Canning recipes?

[Poindexter]

Open to ideas. I have only run my canner twice, salmon both times. First batch was 11 half pints, second batch was 15 half pints. My canner is supposed to handle 19 half pint jars per batch, I am working up to that.

For salmon (+ possible trout and steelhead) I am working from here with good results:

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For my first run I did three with 1/3 of a jalapeno in each, and it was a waste. Just a bit of grassy flavor, even with all the seeds left in. On the second run I did two half pints with a quarter teaspoon on salt and half a jalapeno (with all seeds in the jar), those are still cooling.

Leave the skin on. 110 minutes (1:50) at 10 psi is more than adequate to autoclave surgical instruments. If you got room in your canner you could do one jar with some forceps, scissors and a bit of suture material.

For the second run I have started skinning fillets and know which knife of mine to sharpen for run #3. If you were to search on "canned smoked salmon" you will inevitably arrive at forums dot outdoors directory dot net where many of my neighbors cold smoke skinned salmon, and then process for 100 minutes at 11 psi. With 2 runs under my belt, I am not that skilled yet and am sticking with 110 minutes (1:50) at ten psi.

I do not yet have the hardware for cold smoking. It is on my shortlist of things to do.

I put myself on a No Added Salt (NAS) diet years ago. My darling wife, who insisted on my permission to die first before accepting my wedding proposal, prefers a quarter teaspoon of salt in each half pint. I prefer salmon canned just plain, nothing in the canning jar but cut up pieces of fish, because when I make a salmon salad for dips or sandwiches, the added pickles and capers bring plenty of salt for me.

I used Himalayan blah blah pink salt in the first batch and it was good. In the second batch I used some Mediterranean sea salt (Sicily), that batch is still cooling.

Second, a recipe that has been in my family since before 1940, the Koenig sisters' (north central Kansas) Dill Pickle. In a mason jar place one peeled clove of garlic, one frond of dill with leaves, and one frond of dill with blooms. Fill canning jar with cucumbers cut to suit, quartered lengthwise is popular. Prepare brine, 1t salt, 1 pint of vinegar (distilled white), 1 tsp alum per each 1 gallon of water. Bring brine to a boil. Pour boiling brine directly into jars, seal tightly, cellar. Do NOT process in canner.

There is a knack to the pickles my mom didn't get growing up with my grandma. Mom was the first in her family to earn a bachelors degree, first to earn a masters and first to earn a doctorate. She thinks a LOT about stuff. Grandma grew up speaking German at home, had to learn English at point of law to stay in public school in the 1920s, and just got stuff done. If you are going to make these, as I am, don't over think it, just git 'er done. When my grandma went on hospice in the mid 1990s I had two quarts of her pickles in my meager cellar. The quart I opened that night (18 years old) was good. I opened the last quart 20 years after it was made and it was a little bit mushy, but quite edible.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

My mother cans venison. When we lived within an easy drive of her, she’d always make venison stew for our lunch or dinner with her canned meat and vegetables. Yum.

I don’t have any particular recipes to suggest, Poindexter, but I used to visit a website called Freshpreserving.com to get safe recipes for canning a particular ingredient. It looks like it redirects to ballmasonjars.com now, but it looks like the same recipes.

@begreen, we eat a lot of ferments in our home, though I can’t say that I’ve ever tried cauliflower. We love sauerkraut and kimchi and dill pickles. We also like dilly carrots and dilly beans. Sadly this year I haven’t had enough cucumber production to pickle anything, whereas last year I had to buy extra jars and still ended up giving pounds and pounds of cucumbers away. What a difference rain makes!

The only thing we still have from last summer of our ferments is pickled hot banana peppers. We enjoy adding those to hamburgers or other sandwiches. If you haven’t pickled peppers, Begreen, you should definitely give that a try. Pickled radish is also great.

 

[Tonty]

My wife does quite a bit of canning home grown garden produce in the summer. On the pickle side, she does various dill pickles, pickled okra, pickled green beans, pickled banana peppers, and also a red hot cinnamon cucumber pickle. (Those are a lot of work.) Then she also cans tomato juice, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes sometimes, and salsa. We butcher our own pigs in the winter, so that involves pressure cooking/canning sausage and also pressure cooked/canned pork chunks. We freeze most of our sausage, but I actually prefer it canned sometimes, so she does a bit of that for me. It’s been a while since we made sauerkraut. I’m the about the only one here that likes it, so I don’t get much support for that one. “Stealing” some of that out of the crock after it’s fermented awhile and before it is canned is sure good!

