Home Preserves [General]

2007 Mar 11
Anyone else into home canning / preserving? We live about a 60 second walk to the Parkdale Market, and put down a lot of preserves during the summer and especially fall when everything is so cheap.

Here is an excellent free book on home canning from the US Department of Agriculture.

www.uga.edu

I learned from "Putting Food By", whose cover you can see here in the photo I nabbed from Amazon.

www.amazon.com/dp/0452268990




2007 Mar 12
I am a big one for preserves, jams etc. I'm been making them for many years and now that I have a garden it is even easier (and partly a necessity!) We make a green tomato chutney, a red tomato relish, pickled veg of all kinds, salsas, and I love to make crabapple jelly and red currant jelly. We also make marmalade in the winter.

I have a LOT of books on preserving plus a lot of old home recipes, but constantly refer to the Bernardin one (available at Canadian tire in their preserving section) and the Ball Blue Book (I have a rather old copy and keep forgetting to look for this when I go to the States).

2007 Mar 22
Following in my family's footsteps, I too do a bunch of canning and jamming every year. My usuals are dill pickles, stewed tomatoes, red salsa, green salsa, apple sauce, peaches, and pears as well as strawberry, blueberry, peach and raspberry freezer jam. I don't make them all every year, thankfully. I've gotten my boyfriend into it lately too.

flyfish, where do you source your crabapples? I've wanted to make jelly for a few years now, but since my grandfather moved, and I don't have a tree, I'm not sure where to buy them from.

2007 Apr 1
We also can a bit. Nothing too serious. We've done salsa, pickles of almost every variety, relishes, marmalade, and all have met with varying success.

We freeze our tomatoes, strawberries and rhubarb whole.


2007 Apr 2
Quick, thick, question here.

Are the recipes provided for preserving really must-use ones? Would I run into problems if I took, say, salsa as I usually make it, and canned that? Or spaghetti sauce, or jam, or whatever...

Sounds stupid, yes, but I've always been put off by the idea of putting up a large amount of something even slightly off from what I'd usually make. Oddly, I never see directions that're just "take the (whatever) you made, heat to (temp), and preserve like so" -- it always involves a start-to-finish recipe.

If I must use one designed for canning -- any suggestions for a jam (or, rather, jam-esque fruit what-not) with hardly any sugar? I'm not sugar-phobic, just don't get why it's necessary.

I just bought a house in the sticks that has a basement begging for food storage use -- there's even a root cellar 'room' sort of deal in the basement -- so I'm now on the lookout for cheap canning equipment &c. (Oh, and, has anybody tried growing their own mushrooms...?)

2007 Apr 2
If you haven't read a good book on canning (the ones from the mason jar companies don't count) then yes, it's a problem. Mainly because you won't understand WHY there are specific recipes for canning. That's my way of saying "read a book" :-) There's a free one linked above. IMO nobody should be canning if they haven't read a book - it's a good way to kill yourself.

There's my legal disclaimer out of the way - though I am being serious :-)

The 2 biggest factors are : pH and, for lack of a better term "liquidity".

If the pH of something is 4.3 or below, you can process it in a regular boiling water bath. Over 4.3 and you need a pressure canner. And if the stuff you are canning is too thick (not liquidy) - well - there aren't really guidelines that I've seen for doing that at home so make your own educated guess based on other stuff you've done and the material you've read. If it's too thick the stuff in the jar won't be able to move around as much to conduct (convect?) the heat you are applying.

As far as pH goes, many of the recipes you see e.g. for salsa are devised with this in mind. So if you do something seemingly benign like increase the amount of green pepper (a high pH food), this could throw off the pH so that you now have to pressure can.

My general rule : when in doubt, pressure can it.

Though I do have a pH meter so it's not hard to do properly. But even with that, you have to use your head. e.g. if you have a recipe for spaghetti sauce that does not need to be pressure canned. It has no meat, so you add meat balls just for the heck of it. You measure the pH and it seems to be below 4.3 so you don't pressure can. 2 things wrong here : (1) meat should always be pressure-canned no matter what. (2) the pH measurement would likely be off because the acidity will not likely have spread itself completely through the meatballs. So the actual pH of the substance after it reaches equilibrium will likely be higher than 4.3.

