WHAT ARE YOU CANNING TODAY?

[Finnie]

That is a great idea! I will see what I can find.

 

[Finnie]

Apricot nectar/purée

This is from a 3 pound bag of dried apricots I got at Costco. Nowhere can I find those little cans of apricot nectar to buy unless I want to pay gouger prices on Amazon. Every once in a while a recipe calls for some, or I just want some to drink. So, I made my own!

Next time I will purée it better though. This batch is a little chewy! The two pints are going straight into the fridge. They were the leftovers that didn’t fit in the canner.

 

[Finnie]

Todays adventure: beef stock!

Steak and rib bones I’ve been saving in my freezer, veggies, salt, pepper, and water to the fill line of my 12 quart GoWISE pressure cooker. Going to pressure cook it on low for at least 3 hours, maybe longer. Whether I can it today or tomorrow depends on how long it takes to cool for the fat to rise to the top for skimming. No hurry.

 

[tripletfeb]

I chose the Carey/Nesco based upon Rose Red Homestead scientific experiments. It was $110 and will arrive tomorrow.

I have my Mother's old Presto and I bought a used All American about 3 years ago. They work perfectly for large batches, but I wanted something to do 4 jars in when I have a bit of something to can up.

Love my Nesco/Carey canner! It can do so much more than just pressure can!

Used my Carey yesterday. Held four quarts of home made chicken broth that I had simmered in two batches over the last week plus. It was a dream! Only had to monitor it once, when one turns the valve from vent to seal.

So easy to use!

Well one of the chicken jars didn’t seal, so I put that one in the fridge. I tasted it at lunch time, and it was quite good, even without salt. Maybe a little dry for eating straight. But probably fine for using in recipes.

I don’t have canning salt, and I read that regular salt isn’t recommended because it has additives. My Himalayan Pink salt has no additives, but it naturally contains minerals. Mr. Google is giving me half and half use it-don’t use it answers. Do any of you ever use Himalayan Pink salt? Or should I just go buy some canning salt for next time?

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Did my mandarin oranges today. I don’t think I will be inclined to do them again. I’m too OCD about removing the pith and any other stringies I could get off. It took me two hours standing there fiddling with them! I decided to only do one of the two 3# bags I had bought.

But, no worries about the other bag! I found a recipe for orange jelly, using just the juice that I am eager to try.

I use Redmond's Real Salt for everything. The kosher works great for canning. The only time I use regular salt is when I make my homemade laundry detergent

 

[Finnie]

Here’s the beef broth. Cooked it Friday, canned it Saturday. I actually canned some of it in the GoWISE because I didn’t want to wait around to run two batches through the Presto. The GoWISE is a 12 quart, and I was able to fit 4 quart jars and the half pint jar in it.

2 of the pint jars didn’t ping, so they are in the fridge waiting to become soup for tonight’s dinner.

My stash of canning jars is running low. I hate to pay more than a dollar for a jar, so I will have to start scouting the local Goodwills. Some of them are charging more for jars now, but some of them will still have lower prices on them. Just depends on which goodwill I go to. I can think of at least 6 off hand that are pretty close. Will definitely be looking at garage sales this year.

Oh, and while I’m here, have any of you who own the Presto ever ran into a glitch where it didn’t stop venting after the 10 minutes was up? That happened last night. I kept waiting and waiting for it to stop letting out steam and start the processing countdown. After like half an hour I realized something was wrong. Checked the troubleshooting part of the instruction manual, and the only thing it said about the situation was that the lever must be pointed at vent instead of can. Well mine was pointed at can. I flicked it back and forth a couple times to see if it would “take”, but it still didn’t.

I ended up canceling the program, waiting for what pressure it had built up to depressurize, and starting over. I couldn’t find any issue that might have caused the problem, and it worked fine when I restarted it. I have an email in to Presto asking what could have happened. Will be interesting to see what they write back.

@tripletfeb I will try kosher salt next time something needs it. Mostly so far I have been getting away with no salt at all. I did use pink Himalayan salt in the potatoes I did. Didn’t seem to cause an issue. I saw canning salt at Walmart, but it was a bigger bag than I cared to own. Although I will pick one up if I decide it’s necessary. It wasn’t expensive.

 

[Finnie]

Made (sort of) blueberry pie filling today. Grocery store had blueberries for 99 cents a pint the other day! I used a few of those plus a few quart baggies I had in my freezer. Not too happy with the recipe I used. Was this one: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_02/can_pie/blueberry_filling.html

I wanted to make 4 quarts, so I multiplied the amounts for making 1 quart by 4. But when I filled the jars, it wasn’t enough to fill all 4. I ended up dividing the berries between the 4 jars, and then I made extra syrup/sauce to fill the jars the rest of the way. So my “pie filling” is more like “sauce with some berries”. Oh well. I also have one jar with just the extra syrup.

If I ever want to make blueberry pie filling again (big IF, since we don’t eat much blueberry pie) I will look for a different recipe.

 

[Mini Horses]

Well, when you bake the pie just add some cornstarch and it'll be fine. You could cook the Xtra juice down for pancakes syrup.

I have some blueberries frozen that were beautiful on the bush but not as sweet as most. Made some preserves when first picked, froze rest. You've reminded me to "do" something with them. Prob more preserves will happen.

They were free to pick, so adding sugar & not complaining.

 

[Finnie]

So, the photo I posted above was hot out of the canner. You can see that the blueberries floated to the top, and filled up the whole 1 inch of headspace. 9 hours later, and now that they’ve cooled off, the liquid level has gone way down. And the blueberries are sticking up from the liquid and there is a huge headspace of air now.

Checking the troubleshooting section of my owners manual says this is from liquid leaving the jars during processing. It gives two reasons, either packed too full (I don’t think so, there was 1” headspace) or bands weren’t tightened down enough. That’s possible, because I tend to err on the side of not making them very tight. But I did notice that today I was cranking them a tiny bit more than usual. Maybe I just thought I was, but was actually tightening them less. I don’t know.

The manual said the berries above the liquid will discolor, but otherwise be perfectly fine. I’m reposting the same photo for comparison with how they are now.

Hot:

Cooled:

 

[Mini Horses]

Berries are bad for this. Once cool & they're floating in a group, I turn the jars up & down or shake gently a couple times. It breaks up the berries so more/most at level with juice. Yeah, still taste fine, are good to use. You're fine.

 

[Finnie]

Thanks! Now I know to shake them up a bit. I will do that.