 

[ABMax24]

My grand parents always had canned food in their house, carrots, beets, beans, pickles, onions, moose meat, etc. Lots of jams with fresh garden fruit as well.

Much of the recipes have been lost to time though, at least those not written down, once my parents had enough money to stop eating canned food they did and bought everything fresh, or froze what wouldn't keep as fresh. Most of the recipes were pretty simple though; vinegar, salt and sometimes sugar were about it, and was done as a necessity for survival as much as anything.

 

[Montanalocal]

One thing we make that is a bit unusual is making coleslaw out of turnips. If you try it once, you will never maker coleslaw out of cabbage again. It has a uniquely different flavor. You can make coleslaw out of radishes and other root vegetables also.

 

[begreen]

Moved fermentation methods from the canning thread to here:

Fermentation for food preservation

Edit: Moved from canning thread to a new one on fermentation preservation Last year I made my own dill pickles for the first time by fermenting our cukes in a brine solution. Everything was homegrown except the salt, just pickling cukes, garlic, and dill. I added whole Thai chili pepper to the...

www.hearth.com

 

[Poindexter]

I did my first hot pack today, by the book white potato in half inch dice except I only used half the salt they (NCHFP) call for. I was able to do everything in the driveway except heat the canning jars, those were in the oven in the kitchen upstairs.

I do now have a sideburner head off a propane grill fabricated into a turkey fryer stand, the one with a 5 gallon stock pot. Starting with room temperature distilled water, three jugs at one gallon each, 15k BTU/ hr output required one hour and 8 minutes to get the water boiling, with the lid on the stock pot. I used that pot to fill the individual jars with boiling distilled water after the potato cubes were in the jar.

The cauldron - 15 gallon open top- has the 50k BTU/hr burner under it. I put right at five gallons of cold water in the cauldron from my garden hose (~45dF) and was able to get the water boiling in 20-21 minutes. Cooked/ blanched the potato cubes in the cauldron. Sounded vaguely like a flightline with that thing at full roar.

It took me 27 minutes to load my 14 pint jars of potato - from empty jars in the oven upstairs to loaded jars in the canner ready to put the lid on the canner. I know I can do that faster and already have a plan for something to try next time.

The manual that came with my canner says 5 pounds of potato are required per quart to be canned. I knew that wasn't right. I bought 15# of potato, after peeling and dicing blah blah I needed 8.75# of potato in a sack at the store to fill my 14 pint jars, with rather a lot of blanched diced potato in the fridge to get through this week, 6 pints +2 quarts over to be precise. I am using wide mouth jars, and I am packing them loose enough to get the debubbler in there without crushing my dice and releasing a bunch of starch into the water, I hit 5/8 of a pound per pint jar today, 0.625#, right around ten ounces of potato per jar.

 

[Poindexter]

I did build a speed rack for hot packing pints and widemouth half pints today. It is nominal 21x13 inches. The only thing I measured was the short scrap of furring strip so I could cut three similar pieces off my long scrap.

I should be able to load this with seven hot jars, and then load the jars and fill with hot water etc etc with adequate room to use 7 canning funnels all at once if I had that many, and adequate space to clean the rims and check the rims and lid the rims, all the steps, without the jars tipping over or knocking into one another. FWIW my canner can handle 14 pints per load, 7 up and 7 down.

I used a holesaw labelled 3 1/4 inches because I had it and it was close enough. For layout I used the two canning funnels I do have. This is strictly scrap plywood and get 'er done WYSIWYG. Pics are glue up. I did use PVA glue for this, yellow wood glue like from Elmer's. I am transitioning to hide/hoof/ fish glue in my shop, but the natural glues can be undone with heat and water and time. Those three items are exactly what this item needs to resist, so PVA is perfect here. I specifically used Titebond 2, which is food safe, but it shouldn't matter, any PVA glue will do.

I used my thickest plywood scrap for the base layer, 23/32 (nominal 3/4 inch) for weight bearing. The second layer could be 1/4 inch luan or possibly even be left out - but I want a glue line to protect my finger tips from boiling hot water after the jars are lidded on their way to the canner.