Having read a few books on the topic, and using my general rule above, I'm fairly comfortable coming up with my own recipes and canning them.

2011 Apr 27
Mers- We also make crabapple jelly and it's amazing to open up in mid-winter!
We get our crabapples from a friend who has a tree in her front yard. It basically rains crabapples every summer, so we go over and pick a bunch. She can't use them all in a season!
I would recommend roaming around your neighbourhood and if anyone has a tree, knock on their door and ask if you can relieve them of some crabapples in peak season. They may be grateful if you save them a cleanup.

Good luck!

2011 Apr 27
This is the time of year that I look forward to making rhubarb chutney, which hopefully will last through until next spring. Also like to pickle asparagus and wild garlic.

2011 Apr 27
I used to make freezer jam and my own ice creams-but now that I have no freezer chest,I have not a lot of room for stuff like that.

I'm hoping to get a small freezer chest from Future Shop as I have some airmiles gc from there for a quite high amount still.

For the poster who asked about growing your own mushrooms, Le Coprin sells some kits to grow your own mushrooms for around $20.
I saw this in the food co-op site they sell on...

2011 Apr 27
shameless plug: If anyone is looking for a good pressure-canner. I would like to downsize and am willing to part way with my All American 941 for 300

2011 Apr 27
Yan, how old is your pressure canner? How many 0.5 litre jar can you put in at a time?

2011 Apr 27
41 1/2 Quarts, 32 Pint Jars, 19 Quart Jars.

I'm too young to be able to do imperial to metric conversion. ;)

2011 Apr 28
I found some good recipes in "Put a Lid on it" by Ellie Topp, Margaret Howard.
small batch preserving for every season.
They have a nice recipe for strawberry jam without using pectin, so you can cut back on the sugar. I've also added a bit of grand marnier to the jam. Hope this didn't affect the ph, but have done it for the last 5 years.
I agree with summersavoury. You have to find crabapples because they can be very expensive in the store.
There is something very satisfying about seeing a shelf full of preserves.

2011 Sep 8
Photo from last year's "Tomatofest" of preserving sauce, we geeked out a bit and tried a bunch of different methods and types of tomato sauce made with San Marzano Tomatoes. Starting at the bottom and going around clockwise:

[1] Square container: BBQ/smoked tomatoes, milled then reduced (The sauce seems more savory and less sweet when the tomatoes are slightly smoked and almost take on a meaty quality.)
[2] Brown rimed soup bowl: liquid drained... from baked tomatoes, then strained (I am considering making this into an aspic.)
[3] Small white bowl: sliced then stewed, reduced to a thick paste and then milled.
[4] Medium white bowl: baked, drained then milled (Baking tomatoes concentrates the flavour and it seems sweeter.)
[5] Large white bowl: Milled raw then cooked and reduced (running raw tomatoes through a food mill is much harder work, messier, needs to go through more times and the trash is still wetter than the other methods.)

I ended up making a veggie lasagna with a jar of BBQ/smoked tomatoes and it had an almost meaty type of quality to it. I would have sworn there was some sort of finely milled or skimmed out meat product. (Had to promise the vegetarian that it was in fact meat free.) I definitely would do it again!

2011 Sep 8
This year's "Tomatofest" of preserving sauce started about a month earlier than usual because we're moving as of October 1st, we don't know what our new kitchen and situation will be like and our hydro is currently included in rent, so why not? When done I am packing the full jars back into the boxes the empty jars came in. (I just wish I had more of the boxes as they're ideal. If you have any boxes for jars that you aren't intending to keep, please consider giving them to me. I'd really appreciate it.)

For a few years we used heirloom tomatoes from Bryson Farms, keeping different batches and colours separate. I also made up a small batch of a tomato/veggie sauce, (tomato, onion, oregano, basil, celery peppers and carrots) which became a few jars.

Last year was only San Marzano Tomatoes from the Jean-Talon Market in Montreal. (It wasn't a special trip we were there and decided to pick up a couple bushels.) This year I made a sauce and then a soup from plain field Tomatoes from a booth at the Byward Market and decided they were great and have decided to use those for this year's sauce.

