Todays canning adventure...

[Mark A]

Shucked and trimmed 48 ears of corn. Took a little longer than I thought it would. Got 12 quarts of canned kernels  out of it.

 

Also roasted about 100 cloves of garlic and pressed it into silicon ice cube trays to freeze. Love having little cubes of roasted garlic goodness to add into recipes as needed...

 

 

going to be a busy bee for the next 4-6 weeks then hopefully it will slow down

 

Mark

[whitewolf001]

[enfield]

We did 5 dozen ears of sweet corn in July, and a half-bushel of green beans last week.  This week - tomatoes.  Hafta can - the freezer's full of Black Angus.  LG!

Edited August 12, 2013 by enfield

[Fire/hunting guy]

Can you explain a little more about the roasted garlic?

[Jamie Jackson]

Canning, next to handloading, is one of my favorite "chores"...meaning actually doing something the family deems "useful" LOL.

 

 

 

[center]Pickled Green Tomatoes[/center]

 

[center][URL=http://s783.photobucket.com/user/Prag03/media/Pressure%20Canning%20Adventures/PickledGreenTomatoesAug201321_zps8b49f4dc.jpg.html][/URL][/center]

 

 

[center]Green Tomato Chow Chow[/center]

 

[center][URL=http://s783.photobucket.com/user/Prag03/media/Pressure%20Canning%20Adventures/chowchow004_zps83b8ba20.jpg.html][/URL][/center]

[UncleJak]

Chow chow.....yum!

sent barefoot from the hills of Tennessee

[Jamie Jackson]

Chow chow.....yum!

sent barefoot from the hills of Tennessee

 

 

Got a little crushed red pepper in it for a bit of bite as well.

 

It's hard to wait a month or so to let it "cure". :pleased:

[Mark A]

Can you explain a little more about the roasted garlic?

Usually I roast garlic as needed but I bought a big bag of already peeled garlic at Sams a couple of weeks ago intending to pickle and can it. I forgot and ran out of time so I spread it out on a flat pan with a little olive oil and roasted the entire bag. Once it was done I popped it into a food processor and crushed it.

 

From there I spooned it into some silicone ice cube trays and froze it into small chunks. The chunks are now in a freezer baggie to be used as needed.

 

I use those ice cube trays all the time. In the last few weeks I made a big batch of pesto and froze it in cubes. They are perfect for cooking a small amount of pasta.

 

Also, I smoked a big turkey a couple of weeks back. I made extra dressing and gravy. I vacuum pack lunch portions of turkey and dressing and stick one gravy ice cube in there. Then my wife or I have easily heated turkey & dressing with a taste of gravy for lunch anytime we need it.

 

Mark

[Guest 6.8 AR]

My wife is upstairs playing in the kitchen. She will hear about your garlic adventure in about two minutes. Great idea!

She dehydrates kernel corn, along with a lot of other veggies. I will ask her why she does it like that. Curiosity.

[A.J. Holst]

any special recipe or technique for the green toms?

 

this is our first year of canning and we do have a bunch of green tomatoes.

[Jamie Jackson]

any special recipe or technique for the green toms?

 

this is our first year of canning and we do have a bunch of green tomatoes.

 

Careful my friend...canning is a gateway "drug" to all on Prepping. :cool:

 

 

 

Prag’s Pickled Tomatoes

GREEN TOMATO DILL PICKLES - KOSHER STYLE
 

 

Fixin’s:

Green tomatoes cut into 4^th’s or 6^th’s depending on tomato size
Garlic: one peeled clove or a teaspoon of minced garlic if that’s what you have on hand.

Mixed whole peppercorns one teaspoon

One teaspoon dill seed

Small slice of onion

A “piece” of a grape leaf, approximately 2x2”. I don’t know how it works, but it darn sure makes the pickled “stuff” stay crisp.

 

 

I start by putting the garlic, onions, dill, grape leaf, and peppercorns into my

Hot sterilized jars…
Then I add the tomatoes…

 

Make a brine of the water, vinegar and salt. Boil until the salt is fully dissolved.
2 qts. water
1 qt. vinegar
1 c. canning salt, iodized salt will cause cloudiness…but it’ll do if you must.


Pour the hot brine over the pickles to within 1/2 inch of top of the jar.

Put on cap, screw band firmly tight.

Process in boiling water bath 15 minutes.

 

These will be ready for use in 4-6 weeks.

Edited August 21, 2013 by prag

[Rightdefender]

all of my  caned tomatoes failed. the lids were firmly down and 2 weeks later they had all domed.

Now I'm dehydrating them and it's great

[Jamie Jackson]

all of my  caned tomatoes failed. the lids were firmly down and 2 weeks later they had all domed.

Now I'm dehydrating them and it's great

 

That's unfortunate...but dehydrating them is certainly good stuff.

 

Are you talking about canned fresh, or pickled? Did you waterbath or pressure can them?

 

We pressure can all of our fresh tomatoes as the acid content these days is a bit questionable (at least to me) to risk waterbath canning.

The only time we've had sealing failures was with old canning lids...like 10+ year old or older lids given to us.

[A.J. Holst]

Prag,

 

Thanks for recipe, turned it over the expert...

 

Regarding "popped tops" we had 3 pop (tomatoes - non-pickled) using the water bath method

 

My wife did some more internet research and found a recommendation for 85 minutes; so far so good, under the new method, no pops.

[Andyshowfan]

I am proud to find this tread. I was afraid myself and my dad were the only men who loved canning. We can everything from meats to fruits and everything in between. I actually made some pickled zucchini chips and wow!, your tongue will beat your brains out eating them

[Raoul]

I've been freezing using a food saver.

