Dressed for Canning Success

When starting a canning project, the best way to make it a productive and pleasant experience is to be ready for it.  Like making dinner is harder in a dirty kitchen with no clean pots and pans ....  canning will be as easy as you prepare for it to be.

I can outside most of the time.  It is much more pleasant, I can watch the kids play and I don't heat up the house.  When I blanch, tomatoes and peaches, I set up like an assembly line.

I set up my camp chef and my table so I can stand or sit in one spot and easily reach the produce to put in the hot water, remove the produce to the cold water, peel into the bucket on the ground and place blanched, peeled produce in my clean pot.

Once this is done, I leave the table up and process my jars of produce.  I then set them to cool on a towel on the table.  I know people say the wind can break your jars ...  and I live in a very windy place ... but in four years of canning this way, I have never broken a jar from the wind.  I would say it never hurts to try and if the wind is a problem for you, then simply walk the jars into the house rather than letting them cool outside.

Sorry for the glare ...  can't control the sun!

The camp chef can also handle two canners at a time.  There's not quite enough room for three, but the middle burner is a good place to put a pot of canning liquid (water or syrup) to stay warm without heating the house!

Corn

We are very blessed.  On Saturday I was canning tomatoes.  Tomatoes out my ears.  In the middle of my first batch, my Mr got a phone call from his son asking if we wanted corn.  Apparently there is a farmer, who's kid planted a few acres for FFA and they were going to disc it under now that her project was complete.  The corn was free for the taking, as much as we wanted.

I felt my body slump in anticipation of the future fatigue as I said "Of course we want it dear.  How long do we have to get it?"

The answer came back, that it was to be plowed tonight.  So 30 minutes later (that's how long was left on the tomato batch) my Mr and I headed out for corn.  Oh did we get it too.

Looking at the pictures now, and knowing how much there was, it is hard to feel the pictures do it justice.  To explain, we got through ONE of the totes, and the box.  We put away 3lbs in the dehydrator, 24 lbs in the freezer and 24 pints in the canner.

We didn't finish the corn until Sunday evening.  If I never see another kernal of corn again, it would be too soon.  We ended up giving away the other tote, and the buckets away in bag fulls to the neighbors.

I am slowly putting all the frozen corn through the dehydrator.  I did not have the jar space to can it all and neither did I have the desire to spend that kind of time.  I had to get cleaned up so I could go back to work the next day.

It is amazing how little time it took to shuck and clean and cut the corn off the cob.  We ended up with about 50 lbs of perserved corn.  The frozen/dehydrated corn needed to be blanched, but we did that by the 1lb batch in the steamer basket.  The corn in the jars did not require blanching.

Post Update:
I have reconstituted the dehydrated corn and eaten it.  I am so excited because I always thought it was only good for soups or casseroles; but it's great to eat as a side dish!!!  Reconstitute, add butter, salt and pepper then eat just like fresh corn.  Amazing!!

Canning Tomatoes v. Slicing Tomatoes

I grow mostly roma's.  A great canning and paste tomato.  I also grow a few slicing/beefsteak tomatoes for the fresh eating.  On canning day, they all go into jars.  Just to explain the differences between the two types and why you want to grow canning tomatoes for canning and not just grow slicing tomatoes.

If you look at my post on canned tomatoes, I show a lot of pictures demonstrating the process of blanching and peeling.  What I didn't show you  was the extra steps I had to do for the slicing tomatoes.  Due to the shape of the tomato and the shoulders (the rounded part by the stem), I had to core the tomato before I blanched them.


The red ones are Pantano Romanesco and the deep red/purple ones are Cherokee Purple.



Can you see the splits in the shoulders?  A common problem in a slicing tomato, they make it harder to peel even after blanching.  They act just like a blemish and have to be cut around.

Due to the size of the tomatoes, they have to be halved or fourthed before they can go into the jars. 

These two varieties did hold up well, just so much more work.



Left is Pantano Romanesco, Middle is Roma, Right is Cherokee Purple

 This also demonstrates two other points.

1. A definite need to label what is in the jar.  I usually label 'Tom 8-11' but in this case, I didn't want to think the purple or romanesco tomatoes were bad in 6 months because they are a different hue.  I labeled them what they are because they are different from what I normally bottle as tomatoes.