This time I am using the things we learned from the last several year's experiments to make things easier and better. I only intend to use one kind of tomato and two methods - baked for the majority and and BBQed for a bunch of them too. So far I've sorted two huge baskets of field tomatoes, which has yielded 21 (250ml) jars of thick sauce. The method of choice (after washing of course) was coring and cutting them, baking, cooling a bit then milling and jarring. This way there is need to cook forever to reduce the sauce. No chance of it hitching/burning at the bottom of the pot and no need to babysit it to make sure. This way was far less work, the flavour is sweet and concentrated. Why make it harder than it needs to be?


2011 Sep 8
Live4food, I'd like to try your bbq method. I've roasted tomatoes and frozen them with good success, but I'd rather can them. Do you add anything to the tomatoes, and how long do you process?

2011 Sep 8
@blubarry I usually go for straight up tomatoes and pressure can them. The reason we can rather than freeze is because our freezer is tiny. With jars you can have them on a shelf a pantry or stash em back in the boxes and put them elsewhere. Can't remember how long as I haven't actually been the one to do it this year. I've been doing all the prep. We've been scooping, jarring, putting the lids on etc. together and then my honey has been taking it from there. 2 batches were done last night and I missed them both. Sorry. I'll ask or pay attention on the next batch.

2011 Sep 8
What is the pressure (psi) of a pressure canner, is it different from a regular pressure cooker, and does it get hot enough to kill botulism spores?

2011 Sep 8
BTW, there is a new edition out of Putting Food By, out last year. It includes updates from the previous 1995 edition. The USDA Home Canning Guide has a new update out as well (2009 or 2010) and is a good free way to get the same updated material.

I finally got my new copy of Putting Food By today and have started reading it. I was due for another read anyway and figured I should read the new material instead of the old stuff. I strongly encourage everyone to re-read a good canning guide at least every 3 years to make sure your memory serves you correctly.

2011 Sep 11
Red Onion Marmalade.
I made this last week and it is delicious. Made my own apps of goat cheese, onion marmalade in puff pastry. Had some with cream cheese on crackers.

Finished product 4 1c jars. Recipe from Gusto magazine, put out 1/4ly from Toronto Star.

7c thinly sliced red onions
1/2 c olive oil (will use less next time,some oil sat on top)
1 c cassis (I used 3/4c because the taste strong, but you could substitute)
1 c dry red wine
1/4c balsamic vinegar
1/2 c dried cranberries
1 tsp salt

in lg deep pot, over med low heat, saute onions in oil until soft, about 20 minutes, stirring frequently.
Do not brown.
Increase heat to med and add remaining ingredients.
cook 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until mixture is thick.
remove from heat and pour into hot, sterilized jars, to 1/2 inch from top.
wipe jars clean, hot water bath 5 minutes.

Sadly we have gone through 1 jar already and I meant to use the rest for Christmas gifts.


2011 Sep 12
I have so many hot banana peppers and hot cherry bombs from my garden I decided to make pepper sauce. Not knowing what I was doing I simply blended the peppers, stems removed, with garlic, brown sugar, salt and vinegar. I put it all into mason jars and heated it for 40 minutes in my pressure cooker, lids on but not tightened. I left a 0.5" gap, but I still lost some pepper. After cooling down I tightened the lid rings.

Between the pressure cooking and the vinegar, I figure it's safe. Not to mention the capsicum !

2011 Sep 13
Solstice,

What can you substitute for the cassis. Since i want to try my hand at making some.

2011 Sep 13
solstice that recipe looks to be very tasty - thanks for posting it. I've made onion port marmalade but this looks much more flavourful, and I love the flavour of blackcurrants (am feeling a little deprived right now as I've been looking for blackcurrant jam for a while now and all my usual sources have dried up and I haven't found any at other places I had hoped to). The olive oil looks a little odd - could it simply be left out, do you think?

PrimalFoodieGirl - not solstice but I'd use Ribena syrup or maybe even a cup of the aforementioned blackcurrant jam to replace the cassis. Some other fruit syrup, or nectar or juice perhaps, if you wanted something other than blackcurrant flavour...

