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Old 07-05-2013, 09:00 PM
 
Location: Covington County, Alabama
259,023 posts, read 90,400,927 times
Reputation: 138557

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the most of the canning/freezing for us this year is the case of okra I bought and the hot peppers grown for vinegar pepper sauce. Like the "Cubs" say, wait till next year. I've formulated a new plan to try. I buy the seed/fertilizer and have locals with land share crop with me. Maybe it will work. Have one lineup to grow water melons and cantaloupes. Hopefully one for sweetcorn and okra and zipper cream peas. Now just need sweet potatoes.
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Old 07-06-2013, 12:10 AM
 
Location: The New England part of Ohio
23,973 posts, read 32,296,294 times
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My daughter - 17 - and I want to begin canning. We never have. I'm really afraid of the health risks involved. Are there any good links that could help two newbies?
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Old 07-06-2013, 05:05 AM
 
Location: Bella Vista, Ark
77,772 posts, read 104,447,648 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sheena12 View Post
My daughter - 17 - and I want to begin canning. We never have. I'm really afraid of the health risks involved. Are there any good links that could help two newbies?
Sheena,

think about how our grandparents or maybe even further back, depending on your age lived and how they had no choice but to spend the summers in the hot kitchen preparing foods for the winter. We are so much luckier today and we can control what goes into those jars. My daughter and I were talking about this yesterday.

We have dish washers to make sure our jars are free of any bacteria, we boil the lids and screw bands, the only way you would get spoilage would be if a jar doesn't seal and that is easy to know. They normally seal while being bathed if not within a few hours after. If one doesn't seal, you put it in the fridge and use it within a week or so.

It is best to start canning only foods that can be hot bathed, not foods that need to be pressured cooked. The things you can do with just bathing: tomatoes, salsa, jams, fruits, pickles, relishes, and anything high is acid, which are mostly what I just suggested. We also do beets, but we always pickle them, you can do okra as well.

There are lots of great cooking and canning books you can find at Sam's, at most any store or on line. I have a couple I love, but there are many more. After years of canning, we really don't even use the books that much. I will go on line periodically just to make sure I haven't forgotten something from year to year. I did this a couple of days ago. We just started doing green salsa and I wasn't quite sure as to what we used last year. A quick check was all we needed.
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Old 07-06-2013, 06:03 PM
 
1,902 posts, read 2,025,333 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sheena12 View Post
My daughter - 17 - and I want to begin canning. We never have. I'm really afraid of the health risks involved. Are there any good links that could help two newbies?

Ok so do you automatically trust any canned or packaged good you buy now as long as the date is good? Or if it looked "funny" or smelled "funny" would you throw it out regardless of what the date said?

Same thing applies in canning at home.

Start simple with low ph (acidic) recipes like pickling. Get some jars and lids, ph strips, and the ingredients for the recipe. Make your recipe, use the ph strip to check ph below 4.6. Boil the jars, lids and utensils in a pot. Fill them with the recipe leave a 1/2" space at the top. Put the lids on and screw down just past finger tight. (The idea is to get the lids tight enough to prevent water from the boil getting into the jar, ensuring solid seal contact and loose enough to let air/steam escape the jar when it gets hot). Boil in enough water to cover the tops of the jars and long enough to ensure even heating of all the jars. (ie quart jars will take longer than pint). Remove from heat and pull jars and set out to cool (canning jar tongs really help). When cool, unscrew the lid band (dont remove seal) and dry the seal and check by pressing top to make sure it sealed. Scew the lid band back on and store if it passes. If it didnt pass then immedietely reboil or store in fridge where it will keep just as long as an opened jar of pickles will (a month or more). It really is this simple. In fact if you just are after the taste/flavor of homemade canning and don't need to store lots of produce then skip the whole canning process. Just cook the recipe and pour it into clean jars screw the lids on and store in the fridge, enjoy the following week.

Once you get comfortable doing this and you want to can more things or you want to store non acidic food then get a good large pressure canner (garage sales will save you a lot of money in this area) and delve into pressure canning. This is the area you need to study up on and pay close attention when doing it. The top 2 things to remember are make sure you boil at over 240 F, which is equal to 10 psig pressure in a canner, for a lengthy period. You dont wanna mess around with that, and double check to make sure you compensate for altitude. You have to get over 240 F for the whole time period. The 2nd rule is "If in doubt, through it out".

Its not really that scary or dangerous though, no more so than trusting that big cannery is. If you do screw something up, you will know immediately when you open the jar if not before. I think buying anything from China, Vietnam, etc, is much more dangerous than home canning.

You can also reach out locally and find someone that can show you the ropes.
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Old 07-06-2013, 08:11 PM
 
16,488 posts, read 24,439,512 times
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I used to do canning, but don't anymore. I still wish I had a dehydrator though, I liked making fruit leather. I am planning on making raspberry freezer jam this summer, which I love.
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Old 07-08-2013, 04:44 AM
 
Location: Bella Vista, Ark
77,772 posts, read 104,447,648 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brokencrayola View Post
I used to do canning, but don't anymore. I still wish I had a dehydrator though, I liked making fruit leather. I am planning on making raspberry freezer jam this summer, which I love.
I think raspberry and blackberry jams are my favorites and I am not a jam eater. I eat very few sweets. As for freezer, I have yet to make any that firmed up enough. I gave up trying a few years ago.

There was a time we canned hundreds of jars, now we probably don't even do 100. The only reason we do that much is the salsa, we make so much of it and usually run out before the following year. I guess if we wouldn't share so much, we could make it last.
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Old 07-08-2013, 04:46 AM
 
Location: Covington County, Alabama
259,023 posts, read 90,400,927 times
Reputation: 138557
Have jars and if I can get a fresh crate of okra, okra pickles are a must do. Also if I can find gallon cans of cut beets we want to pickle them into quart jars. They are so expensive in the markets. Now to shop for a new pressure cooker before they are banned.
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Old 07-08-2013, 06:46 PM
 
1,458 posts, read 2,652,608 times
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Yesterday I did a dozen half pints of blueberry jam. It was extremely simple - 6 pints of blueberries, sugar, and a couple of lemons squeezed in. They jell really well.
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Old 07-08-2013, 10:39 PM
 
Location: Somewhere out there
18,287 posts, read 23,152,934 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sheena12 View Post
My daughter - 17 - and I want to begin canning. We never have. I'm really afraid of the health risks involved. Are there any good links that could help two newbies?
There is a very informative thread here on CD about canning in the recipe section other than that I would say pick up a Ball Blue Book it will give you basics and become your friend.

Who does Canning here?
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Old 07-10-2013, 03:24 PM
 
Location: Somewhere out there
18,287 posts, read 23,152,934 times
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Anybody ever combined gooseberries & red raspberries to make jam before? I have a gallon bag of gooseberries I don't know what I want to do with them. I use to make my sdad pies but he's been gone 3 years now he planted 2 bushes at his place but never got any berries before he died. I picked the other day this gallon in less than 10 minutes.
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