Canning

[JoesSweetheart]

There must be some lovely people who enjoy canning here!

Do you have any favorite recipes? How long have you been canning? Who taught you?

I just picked it up last year. My mother canned, but I never much paid attention (being a teen when she started), but have since then taught myself. I hope to get a pressure canner soon so I can put up some vegetables from my garden this year!

I will share my favorite spiced plum butter recipe as soon as I can find it. It's divine for giving as gifts during Christmas! And it makes your house smell heavenly.

 

[scotrace]

This is something I'd like to learn.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I am fond of Scotch style strong flavored marmalade but it costs over $5 for a small jar! So I started making my own. It is very easy, all you need is some Seville oranges and sugar. Seville oranges are in the grocery stores in February and early March. Or I will use Hartley's Mamade tinned Seville oranges.

You can make your own for less than $1 a jar. Lots of recipes on the net.

Nothing nicer than a pot of tea and buttered whole wheat toast with marmalade.

 

[stevew443]

My family all canned and I also canned for years when I had time to raise a garden. Honestly, it is not that difficult as long as you remember to keep everything clean. I have used both hot water baths and pressure canning. When I had a bumper crop of tomatoes I would make up huge batches of various pasta sauces and can them. My sister used to can venison when her ex would bring in too much meat to use at once.
Now, my last canning adventure was to seal up some very good pipe tobacco. I was able to purchase the tobacco cheaply and stored it all in mason jars using a hot water bath method. Even as I type this message I am smoking some of that tobacco I stored 10 years ago, so canning is not only for preserving fruits and vegetables.

 

[Vera Godfrey]

I have made pickles and jams/jellies. This year I am going to attempt beans and tomato sauce and perhaps ketchup.

 

[VintageBee]

I never canned until I met my husband in high school. My first canning experience was making fresh pork breakfast sausage (yes, this city girl raised and butchered a hog!!). We cooked up breakfast sausage patties, out them in a quart jar, poured the hot grease over it, turned them upside down and left them for 24 hrs. They sealed and then went into the pantry.
No water bath, no pressure canner....yes, we are still alive!!
I've canned just about everything from veggies to fruit to fish....it's really not that hard!! Last week we canned 29 pints of pickled Marchant peppers....I'll have plenty for Christmas gifts and there will be some left long after I'm gone!!!

 

[Big Man]

Just saw this thread.

I started canning when I retired. I was in a "nostalgic" kind of mood at that point in my life, and I remembered how my grandmother always "put up" food from her garden. I started using her old canning pot (hot water bath, not a pressure caner). Now, almost six years later, my wife and I are still going strong canning things from the garden. We do a lot of green beans, tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, salsa, pickles (including pickled okra and pickled beets), and my favorite, jelly (blackberry, grape, and apple in that order).

 

[Paisley]

I've been canning and freezing this year--pickles, tomatoes, marinara, eggplant, green beans, collards, and cabbage. I'll probably freeze the cantaloupe that sprung up on its own by the sidewalk. And even though it's barely September, I already have a ripe pumpkin I need to figure out a use for.

 

[Big Man]

... I already have a ripe pumpkin I need to figure out a use for.

Pumpkin pie. I love pumpkin pie!

I had a really nice crop of pumpkins coming on this year, but the deer and wild turkeys have destroyed the garden. I managed to salvage only two pumpkins, and have them in the cellar ready to be made into pies (of course).

 

[Paisley]

I have a recipe for low-carb, non-dairy, crustless pumpkin pie (which is better than it sounds), but I'm not in the mood for it when it's 80s degrees. I also like pumpkin-sausage soup, but it's also a cold-weather dish. Maybe I'll just put the pumpkin in the fridge (my basement is 70 degrees).

 

[Paisley]

I know I complained in another thread about some fussy canning recipes, but the pickled onions and cabbage was wonderful with roast beef tonight.

 

[Fading Fast]

I have a recipe for low-carb, non-dairy, crustless pumpkin pie (which is better than it sounds....

I image it would be as the "low-carb, non-dairy, crustless" description had me picturing burnt-orange colored corrugated cardboard cut into a pie shape.

Kidding aside, many of the "alternative" (non-dairy, vegan, etc.) recipes have gotten dramatically better over the last ten-plus years. Veggie burgers used to be awful - tasteless crumbles of soy - but now some are very good and I order or make them because I enjoy them, not simply to eat healthier.

 

[Paisley]

Gluten-free food from the 90s used a lot of rice flour, making the products taste like cardboard. Store-bought goodies are a lot better now, and now that fat-phobia is waning and real foods are in, ingredients like nut flour, coconut milk, and eggs make the home-made goodies really tasty. Butter makes it better!

 

[vallettavalentine]

I can pretty much anything I grow. Tomatoes are diced & then canned, as is the sauce I make from them. I'll take a couple of rotisserie chicken carcasses and make broth, which I also can. Soups, stews, you name it--they can all be done successfully.