2011 Sep 13
I bought some purple plums from Costco, and after 9 days they failed to really ripen, threatening to do that thing where fruit changes from being unripe to rotten without any intervening period of ripeness. So I made some plum jam (about 6 cups of plum puree, 7 cups of sugar, 1 box of pectin)--it was OK but lacking in flavour (My, my, could it possibly be the lack of tasty ripe fruit?). So I threw all of my flavour enhancement tricks at it: A bit of salt, some orange rind, a bit of orange juice, some brandy, a bit of cinnamon, almond extract, and orange flower water... It was a bit better--even good enough to share with others--but it drove home the point that the key to good preserves is good ingredients.

2011 Sep 14
thanks for the reply Andy.
I was using a creme de cassis liqueur so I thought of using a different flavor.
I'm going to make another batch and will use port this time.
I've made a note on the recipe to use a nectar as a substitution.

2011 Sep 17
I put up dried apricot jam today, basically following the recipe on the Bernardin web site (www.bernardin.ca), although I substituted about 1/2 cup of off-dry white wine for some of the water (it was cluttering up the fridge). Added a little bit of almond extract (great with stone fruits). Sometimes I add a strip of lemon rind and a piece of a cinnamon stick, but not this time.

If you have never tried dried apricot jam (and you love apricots as much as I do), give this a try. I almost never see good fresh apricots up here, and the dried ones are easier to deal with (no washing and pitting) and much cheaper ($15 bucks of dried apricots made 8 pints of jam). The flavour is intense, and I leave some of the pieces of apricot intact, adding a toothsome touch.

The challenge is finding good dried apricots--I buy mine at Trader Joes in the US. Usually I use their "slab apricots," but they were a little discoloured at my last visit--suspect that these were last year's crop. So I used their "extra fancy Blenheim apricots," which were almost as good. Sometimes they are a little over-sulphured, in which case I spread them out on a cookie sheet to breathe for a few hours before working with them.

Next year I will wait until Fall to buy them, hoping to get an even tastier result.

I am also going to try some dried cherry jam--Trader Joe's also has the best ones, I think, and they are only about $8 a pound.

2011 Sep 17
This is my first post on this site.

For the last few years I've been experimenting with canning different things because I want to avoid all the added salt in commercial foods. Last year it was kidney beans, chick peas, navy beans, and pinto beans. Most of them came out too mushy but still usable. I soaked them then boiled them for half an hour before pressure canning them (500ml jars). Next time I'll try soaking them only before canning and see if they're still as mushy. Has anyone else tried canning dried beans?

I also canned salsa, and, tomato sauce with meat. These ended up too watery so I have to add a small can of tomato paste when I use them. Both were good otherwise. I just used my own recipes for these things but didn't cook them completely before I loaded them into the jars for canning. The ingredients finished cooking during the canning process.

And I tried canning pumpkin mush in small 250ml jars. After I did this I found different info on the 'net saying this wasn't safe but we've been fine so far. Maybe small jars are OK?

Last winter I pressure canned brown rice in 500ml jars. This ended up like a solid lump in the bottom of the jar. But, using a knife I hack it out of the jar, run it under hot water and this seems to wash away the excess starch. I'm left with lovely brown rice ready in just a few minutes which is great at the end of a long day at work.

The other thing I tried this year is canning extra lean ground beef and lean ground turkey. This has been a very successful experiment. Again 500ml jars. I drain off the broth when I want to use the meat (set it aside for a nice homemade soup) and use the meat in tacos, chili, meat sauce, etc. Meals in minutes minus all the salt. Better than fast food.

Over the last few months I've also pressure canned beets, peach sauce, apple sauce, onion jam, lime chutney, and liver pate - all turned out great. Again, small jars, small batches but there are only the two of us to eat all the goodies.


2011 Sep 18
I can kidney beans, chick peas and black beans. Put 135g in a pint/500ml jar and then fill to the fill level with water. Turns out perfectly.

I did pumpkin mush too.

Brown rice too. Put 135g (magic number) in a jar then fill to the fill level. I found it difficult to get out too until I learned a simple trick - microwave it to heat it. Open the jar and stick it in the microwave for 3 minutes and it comes out perfectly.


