Home Canning Recipes

Some nice recipes here:
http://www.food.com/recipe-finder/pressure-canning/

Canning is one thing that has kept me sane this month. It has been a hard one.
I can things others say you can't. I find a way to change recipes so I can can them and have our favorites on hand. Nothing goes to waste, I freeze veggies or ends not used to make veggie juice later in the fall time. I just use an empty ice cream container.

My Cabbage in Tomato Juice Recipe
2 large cans of tomato juice
2 heads of cabbage
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp of course sea salt in the pot
1/2 tsp of salt in each jar!

First thing I do is put the canner water on. So I am ready to roll when the cabbage is ready.
Peel outer leaves off the cabbage. Chop into 1 - 2 " pieces. Empty tomato juice into a large pot (I use a 16 qt pot) and add pepper and salt. Once simmering I add the cabbage. Cook for about 5 minutes bringing to a boil then spoon the cabbage and juice into quart jars, I try to pack them well with cabbage and then top off with juice leaving one inch headspace.
Wipe off the jar rims, place boiled jar lids on the jars and tighten screw bands on.
Place quarts into canner.
I place the jars in then, I leave the lid on loosely on the canner for 10 minutes so it is venting out the top, I lock the canner, place a 10lb weight on the vent and process for 1hr.
Once done, place on the counter til jar lids pop and the jars are cool.

If you process the cabbage in tomato juice it has a nice flavour and it doesn't discolour or go bad. I am assuming it stays good for a year but, we have never had it last that long lol We love it!
I use this for lazy man cabbage rolls, soup starter, in casseroles or just to eat reheated.
I have used tomato juice or mott's garden cocktail as well for a more veggie soup flavour. It works.

To can cabbage soup:
2 cans tomato juice
1 head of cabbage sliced and diced
4 carrots, diced or sliced
4 celery stalks, sliced
15 small potatoes or 10 medium, washed, peeled, cubed
1 small onion minced
3 garlic cloves minced
3 bay leaves
1/2 tsp celery seed
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp basil
3 tbsp of sea salt, course
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 can water
2 lg cans of diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp salt per quart jar

Add olive oil to a 16 qt pot, cook garlic and onion in oil for 3-4 minutes, add carrots and celery. Heat throughly for a few minutes now add tomatoes and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients except the cabbage (that is last!) and bring to a boil. Scoop out those bay leaves! I try to use the biggest ones I have so they are easier to find before adding the cabbage. Once boiling, add cabbage. Cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, scoop and pour into jars and process for 75 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.
The potatoes are rarely cooked by the time you spoon into jars, it is ok, they will cook in the canner in the jars.
This is perfect comfort food for when the power goes out, you just open and eat it cold if you have to!

The best part of these is, huge shot of vitamins and the acid in the tomato juice prevents the veggies from changing colour. No vitamin c tabs or ascorbic acid needed. 🙂
Enjoy!

These are the quart jars of the cabbage soup all cooled and ready to go into storage 🙂

Apple sauce: Our easy version,

Wash and core apples, leave the peel on (too much work and no need to waste the nutrition)
Pre-soak slices in ascorbic acid mix - 3000mg vitamin C crushed up into 1 liter water/apple juice. Warmed makes dissolving easier. This is to hold the nice apple colour and not go brown.
Cook in large pot with a bit of the pre-soak or some water to get things cooking. Care not to burn bottom so stir often.
Once mushy, cool and puree in food processor.
Add back to pot and heat it back up again.
Process in pint jars in pressure canner for 8 min at 5 psi.
Yum!

Sounds good. Do you add any sugar or spices to your applesauce?

No, it seems to be sweet enough for my liking. But you could and some cinnamon too. I just did 45 pints. The apples were yellow transparent. They one of the first kind to harvest in the year.

Hi All,
i canned some potatoes on the weekend ,i have notices the water has gone very cloudy nearly white.Does anyone know if this
is ok or should i throw the batch out and start again.Thanks

Heather

I've never canned potatoes but it sounds ok to me. USDA Guide to Home Canning states to can quart jars for 40 min at 10psi. Sounds like they are going to be pretty cooked causing the water to become potato water.
You should print off a copy of the guide.
http://ucfoodsafety.ucdavis.edu/files/26457.pdf

Just got back from Vernon with a load of peaches. They didn't like the ride too much so had to make them into sort of a course peach sauce, which is just as good as sliced.

-loads of peaches soaked in colour stabilizer (3000mg Vit C per liter or 2)
-bit of apple sauce(just for kicks)
-some water to make it a little bit saucy
-heat almost to boil in large pot
-pack in pint jars hot
-8 min at 5psi (sorry I just use a pressure canner)

Sooooo yummy!

Had a similar issue but I never thought of canning it. I turned it all into fruit leather.

Hi All,
i canned some potatoes on the weekend ,i have notices the water has gone very cloudy nearly white.Does anyone know if this
is ok or should i throw the batch out and start again.Thanks

Heather

Hi Heather!

I'm not sure exactly HOW you canned the potatoes but the cloudy water is the starch being released as the potatoes cook. Nothing to worry about (as long as you pressure canned them for the 40 minutes at the appropriate pressure 10lbs for me) - just drain and rinse before you use them.

I parboil mine and rinse to remove as much starch as possible - this eliminates the cloudy-ness 🙂

OK you professional canners, here's another canning question for you...
I have about 2 bushels of peppers to can up.
Problem is, I only have processing time for pint & half pint jars, but I am out of those and need to can in quarts.
Which is OK, cause we use them like that anyways...the wife makes this great Hungarian dish with them called Letcho.
Does anyone have processing time for pressure canning quarts?
Thanks in advance.

I don't have an exact answer for you - however - since peppers are similar to green beans, carrots etc in low acidity I would use the same times as you would for them - 25 minutes. Do I get the recipe for Letcho now??? 🙂

Start with mixed peppers, the sweet kind...about 10 - 12 large ones.
Cut them up into pieces..1" - 2"...you don't have to be exact.
Put the peppers into a large pot and add about 1 cup of water.
Into that, chop up 1 medium onion, or more, or less to taste.
Now, add 1 heaping tablespoon of garlic powder...not the measuring spoon, but that big one in the drawer that you eat soup with.
Now, add about half of that of black pepper.
To help get more water out of the peppers, toss in a bit of salt...not too much...keep your blood pressure down.
Cook on med-low heat until reduced about half...there should be lots of yummy vegetable stock by now.
Add about 6 medium plum tomatoes, or equiv. of your favorite heirloom variety.
Cook some more until it kinda looks done.
(This is the point I will be canning it at)
Add 4-6 of your favorite saussages, cut into about 1" pieces and cook until they are done.
Now, look at how much liquid you have and add rice to be able to soak most of it up.

Serve and enjoy.

Hope you like my accurate measurements...that's just the way we cook around here!