In pic one you will see I have a continuous glue line around the finger cut outs at each corner, and a line that will be repeated in subsequent layers.

Trying to laminate plywood to plywood is problematic. If you need something you can't buy in stores for a boat, like 1 1/2 inch or two inch plywood you are going to need epoxy, a vacuum bag system, experience, and heart felt prayer to a smiling higher power. Or you can just glue up the areas you really need with PVA, cut your holes a bit over and let it move seasonally. I pushed the easy button on this one, as subsequent pics will show.

Once my glue is dry tomorrow I will take off the clamps, and then add some screws. My plan is two screws from below though and into each furring strip so the fool thing hold together, and one screw into each furring strip from above so the top doesn't come off but is free to move seasonally.

 

[Poindexter]

Busted download on the last pic, second attempt:

 

[Poindexter]

With the speed rack I was able to get 14 pints into the canner in less than 27 minutes by - two minutes. I got it done in 25:08 the second time around, using my homebuilt speed rack. I have no idea how long regular experienced people need, the youtubes I have seen cut most of that out.

Another reason I am canning potato this year is the 2022 harvest is expected to be notably poor, at least north of the Alaska range. I am seeing plenty of potato from the Mat-Su region just north of Anchorage, but the local varieties I really like got flooded last fall. I am getting gluten free shelf stable carbs out of this; and hoping the farmers get enough seed potato this year for me to see Delta Red and Delta Purple in stores again next year. Both are fabulous when making potato dominoes ala Francis Mallman.

I am gearing up for tomato, even though I am not harvesting any of my own. I made a batch of the "Fiesta Salsa" in the current (2022 purchase, no copyright date on the 37th edition) Ball Blue Book on page 36. I left out the onion, the zucchini and the vinegar. I did not simmer and I did not can, I just assembled and refrigerated. It is disappearing fast. I used a 50-50 mix of canned organic tomato from Italy and fire roasted Roma from Kroger. I did add the zest of the lime that died to give me the lime juice I needed.

Internet data on the final acidity of fire roasted tomato is unacceptable. The flavor is much enhanced with some Malliard going on. The recipe from Ball can handle more acid, me having left out the vinegar. Based on the processing time (hot pack, 15 minutes water bath at <1000 fsl) the goop in the jar should measure 4.6pH or less.

I will likely get on Amazon for a food grade pH meter, and there is on youtube a datalogger that can go inside a canning jar, get processed and still output data. I need one of those to make sure my mincemeat recipe is safe for the young, the old and the immunocompromised.

And my wife brought home 26 salmon (52 filets) from her recent trip to the ocean. I put a bunch in the freezer, but still put up 104 half pints. That was a long day.

 

[Poindexter]

Actually, I canned 110 half pints, but six didn't deal, so I am putting 104 in the cellar.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

@Poindexter, your speed rack looks amazing. I’m sure you’ll get faster with practice. Actually, I’m not sure, because 25 minutes sounds like a pretty good time to me for 14 pints. I’m not a quick one in the kitchen. I’m pretty floored by your canning 110 half pints of salmon. Congratulations!

I don’t own the Ball Blue Book, but I’m curious about the Fiesta Salsa recipe you mention. Zucchini? I think my neighbor owns a copy of the Blue Book, so I may have a chance to check it out in the future if it’s in her edition.

There’s a Fiesta Salsa recipe on the Ball Mason Jars website, but I’ve never used it because it calls for a packaged mix. I have made several others off the site, and our family’s favorite is definitely the Salsa Ranchera. We like lime juice as our acid in preference to vinegar. We also in one batch substituted an herb that we have in our landscaping, Mexican Oregano (not as strong as Greek Oregano), for the cilantro as I have some kids who prefer that flavor profile. I made six pints of the cherry tomato and corn salsa last summer, but I don’t plan to do so again as it has proved to be less enjoyable (too sweet) for our palates. It’s not bad; we just consistently choose the Salsa Ranchera pints over the cherry tomato ones.

This summer I haven’t had enough tomatoes to make a single batch of salsa, though we do have enough to enjoy them with our garden salad.

