WHAT ARE YOU CANNING TODAY?

[flowerbug]

we picked about 140lbs of tomatoes this morning, have lunch in a few minutes and then we'll be busy putting up whatever we don't give to my brother and sister-in-law. this is the third picking, the next picking should be about the same amount (in 3-4 more days they'll be ready).

we also picked cherry tomatoes, jalapenas, bell peppers and about 60lbs of cucumbers. we hope my brother will take all the cucumbers.

pulled 2 of the 4 cucumber plants, we don't need many any more and they're trying to over grow the tomato plants.

 

[flowerbug]

plans didn't quite work out how i wanted, but i did get about 2/3rds of the tomatoes turned into juice and Mom made her cucumber salad. so i still have the rest of the tomatoes to deal with in the morning, but that's ok...

i relearned the oven only holds 20 quarts at a time. so i must be thinking of pints that it can hold more than that. the last two quarts i had to put in as a separate batch to finish them up - not a big problem since i had to do the dishes anyways...

 

[8710]

This years haul so far (along with about five miscellaneous pints from last year).

 

[Lazy Gardener]

plans didn't quite work out how i wanted, but i did get about 2/3rds of the tomatoes turned into juice and Mom made her cucumber salad. so i still have the rest of the tomatoes to deal with in the morning, but that's ok...

i relearned the oven only holds 20 quarts at a time. so i must be thinking of pints that it can hold more than that. the last two quarts i had to put in as a separate batch to finish them up - not a big problem since i had to do the dishes anyways...

Oven canning? Details please.

 

[flowerbug]

Oven canning? Details please.

my attempt at oven canning

Flowerbug, what did you oven can and what is your method? you need a reliable oven which doesn't vary the temperature by much. if you don't have a thermometer to see what your oven is actually doing you would want to get one to make sure you're not overheating because that can cause issues...

www.sufficientself.com

 

[flowerbug]

i had to finish up canning the rest of the tomatoes yesterday and it came out to 20 quarts of chunks.

so my initial estimate of 49 quarts total for 7 buckets of tomatoes was off, but why?

it turns out my picking and sorting method is different than Mom's. so the extra bucket of loss was because unripe tomatoes and rotten ones were mixed in. by the time i get those removed during processing that was about a bucket worth.

 

[baymule]

I canned BBQ sauce yesterday. I used 3 recipes to come up with what I wanted. It came out a little too sweet, but still good. I got 5 half pints. We put some over cooked chicken and heated it up.

 

[8710]

Canning fire jam these past few days, doing the last pan of it this morning. Might get more peppers and do another batch later on, as one can never have too much fire jam on hand....I use it for everything.

Also going to try steam canning some green beans today...usually we use the pressure canner but today we are going to try them like we do our sweet corn, with a slice of green tomato in the jar and steam canned as per normal times. Should be cool to see if there is a better texture and flavor from the end product than from pressure canning them.

Steam canning does not reach sufficient temperatures to kill the botulism spores which thrive in low-acid environments. It isn’t advisable to can anything other than high-acid jams, salsas, pickles, and tomatoes (with added citric acid) in a water bath or steamer canner. While there have been relatively few cases of botulism recorded in recent decades due to improper canning techniques, botulism is a death sentence and a terrible one at that. I personally don’t feel it is worth the risk.

 

[8710]

That's nice.

I personally feel like it's worth the risk and we've been risking it for many long years now. Five generations of folks who can thousands of qts of food each year have survived our methods, big families and all deriving the bulk of their diet from the cellar shelves~read thousands upon thousands of jars canned over the years. I think we'll be fine. You do what you do and we'll continue to do what we do.

Finished up with 41 pts of hot pepper jam aka fire jam and I'll call it quits on that item this year, in the interest of jar and shelf availability. Most of my jars this season will be put into meat and soup preservation.

I really don’t think there was any need for the maliciousness in your response, especially given that this site’s intention is to provide resources about sustainable living.

 

[wyoDreamer]

@Beekissed It will be interesting to see if the steam canning works for the green beans. Do you heat them up in water before you add them to the jar? and do you add salt at all?
How thick of a slice of green tomato do you use? My little brain tells me that the slice of green tomato adds a layer of acidic food to the air space and that is what is keeping the botulism at bay, but that is just me supposing.