2011 Sep 18
I experimented with canning for a while but came to the conclusion that I am way too lazy for all the boiling hassle. My shortcut is to deep freeze tomato sauce, bbq sauce, jams, chilli, etc in freezer safe mason jars.

www.bernardin.ca


2011 Sep 29
I was reminded 2 days ago by my sis of a tomato jam I used to make, and got the original recipe from her as I couldn't find it as we talked, and made it today with some of the remaining tomatoes from the garden - thought I'd post if anyone has tomatoes they don't know what to do with: it's essentially the same as this recipe: www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1623,159170-249196,00.html. One pound of tomatoes will give you about 1 cup of jam. The nice thing about this old recipe is that you use as many tomatoes as you want, from a few to a lot. You can flavour it with ginger and lemon, or cinnamon and nutmeg as I've done in the past, or whole cloves as I did today and previously (I also didn't add the lemon). The "jam" is a savoury condiment to me though some people may use it on toast, but I find it perfect with tourtiere, beef & burgers and smooth creamy cheeses, oh and grilled cheese sandwiches, oh yeah!

2011 Sep 30
Andy, I make tomato jam every year, with lemon, and it is the perfect thing to serve with buttermilk biscuits and butter.

2011 Oct 1
I wouldn't have thought of making jam from tomatoes. Then again I would have thought you could make a pie from vinegar. But I tried a vinegar pie in Tadoussac a few years back, and it was good.

2011 Oct 1
Canadian Tire has the Foodsaver Freshsaver Kit on clearance sale for $16.99. I've seen them in two Canadian Tire stores now for that price.

2011 Oct 22
Made green tomato relish today, using this recipe as a rough guide: allrecipes.com

I added some pectin for body, a bit more salt, a bit of allspice and clove for a bit more flavour, and some turmeric and green food colour to neutralize the pukey colour.

Verdict: It's quite nice: Nice balance of sweet and sour, nice crunch. I will use it for hotdogs, sausages, and cheese plates.

2012 Feb 1
Marmalade season! 1) Meyer lemon with vanilla (awesome). 2) Blood orange (also awesome). Next project: Grapefruit marmalade.

2012 Feb 2
mark_ottan can you please share or link to the recipes?

2012 Feb 4
Blubarry, I am pretty flexible with marmalade--there is a huge margin of error. I like them:

1) Not too bitter--generally remove the pith (not needed for Meyer lemons, which don't have a lot of bitterness to them);

2) Add a bit extra lemon juice for some tartness;

3) Use a bit more rind than the recipe calls for--adds a bit more punch;

4) Use some added pectin (either from a box OR from steeping the membranes and seeds in the mix);

5) Aim for a soft set--I don't like it when it is too hard;

6) Use more juice and less water;

7) Slice peel very thinly and evenly;

8) Either cook it or soak it long enough that the peel isn't too tough--even this isn't all that important if you slice the peel very finely.

The Meyer lemon approach looks something like this:

www.foodgal.com difference is that I add a box of pectin rather than letting it cook down, as I find the latter approach to be a bit too sweet and caramel-y.

General ratio of sugar to the water/juice/peel mixture is about 7/8 cup of the former per 1 cup of the latter. More traditionally, the ratio is 1:1, which does not require added pectin BUT I find too sweet.

For blood orange marmalade, you can follow just about any Seville orange marmalade recipe and just use blood oranges following the principles above. If it is too sweet, add some lemon juice. To tart or thin? Add sugar.

I was bewildered by marmalade for a long time because the approach used by different recipes was quite different. Some required pre-soaking, some required de-pithing the peel, some required juicing and other segmenting the fruit, ratio of sugar varied, some involved added pectin and others didn't, some had you cook the fruit whole (!!!), some required changing the water a few times while cooking to remove bitterness, etc. etc. etc. What I have learned is that none of that stuff is important in and of itself--all of the approaches work and yield similar results. What matters is the principles above.

I can tell now when the jam is ready to set by look and feel, though initially I used the cold plate test. My preference is to stop cooking (or adding pectin) when it just starts to set on the cold plate (that is, it just starts to wrinkle when you push at it). Other people like a bit firmer.




2012 Feb 4
Thanks mark_ottan! I saw big bags of meyer lemons at costco yesterday and may give this a try.