WHAT ARE YOU CANNING TODAY?

[lcertuche]

The Lord is my provision!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Fantastic! What a wonderful blessing!

 

[tortoise]

I bought an electric water bath canner today! I can't can on my stove - my glasstop doesn't work right with heavy pots. Hubby and I canned big batches of produce on a propane burner outside, but that's a no-go in winter. I bought oranges to try marmalade, orange slices, and a too-strange-to-not-attempt pickled orange slices.

 

[Hinotori]

Tell me how you like that! I've been looking at getting one if we have to get a new electric stove. I told hubby I'd prefer putting a tank outside and running gas.

 

[tortoise]

I canned 3 pints of orange sections yesterday to test it. No complaints.

 

[lcertuche]

I would like to dehydrate some lemon slices. I dehydrated some lime awhile back and will use it where I need a little bright taste. I saw on youtube where someone put dried lemon slices in a pitcher of water with sugar and let it set overnight for lemon aide. How do you plan on using the orange sections. I'm sure they would just get ate up plain around my house.

 

[tortoise]

They were awful. Bitter. Chicken food. I cut the pith off, so I'm not sure exactly why they were so bad. I peeled a fresh orange yesterday and it was TERRIBLE, bitter, acidic, like biting into vomit. Not sure if m canned oranges were bad from processing or from a bad orange? Dehydrating orange sections sounds lovely. (but I'll taste them first!) Did you peel the lime before slicing/dehydrating?

 

[Hinotori]

Candied dehydrated oranges are a favorite snack here. As is candied orange peel (pith removed for that). I have to buy oranges so I dont do anything for preserving them.

Hubby likes the leftover syrup from candying mixed with tea.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Well, that just stinks! Sounds like it was a bad batch of oranges.

 

[lcertuche]

My dehydrated limes are a little bitter but it only takes a little to add in something. I have some more limes I want to slice and dehydrate. I will peel them first though because the peels look bad. You may have to can citrus in a syrup.

Daddy use to buy canned mandarin oranges that he liked but I never cared for them. Not much flavor to speak of.
I just broke in my pressure canner: 5 qts. meat patties in tomato sauce, 1 qt. meatballs in tomato sauce, and 1 qt. baked beans for a full canner. DH and the Wildbunch loved the meat. We ate almost 2 jars to taste and the baked beans. They all are onboard with canning now.


Edited: I didn't peel my limes but I do know some citrus are just plain bitter, peel or not. The limes from the Mexican store is bitter but the ones I get from the Chinese store is not. The Mexican ones are small, hard with little juice too. I ruined a batch of verde sauce adding some to it. I never buy them there now. The price is about the same 6/$1 whichever place. The distance is about the same depending which direction I am driving.