Comments on: Canning Food For Beginners http://newgreenerfamily.com/canning-food-for-beginners/ greening my family one day at a time Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:29:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Summer http://newgreenerfamily.com/canning-food-for-beginners/comment-page-1/#comment-39 Summer Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:23:31 +0000 http://newgreenerfamily.com/?p=118#comment-39 Thanks so much Tiffany. I wonder how people canned foods before pressure cookers were invented? Something to look up! Thanks so much Tiffany. I wonder how people canned foods before pressure cookers were invented? Something to look up!

]]> By: Tiffany @ NOH http://newgreenerfamily.com/canning-food-for-beginners/comment-page-1/#comment-36 Tiffany @ NOH Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:19:33 +0000 http://newgreenerfamily.com/?p=118#comment-36 Anything that has a high acidity can be canned in a water bath...everything else has to be pressure canned. Potatoes, green beans, okra, squash, etc all must be pressure canned. Salsas, jams, jellies, many soups, etc just need a water bath. I used a pressure cooker for my first time this year. Unfortunately the pressure cookers you get here in Germany are not nearly as huge as in the US (I guess no one is canning potatoes and other things from their harvests here...or I'm lookimg in the wrong place) but they are wickedly expensive in the US as well. Mine holds two 1 liter jars at a time...a painfully long process. Books I would recommend are the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine and The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Recipes to Use Year-Round by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. These are two I currently have and you can find recipes to use up just about anything you've got to can with those. They include tips for how to do everything from water baths to pressure cooking. As Shannon mentioned, tongs are a must...and a wide mouthed funnel is also very handy to keep mess to a minimum. I have a couple canning recipes on my blog but feel free to drop in and just ask me anything as well. Or on Twitter. I'm no expert but I've done a fair amount of canning thus far :) Anything that has a high acidity can be canned in a water bath…everything else has to be pressure canned. Potatoes, green beans, okra, squash, etc all must be pressure canned. Salsas, jams, jellies, many soups, etc just need a water bath.

I used a pressure cooker for my first time this year. Unfortunately the pressure cookers you get here in Germany are not nearly as huge as in the US (I guess no one is canning potatoes and other things from their harvests here…or I’m lookimg in the wrong place) but they are wickedly expensive in the US as well. Mine holds two 1 liter jars at a time…a painfully long process.

Books I would recommend are the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine and The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Recipes to Use Year-Round by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. These are two I currently have and you can find recipes to use up just about anything you’ve got to can with those. They include tips for how to do everything from water baths to pressure cooking.

As Shannon mentioned, tongs are a must…and a wide mouthed funnel is also very handy to keep mess to a minimum. I have a couple canning recipes on my blog but feel free to drop in and just ask me anything as well. Or on Twitter. I’m no expert but I’ve done a fair amount of canning thus far :)

]]> By: Summer http://newgreenerfamily.com/canning-food-for-beginners/comment-page-1/#comment-31 Summer Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:46:53 +0000 http://newgreenerfamily.com/?p=118#comment-31 Thanks for the tips Shannon! I was a bit intimidated to try a hot water bath, I assumed a pressure canner would be easier. I'll see about a pot instead. So far my tomatoes are tiny babies. I've got them in the kitchen, which stays the warmest, with no problems. It hasn't been cloudy here yet, but we'll see in a few months how dark it gets. Thanks for the tips Shannon! I was a bit intimidated to try a hot water bath, I assumed a pressure canner would be easier. I’ll see about a pot instead.

So far my tomatoes are tiny babies. I’ve got them in the kitchen, which stays the warmest, with no problems. It hasn’t been cloudy here yet, but we’ll see in a few months how dark it gets.

]]> By: Shannon http://newgreenerfamily.com/canning-food-for-beginners/comment-page-1/#comment-29 Shannon Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:52:22 +0000 http://newgreenerfamily.com/?p=118#comment-29 Summer, this was my first year canning. I felt really intimidated going into it, and decided to stick to the hot water bath canner (vs. the pressure canner), for the sake of both simplicity and frugality. I got the canner at my local hardware store for about $20. You can use a really big pot if you already have one, and can get your hands on a rack. You'll also need a pair of canning tongs for pulling the jars out of the hot water. But it's really an inexpensive proposition to get started, and you might be able to find a canner at a yard sale or from Craig's list. You can do both salsa and jams in a water bath canner, and it's actually really easy. There's a lot of web pages with step by step canning instructions with photos which were really useful to me in getting started. The biggest problem I found with doing it in the summer was the length of time I had to keep my stove on to heat the water and process the food, and how much it heated up the house. For the sake of both energy use and comfort I eventually started trying to do the processing outside on the burner of my propane grill, and that helped some, but it made it more of a pain, coming in and out of the house with the hot jars, dodging the kid and the dogs... If you succeed in growing tomatoes indoors this winter I'd be really interested to hear just how you did it, and it what temperature, and with what kind of light. We have two tomato plants inside at about 69 degrees in front of a south facing window, but we've had so much rain and overcast skies this fall that they're finally starting to fail. Plus, it seems that no matter what I bring into my house inevitably ends up with aphids, and I'm not sure what to do about that... Summer, this was my first year canning. I felt really intimidated going into it, and decided to stick to the hot water bath canner (vs. the pressure canner), for the sake of both simplicity and frugality. I got the canner at my local hardware store for about $20. You can use a really big pot if you already have one, and can get your hands on a rack. You’ll also need a pair of canning tongs for pulling the jars out of the hot water. But it’s really an inexpensive proposition to get started, and you might be able to find a canner at a yard sale or from Craig’s list. You can do both salsa and jams in a water bath canner, and it’s actually really easy. There’s a lot of web pages with step by step canning instructions with photos which were really useful to me in getting started. The biggest problem I found with doing it in the summer was the length of time I had to keep my stove on to heat the water and process the food, and how much it heated up the house. For the sake of both energy use and comfort I eventually started trying to do the processing outside on the burner of my propane grill, and that helped some, but it made it more of a pain, coming in and out of the house with the hot jars, dodging the kid and the dogs…

If you succeed in growing tomatoes indoors this winter I’d be really interested to hear just how you did it, and it what temperature, and with what kind of light. We have two tomato plants inside at about 69 degrees in front of a south facing window, but we’ve had so much rain and overcast skies this fall that they’re finally starting to fail. Plus, it seems that no matter what I bring into my house inevitably ends up with aphids, and I’m not sure what to do about that…

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