Just started a new money saving hobby...canning!

[MineMail]

evi, one thing to make sure you do is wipe the rims of your jars clean before placing the lids and rings on.

My aunt taught me to wipe the rims of pickles and vegetable jars with a cloth dampened with vinegar. Her theory was that the vinegar stopped any bacteria, dead. She also taught me to first run the jars (not the lids or rings) through the dishwasher on the hottest setting as I got everything else ready on the counter. The jars are sterile when you take them out - put them on a clean towel and fill as usual. Best investment I ever made were canning tongs, lol. That glass gets very hot!

My vegetables were duds this year. I think we got too much rain and too many weeds.

My vegetable garden was a bust, too. I swear something stole all of the pepper buds - they were there one day and gone the next. I did start my garden very late in June, so I didn't expect to get too much. I'm going to put in my sugar snap peas and broccoli now, hoping to harvest something.

I decided some time ago that it was okay to buy some herbs that I don't use just because they're nice-looking plants. I consider them annuals and let them go to seed. Sage is a good example - I rarely use it in cooking, so I pick a handful of leaves to freeze, but it's a very pretty 18" annual. Maybe it will reseed for next year.

I also transplant some of my basil, oregano, thyme and parsley plants into a big planter and bring it inside for the Fall and Winter. That way, I still have some fresh herbs when it's cold outside.

How do you freeze your basil?

I cut the basil stems and rinse them well, then nip off the leaves, laying them on a towel to blot off the excess water. Then, I just put them into a freezer bag and spread them apart a bit so they don't freeze in a clump. Once they're frozen, I press out the excess air to prevent freezer burn.

I've dried mint and used it for tea and some recipes, but I've never frozen it.

How do you make pesto? Do you just put it over cooked pasta?

 

[pampam]

ok, maybe I didn't use a pressure cooker. I canned years ago when I was first married, and I borrowed this big cooker thing from my Grandmother and I was always afraid it would explode on me! Now I just make my sauce and freeze it, but I want to try the tomato paste. I just want to get away from using canned vegtables as much as possible, and it never occured to me to dice and freeze tomatoes. I am going to go looking for a new cooker today, I'm sure they're much safer than the ones used years ago.

Do you dehydrate them in your oven? I've accidentally made sun-dried tomatoes on my windowsill, but I think it would be easier to do it in the oven!

I have tried dehydrating in the oven, and it kind of worked. I think they were cooked a little. Dehydrating shouldn't cook them, just dehydrate them.

I put them in my oven on the lowest setting. They turned out a darker colour, but it still turned out ok. I now have a dehydrator, so I don't use my oven for dehydrating any more. But years ago, before dehydrators, they used whatever they had. Dry arid lands used the sun. Your sun dried tomatoes on the window sill likley were truly dehydrated, not slowly cooked.

 

[DawnM]

My BFF cans and LOVES it. Every year she cans and cans.

I just can't get into it. Way too much effort.

I wish my BFF lived close by, I would be willing to go to her house and do it with her, but she lives on the other side of the country.

Dawn

 

[MinnieVanMom]

My garden didn't do so well this year but I did put up about 15 cans of both low sugar and regular raspberry jam. The house heats up so I try to can on overcast days. My entire family loves the jam and it makes a great Christmas present.

 

[bettymae1121]

My garden didn't do so well this year but I did put up about 15 cans of both low sugar and regular raspberry jam. The house heats up so I try to can on overcast days. My entire family loves the jam and it makes a great Christmas present.

We used our turkey fryer so we could can outside, but DH also has a hot plate that is powerful enough to boil a big pot of water in just minutes. If you have the spare cash, you could invest in something like that and can outside so you don't heat up the house. We just prepared the jars inside and once filled and ready to go we put them in the water bath outside. But it helps that we can do it on our driveway, which is just outside the kitchen door.

Our bell pepper plants didn't do well this year either. Six plants and I think I only have 12 peppers between them! I got that many last year off of three plants! But our tomatos did well, as did our cukes, so that's better than nothing.

 

[mom0299]

DH and I really got into canning and freezing this year. I froze corn, yellow squash and applesauce. We also canned tomatoes, salsa, pizza sauce, pears, sauerkraut, apple jam, pear jam and grape jelly. I considered dehydrating tomatoes, but didn't. Maybe next year. ALL of the food came from our garden or my MIL's garden. We started borrowing MIL's water bath canner, but we ended up buying our own. It didn't cost too much. After the initial investment of the canner and some jars it really didn't cost us very much. Next year it will be even better. I also grew some gourds. Now that I've cut down the corn I have my fall decorations taken care of as well.

 

[PatsMom]

I don't can anymore. I have too many memories of the dreaded end of season garden clean out when I was a kid! Not to mention tending the garden. My mother canned just about everything. And the kids had to help.

If you have a lot of green tomato at the end of the season, you can make some great relish! I still remember my father's picallilli. It was awesome. He also did not can his dill pickles - they were done in crocks. My mother did the bread and butter pickles and they were canned.

I have no idea what the shelf life is on canned goods. After my parents divorced, my mother pretty much stopped cooking and she stopped canning. A few years ago when a friend of mine was getting married she wanted 1950's style mason jars for vases. She had been buying them at antique stores. My mother thought this was hilarious and offered her as many as she wanted - she just had to clean out the last batch of stuff that was canned in them! They were still on shelves in the basement pantry. By then she figured it had been 20 or 25 years since she canned anything. We dreaded to "great opening". But nothing smelled bad. It actually all looked perfectly fine to eat! But we didn't take the chance.

 

[beansmom]

My aunt taught me to wipe the rims of pickles and vegetable jars with a cloth dampened with vinegar. Her theory was that the vinegar stopped any bacteria, dead. She also taught me to first run the jars (not the lids or rings) through the dishwasher on the hottest setting as I got everything else ready on the counter. The jars are sterile when you take them out - put them on a clean towel and fill as usual. Best investment I ever made were canning tongs, lol. That glass gets very hot!

Mine, the reason I mentioned this about wiping the rims to the newbie canner was that last summer a lady and i were in the grocery store talking about canning and she didn't know why everything she had canned went bad...turns out she didn't know about cleaning the rims of the jars before putting the lids on.


DawnM, i agree that canning is a lot of work but I can have actually peaches with some flavor and can them for winter...the best thing to me about canning is that you can make and preserve things that you either don't find in the local market or cost an arm or leg if you do. I made peach honey that my family loves from the peelings of peaches and honey; strawberry jalapeno jam for pennies for a jar instead of $4 like they ask at the grocery store. Peaches in a fragrant honey-spiced syrup, jams made with honey instead of sugar (DS#2 considers sugar the ultimate sin). It's worth the work to have my DH love something I made...or my grandson actually ASK for seconds of my peach honey---that kid won't eat ANYthing.

And I can make my own salsa from a $1 can of tomatoes, some onions and jalapenos instead of paying $6-7 for an equal amount of salsa.

 

[MineMail]

Mine, the reason I mentioned this about wiping the rims to the newbie canner was that last summer a lady and i were in the grocery store talking about canning and she didn't know why everything she had canned went bad...turns out she didn't know about cleaning the rims of the jars before putting the lids on.

That'll do it, all right. I wonder if the lids "popped" with the dirty rims- wouldn't that be a clue that they weren't sealed properly? I invested in a wide-mouth canning funnel for $1, so I never see anything on the rims, but I still wipe them anyway before putting the lids on.

I just like the tip from Auntie - she was a smart cookie who's no longer with us, so I like to share her wisdom. (That way, I don't forget her advice.)