2. There is space saving features in using the roma/paste style tomatoes over beef steak.  The amount of unused space in the bottom of the jars is far greater in the beefsteak/slicing type tomatoes.

Italian pasta Salad

My amazing husband came up with this simple pasta recipe.  It is delish and a fabulous way to use food storage and fresh produce together.  Zesty and sweet, rolled into one.

This makes a great side dish or an easy lunch for a warm summer day.  When you don't want to heat the whole house up in the evening, simply cook the pasta in the morning or late the night before!

ITALIAN PASTA SALAD

2 c. Pasta, cooked and drained

1 1/2 md Carrot, shredded

1/2 Tomato, diced

1/2 Cucumber, diced

1/4 c. Italian Dressing

Mix all ingredients in bowl.  Chill until time to serve.



Canned Tomatoes !!!

I am always so happy when my tomatoes start getting ripe!  It means that I can get started on the biggest crop my garden provides me with.

Yes.  There are cucumbers again too.  :)

We eat fresh the firstlings .... then we get to canning!  This small batch of tomatoes will only provide me with a few canners full. 

I got 16 quarts out of this sink full. 

In case you have never canned tomatoes before, I have taken pictures of the different steps to help you along.

You do not need to wash the tomatoes, I only rinse them, so the grass, leaves, petals and other pieces that are not attached get rinsed off.  You don't actually even need to do that.

Once your tomatoes are gathered up, you need to BLANCH them.  This is a process where you place the tomatoes in boiling hot water and then remove them to cold water so the skins will come off.

Typically the skins will start to split, and a small amount of pressure will cause them to 'slip' off.  Sometimes you need to use a knife to get it started, or to lift the skin from the flesh of the tomato and peel it.  You should never have to cut the skins off, except at the stem and if there are any blemishes you may have to cut right around the blemish.  If you are cutting more than that, you need to boil them just a little longer.

Once the tomatoes are blanched and peeled, you simply pack them in the jars following the wonderful instructions in your canning book.  The book I own is the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, but since it looks like that is an old version, I would simply recommend getting any Ball Blue Book at a reasonable price.  It is a wonderful quick reference.  It has just enough detail, not so little you are lost and not so much you are overwhelmed.  Great for beginners!

One last tip for blanching.  The temperature of the water, the time in the hot water and the ripeness of the tomato all play a part in the finished product.

The first tomato is very ripe.  The second tomato is barely ripe.  They were blanched at a lower temperature than the third barely ripe and the fourth very ripe tomato.  Can you see the texture difference?  The two on the left are very firm and the two on the right are almost mushy.  Both are good for canning, but the ones on the left will be prettier.

Grapes!!

I love my grape vines.  I planted them about 4-5 years ago, moved them about 3 years ago, lost one of my two vines and finally got a crop.  Yeah!  It was only 3 bunches and I had to save them from the wasps that were eating them, but they are sooooo yummy!

We did find the wasp nest in a neighbors tree ......  We were wondering why they hadn't tried to build in the eaves of the house like the last 3 years.  I guess they found a more suitable spot, a hiding spot of sorts. 



We found 'em!!

Zucchini Pasta

Right now I have a major abundance of zucchini coming from my garden.  My favorite thing to do, other than dehydrating it, is to mix it with pasta and sausage in the best dinner ever.
I got this recipe originally from Your Home Based Mom then I changed it up a little to suite my style.  :)  She calls it Lite Pasta, but I don't think it's very 'lite'.  :)

ZUCCHINI PASTA

16 oz Spaghetti Pasta, cooked and kept warm

32 oz Kielbasa Sausage, sliced

1 Red Bell Pepper, cubed

1 Onion, sliced

2 tsp Basil

2 tsp Garlic

2 tsp Chicken Bouillon

1 small Zucchini cut into approx. 1/2 x 2" sticks

1 can Olives, drained

Brown sliced sausage in pan.  Remove from pan and saute Onion and Pepper.  Add olive oil if there is not enough left from sausage.
Add Basil, Garlic, Bouillon and Zucchini.  Cook until Zucchini is tender.
Toss vegetable blend, sausage and olives with pasta.

My husband likes it with a little cayenne on it.