Next year however I'm going to can the excess green beans.

[Mark A]

We vacuum pack and freeze a fair amount. Mostly meat. I smoke as much as my smoker will hold, we divide it into dinner and lunch portions and freeze away. No more cooking dinner during the week. Thaw out a meat, slap together a salad and we are done.

I cant believe I've saved so much money on lunch. That money alone has funded several firearms purchases


It was either start canning or buy another freezer. So, we did both...

27 pints of salsa last weekend. Didn't start out intending to can a lifetime supply, just ended up there...

Mark

[Mark A]

Another milestone for me... Green beans. I remember popping beans for my grandma back in the day. She was a little scary so when she told us to do something we hopped right to it.

Such a long time ago...

Anyway, bought a box, bushel, case, whatever it is called and we were off to the races. 7 quarts and 29 pints now grace the counter top.

Anyone tell me if it would have been ok to trim them last night and can them this morning?

Thanks Mark

[broylz]

I just went through some meats I canned a couple years ago. opened one that looked good and it was fine. couple look sketchy so im dumping those.

 

I need to get a bigger canner as I got an older one that will do pints only. works so far for me.

 

I also freeze maybe 90 days worth of stuff in food saver vacuum bags and dehydrate stuff as well. keep dehydrated vegetables and such in my quart jars since I cant can with them yet :) throw in an oxygen absorber and run them through the vacuum sealer adapter as well. works so far.

[Jamie Jackson]

Another milestone for me... Green beans. I remember popping beans for my grandma back in the day. She was a little scary so when she told us to do something we hopped right to it.

Such a long time ago...

Anyway, bought a box, bushel, case, whatever it is called and we were off to the races. 7 quarts and 29 pints now grace the counter top.

Anyone tell me if it would have been ok to trim them last night and can them this morning?

Thanks Mark

 

Outstanding my friend! :up:

 

Your beans will do fine.

I picked, snapped and prepped mine...had to work a couple of 12 hr shifts, then canned mine yesterday.

I canned 36 pints and 11 quarts. That was 3 runs through our All American.

 

I let them cool to room temperature. Remove the rings and wash with warm soapy water. I've read this recommended by Jackie Clay and many other canning-guru's over the years.

It frees up the rings, and I can readily tell if an jar looses it's seal...which is incredibly infrequent btw. :pleased:

[Mark A]

I know this is probably silly but I dehydrated a bunch of stuff, made pre-mixed meals out of them, vacuum packed the individual meals, threw it into a medium sized tupperware container and threw it into the bottom of the chest freezer.

 

I figure that is about as long term of storage as I can come up with.

 

I'm thinking as long as I can maintain the freezer it will last just about forever and if I have to boogie I can grab the tupperware box and not have to worry about anything in it from going bad for at least a few months. As long as I can find water to re-hydrate and cook with I should be ok.

 

If only I could figure out a way to dehydrate water...

 

I don't imagine it will be gourmet but I do think it will be nutritious and have some flavor. The texture may not be the best but I've found my perception of flavor and texture are inversely related to how hungry I am.

 

I will let you know how it is working out in about 5 years when I get one out and try it.

 

Mark

[Mark A]

Outstanding my friend! :up:

 

Your beans will do fine.

I picked, snapped and prepped mine...had to work a couple of 12 hr shifts, then canned mine yesterday.

I canned 36 pints and 11 quarts. That was 3 runs through our All American.

 

I let them cool to room temperature. Remove the rings and wash with warm soapy water. I've read this recommended by Jackie Clay and many other canning-guru's over the years.

It frees up the rings, and I can readily tell if an jar looses it's seal...which is incredibly infrequent btw. :pleased:

thanks prag

[Jamie Jackson]

You're welcome Mark.

 

Regards the dehydrated foods. Your method should keep them for quite a long time. Moisture, heat, and light are their nemesis...you got that covered.

 

We have a table/island in our kitchen and the bottom shelf is full of jars of home dehydrated vegetables. we use them almost daily. I put on a crock pot full of fixin's for French Market soup yesterday while I was waiting for the pressure to zero out in my canner.

Pinto beans, black beans, lentils (from our pantry "bean bucket"), some home canned chicken, and several handfuls of dehydrated veggies from the bottom shelf. it took me all of 15 minutes to get it going and it was ready when I got up this morning.

Gardening, canning, and dehydrating just makes the quality of life better Brother. :up:

[Dennis1209]

I was planning last winter to put in a large garden, and I did, about one acre. I was hesitant about spending $300.00 for an All American canner, the one that does 14 quarts at a time. I'm here to tell y'all, that was a time saver and a good investment over my Presto 7 quart pressure canner.

 

With all the rain, flooding, moldy garden dirt, rabbits, deer, insects, birds, etc., it was a bad year for about everything production wise, but... With that size garden I managed to can dozens of quarts / pints of turnips and greens, pickles, sweet banana pepper rings (yum), green beans. Planted 34 tomato plants this year in anticipation of making stewed tomato's, tomato paste, BBQ sauce, spaghetti sauce and canned tomato's. Didn't happen, lost 2/3 of them due to all the rain, mold, wild life, weeds and insects. Barely had enough to have with dinner :rant: 

 

The majority of the time the ground was too muddy to do any hoeing, and we all know what happens to an un-hoed unattended garden, do we?

Edited September 16, 2013 by Dennis1209

[Mark A]

Not much in the way of adding a great amount of food but this one was really fun to make:

 

First you take some of this:

 

 

then you need some of this stuff:

 

 

and you get some of this golden habanero goodness...:

 

 

 

 

Letting it set up tonight. Will give it a shot tomorrow and see if it is any good

 

Thanks, Mark