pints because that's just the right amount for making soup for my family
with. Add salt if you want to each jar, 1/2 tsp for pints, 1 teaspoon for
quarts. Add boiling water to each jar, still respecting the one-inch
headspace. Remove air bubbles from jar with wand or a plastic, not metal,
spatula. Put lids and bands on. Pressure can pints for 75 minutes, quarts
for 90 minutes 10 pounds pressure (below 1000 feet).

If you want to can the broth or stock, you can remove the bones and strain
all the little bits of sludge out. I just dip out the large bones and
strain the liquid through a mesh colander. Heat the stock, pour into hot
jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Lids, band and pressure can, pints 20
minutes, quarts 25 minutes, 10 pounds pressure.


I don't have any real way of quantitatively measuring that my canner has
reached zero pressure since I have a weighted one and not a dial gauge one.
The manual that came with my pressure canner says to wait 45 minutes to an
hour before removing the weight and opening the lid so that's what I always
do. The pot is still very, very hot and the jars are generally still
boiling inside when I remove the lid. I always transfer them to a folded
bath towel on my counter next to the stove so there's no thermal shock to
the jars or damage to the countertop.



For the salsa, I just use the one in the Ball Blue Book called Zesty Salsa.
[Only registered users can see links. ]

I suppose you could pressure can it, but I'm not sure why you would want to.
It only takes 15 minutes to process the salsa in a BWB.


--
-Marilyn

Marilyn wrote:

I've made that one before. I like the USDA recipe better (I posted the
recipe last week) They are both good.

What do you do with the canned turkey chunks? I still have a couple of
pints of beef chunks in the pantry; they've been there about 2 years and
I should use them up. (they are not bad with wide noodles, a little
sour cream, and lots of black pepper) I browned the beef chunks briefly
(they were still raw in the middle) packed into jars with 1" headspace,
covered with weak beef bouillon, and pressure-canned for about 80 minutes.

Bob