 

[begreen]

My wife doesn't like canned salsa so she makes fresh salsa weekly. In the summer we use our own tomatoes which really amps up the flavor. Otherwise, we make it with canned, diced tomatoes (S&W organic), diced fresh peppers, onions, cumin, cilantro and lime juice. The Ringmaster onions we are growing are a nice treat in salsa.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

My wife doesn't like canned salsa so she makes fresh salsa weekly. In the summer we use our own tomatoes which really amps up the flavor. Otherwise, we make it with canned, diced tomatoes (S&W organic), diced fresh peppers, onions, cumin, cilantro and lime juice. The Ringmaster onions we are growing are a nice treat in salsa.

Interesting. I like both fresh and canned salsas, but I’ve never though of making a fresh salsa with canned tomatoes. That’s the part that changes the most in my mind with the canning process, but I might just have to give it a try sometime to see what it’s like. When I make a fresh salsa, I keep everything raw, perhaps more like pico de gallo.

That Ringmaster onion looked like it would be a treat in just about anything. It, of course, made me think of onion rings.

 

[Montanalocal]

Do you think you could dehydrate tomatoes to keep them over to winter to make salsa?

 

[Poindexter]

While I have one of the children home I am making a small batch of salsa daily to get dialed in. I am using 6 tomatoes and trying different varieties, one seeded anaheim, one seeded jalapeno, 3 cloves garlic chopped fine, the zest and juice of one lime, and about a half teaspoon of Redmond Ancient Salt (tm). I have an onion allergy in the house to work around.

I like the redmond pretty OK, wife loves it, but it isn't very salty on a spoon per spoon basis. For kosher or sea salt I would cut the more saltier salt varieites in half and ease upwards. Salt is just a seasoning. If you like really salty corn chips you may want less salt in your salsa, judgement free zone here.

I haven't actually canned any tomato or salsa yet. I have found the hot house vine ripened tomato from Kroger are fairly watery, but the flavor is OK after a good fire roasting, and having extra water to cook down when heating the finished salsa so it can then be hot packed and canned might be a good thing.

I am planning to can mostly crushed/diced tomato in its own juice that might make a fine salsa base later as well as a homemade recipe ready stand-in, plus some ketchup and some jars of salsa.

I was going to buy a pH meter last night, but fell into one of the food safety rabbit holes trying to pick a pH meter I will be happy with.

@Montanalocal You can dehydrate tomato for sure. We have a dehydrator, and I like the shelf stable aspect of dried foods, but my electricity price is so high I mostly just use it for garden fresh herbs. Re-hydrating tomato that has been dehydrated is kinda problematic. I would think you could do that for part of your tomato ingredient, but I don't think I would try to make a batch of salsa using dehydrated tomato only.

 

[Poindexter]

And I got a mince meat recipe, from the Delphi, Indiana Disciples of Christ Christian Church ladies group circa 1970-1972. The spice in this are perfect, it is, ahem, the raisin pie I grew up on

@begreen , do you have the power to delete post 2 in this thread, mincemeat? It is too late for me to edit it, but there are some food safety issues. If you just delete the whole thing I will start over on mincemeat starting....now

So mincemeat. If I wanted raisin pie I would have ordered raisin pie.

The fundamental issue is the very fruits can be brought to pH 4.6 or less fairly easily and water bathed. The meat is a low acid food and will need to be pressure canned. Current (2022) guidelines in the Ball Guide to Preserving are looking for beef, lamb, mutton, pork veal and praise Jesus venison to be fully cooked and then pressure processed at 10psi, 1:15 for pints and 1-30 for quarts.

This kind of processing for the meat will turn the fruit into mush. BRB

 

[Poindexter]

So my plan is to come up with a fruit and spice and acid component that can be waterbathed, and process it in pints. When I am ready for a mincemeat pie I will cook up a pound of meat, dice it, mix it with the pint of waterbathed fruit, put it in a pie crust...

 

[Nealm66]

I’ve canned beef stew and chili. Just grabbed a recipe out of a book and canned them. Wish I could remember the powder I used in the 1st chili I canned. Tried Costco powder the 2nd time and not as good. Definitely better than the store bought

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Do you think you could dehydrate tomatoes to keep them over to winter to make salsa?

I think you could, but I don’t think I’d want to. We dehydrate tomatoes, but we do it just to preserve and enjoy the dried product. My kids could eat them like candy. I occasionally use them as a pizza topping or put some into a dish, but that is only as an accent not as a main ingredient.

