What did you can today?

[mom11]

12 quarts of eggplant pasta sauce, 7 pints bread and butter pickles, another bucket of Violet's Sweet Pickle chips started, dehydrator full of sliced yellow squash, and five cookie sheets full of sliced and breaded eggplant popped into the freezers.

[nmchick]

We did 2 pints of pickled watermelon rind. It was an experiment: first time water bath canning. Also, none of us have ever eaten pickled watermelon rind, so we don't know if we'll like it.

 

I predict it will be gone by Thursday.

[franksgirl]

We did 26 jars of pickled beets. LOVE to can beets!

[GinnyB]

Between last week and yesterday, I canned 43 pints of cubed chuck roast. Two weeks ago, I did a dozen jars of boneless chicken thighs.

[WormGuy]

23 pints of whole corn and 11 pints of cream corn. I'm tired...again.

 

 

 

John

[Simplegirl]

8 more pints of blackberry jam here. Lots more berries in the woods so I will start freezing them now for cobblers.... yum....

[mom11]

Today Aaron and I canned 4 more pints of Violet's Sweet Pickle Chunks and started another bucket of them. We also canned 4 pints and 4 half/pints of bread and butter pickles and 12 pints and 11 half/pints of white peach jam.

[WormGuy]

mom11, does your pickles come out soft? Mine did, they taste good but very soft.

 

 

 

John

[Jasminegirl]

Today I didn't feel like getting the canner out and I just finished cooking soup mix and put into 7 quart freezer containers I bought at wal-mart this morning. Put up 5 quart ziplock bags of purple hull peas and 2 quart ziplock bags of butter beans. My butter beans are about done making, didn't get any rain out of Dolly. Rain all around us, but not here.

[Tracie]

Wormguy, if you like a crunchy pickle, you have to use pickling lime first. The only place I've seen it is walmart.

[WormGuy]

Thanks Tracie, what if the recipe doesn't call for pickling lime? Do I follow instructions on the lime bag and then can them as normal?

 

 

[Tracie]

I've never actually used it before. It's a plastic jar, about 9 inches high or so. You soak the cucumbers in a solution of water and lime, then rinse and soak in cold water 3 times, then go ahead and make pickles with those cucumbers. I understand they'll be pretty brittle after the lime treatment.

 

I'm probably going to try it in a month or so -- have a few other things on the agenda first, and already have a couple dozen jars of pickles canned up this summer.

 

Good luck!

[Andrea]

Cooked every ripe tomato in my yard - a HUGE basket full - down into 3 & 1/2 pints of tomato sauce. I cooked it down really thick. It's going to be great this winter!

[mom11]

Wormguy...I am adding Pickle Crisp...You can buy it in bulk at Bulkfoods.com. Make sure you order whatever you need, at one time. The Pickle Crisp was about $20, but the shipping and packaging fee came to almost $18. You get 1 lb. 10 ozs. It is actually calcium chloride. Violet recommends adding the Pickle Crisp, when you add the pickles to the brine.

 

Now...Lime makes really crispy pickles. I do them each year. If you get the canning book "So Easy to Preserve," there are lots of pickle recipes, using lime. I buy it from the Mennonites and it isn't even $2 bag. You may find it at Walmart or K-Mart. Sometimes it is in a little green and white bag. Sometimes it is in a white canister, sort of like canning salt sometimes comes in. Good Luck!

[Stephanie]

My grandma always puts one fresh grape leaf from the vines, she swears by it...for assuring crispiness.

[WormGuy]

You ladies are the best!!!

 

 

 

John

[Tracie]

Me too Wormguy -- this place rocks!!

 

I have my first batch of pressure-canned anything that will be done in 2 minutes. I've been hanging out in the kitchen and it's really no sweat.

 

It's 10 cans of boneless chicken breast ~10lbs worth. The stuff that didn't fit in the jars is going to be mole enchiladas tonight.

 

So psyched!! Now I don't fear the

[Virginia]

19 pints 1 quart of tomato juice; 7 quarts of green beans; 7 quarts of quartered tomatoes; 7 quarts of chili sauce. DS and I like canning together, so it helps the work go faster.

[Stephanie]

We're just getting started on the chicken breast and also pickles "Pickle Packing Momma's" that my grandma has used for years...dh is helping me, I'm so pitiful!

 

I just want this first time to go smoothly, so I won't be all stressed out next time.

 

 

Tracie did you do the smaller jars? Weren't you asking about that? And did you do the raw pack? That's what I'm doing.

[Tracie]

I did pints, and I did raw pack, and I added boiling broth to them (I used veggie soup base concentrate - it's what I use in anything calling for any kind of broth. I love the flavor)

 

It took a good while for the canner to build up pressure - maybe 20 minutes, can't remember now. Then another 40 or so for the pressure to be done after the processing time was over.

 

They look great though! I got ~10 pounds into my 10 jars.

 

While the chicken was processing I made a big casserole of chicken mole enchiladas. It probably would have been fine if I left the kitchen for a while during processing, but I felt more comfortable staying in there. It went really well though, and I feel it really was pretty easy. Tomorrow I'm going to my mom's, but I think on Monday I'm going to fry up all of the hamburger in the freezer with some onions and put that in jars as well.

 

w00t!!

[Stephanie]

I'm glad you mentioned it taking a long time to build up the pressure...mine seems to be taking forever.

 

The book said to let it vent for a full ten minutes before adding the weight???right??? and then add the weight and wait for the thingie to start jiggling?? right??

 

Oh the suspense!!!

 

[Tracie]

Yup -- takes a while each time. I found after the weight started jiggling, it was going pretty fast, so I had to turn down the stove. Turn it down just a wee bit at a time and wait. I turned it down too much the first time and had to restart counting -- luckily it was only about 4 minutes in, so no biggie.

[stacey]

7 quarts of snap beans with onion. Hubby actually seemed more eager to do this than me... Go figure... He does love garden-fresh green beans, though. (Of course, he may have "other" ulterior motives for helping...)

[Leasmom]

I can finally add to this thread...I did 6 jars of corn relish, 5 jars of spiced peaches, and 4 jars of Desert Jam. Its been really hard finding canning jars around here so I'm already out and I need to find more cause I have leftover peaches, corn relish, and I hadn't even gotten to the dill pickles, green beans and spiced apples...I can make them and freeze them, except for the pickles of course.

[Ferretma]

Today I put up 26 pints of ground hamburger and hamburger patties. I also wanted to put up the Marionberry juice as jelly but I ran out of time.

 

If ANYONE thinks they are going to put up all the contents of their freezer if they lose power, you have my permission to laugh at them and tell them they are nuts. Unless the freezer only has 20 pounds of meat or unless you have a team of people who can work 24 hours a day, you won't get the contents put up before it spoils. It just ain't going to happen.