I do recall that once last year I made some sort of cucumber salad or maybe tzatziki using dehydrated cucumbers. It worked acceptably but wasn’t something I’d want if I had a different choice. I think we decided it was more satisfying just to eat the dried cucumbers like a chip with goat cheese dip.

 

[Poindexter]

I am removing canned salsa from my fall line-up. I did one batch yesterday with Kroger vine ripe and Kroger Roma, all fire roasted, recipe above. Salsa was good but over moist. Tonight I simmered that batch for five minutes to get some of the water out and re-served it as a new recipe.

Also did Kroger Romas with local small farm slicers, all fire roasted as a new batch tonight.

My wife, my at home child and I all three did not like the simmered batch as much as we liked it fresh last night. Various reasons, but unanimous votes.

So I am not going to bother trying to can salsa, but will put up canned tomato intended to become salsa and see how that goes.

 

[begreen]

So I am not going to bother trying to can salsa, but will put up canned tomato intended to become salsa and see how that goes.

That's the way we work it once the fresh tomatoes are no longer growing. I am not fond of canned salsa like Pace, there's little comparison to fresh, even with canned diced tomatoes. We use the S&W organic for the flavor, and because they are a bit less acidic, and because Costco carries them.

@begreen , do you have the power to delete post 2 in this thread, mincemeat? It is too late for me to edit it, but there are some food safety issues. If you just delete the whole thing I will start over on mincemeat starting....now

Can do.

 

[Poindexter]

Put up a batch of NM Hatch Chilies today. $2.49/# at Kroger right now. I never tried to explain to my wife how much I love Hatch Chilies. If I was driving from Seattle to Boston this time of year, and had a fast enough car, I would stop by New Mexico en route to get some Hatch's on my food. So I canned a bunch of them today.

The recipe at University of New Mexico only goes down to 2001 feet above sea level, but I found pretty much the same guidance at Utah State University extension with an entry for 0-2000 fsl altitude. I think it was 35 minutes at 11 psig for the 0-2000 foot range, but you really should look it up yourself if you want to do it.

As others have adequately documented, the sweet/ heat balance in Hatch green chilies is why Hatch's are so expensive.

I did mine with just boiling water to cover the fruit to one inch headspace, as guided by UNM. There is a ton of fabulous food joints in the four corners area serving Hatch's. In every small town there is a 'little cafe', 'where they play guitars are night and all day,' 'you can hear them in the background strumming." That is the place you want, just drive around until you find it. Someday we will look back on this and it will all be funny.

The good news about the UNM recipe is it covers all seven of what they describe as "the seven" green chilies, so I did some jalapeno too.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Do you know what variety the NM Hatch chilies actually were, Poindexter?

My neighbor bought a pepper plant at a nursery this summer that was labeled as a Hatch Chile Pepper, but it also specified Anaheim as the variety. I suppose now that it’s bearing fruit in Texas, it can’t be called a Hatch Pepper any more.

Our local grocery store (H-E-B) practically has a festival of Hatch Chile Peppers every year where they appear in all sorts of products. You’d love it. We did get some Hatch pepper jack cheese on sale the other week. It was good, but I think we actually prefer the jalapeño variety. I was surprised to learn when I was reading about Hatch peppers some time ago that H-E-B’s promotion of them seems to have helped increase their popularity across the nation. I’m not quite sure why that would be since H-E-B is a Texas chain (and not even in all of Texas). I forgot where I read the article, but it wasn’t a Texas publication, so I didn’t take it to be self-aggrandizement as does happen in this state. My memory of it is fuzzy now.

I have never canned peppers. I’ve dried them and powdered them or dried them and left them whole. I’ve also frozen them but never canned them unless as an ingredient in salsa. I’ve fermented them, and that does preserve them but not for as long as canning. I still have just a few pickled hot banana peppers from last year, but we’re close to the end, and I don’t have good replacements for them yet in my garden. Here’s hoping there might still be a crop to come.

 

[Poindexter]

Do you know what variety the NM Hatch chilies actually were, Poindexter?

I don't know. I do know the salsa I made with Hatch's Thursday night was good enough my wife was willing to watch some youtubes.

In one of them a credible presenter said flatly that Hatch chile are genetically identical to Anaheim peppers, it is the dirt and the water and the sun in the area around Hatch, NM that makes them grow different and taste different than other Anaheims. The terroir.