Canning

No garden this year so I didn’t think of this before. I haven’t seen an actual thread about this. Next week is going to be a canning marathon around here. Things coming out of the freezer or smoker for the canner, fish, beaver, nutria, beef and pork, hopefully some elk soon. Picked up a few things at the close down sales for the local farm stands too. Started off with two cases of cat meat from the lion tagged last Monday.

Any fellow canners here? Favorite things to put up and recipes to preserve?





Owl

 

I have started a few canning threads in the past here, but since it tends to be a somewhat season activity, they get buried.

My routine for the year typically includes venison, fish, berries/jam, tomato sauces, salsa, pepper jelly, pickled beets, relish, cucumber pickles, and dill beans.

 

I haven't done much in the way of canning over the last few years. When I did, it was mainly fish, tomatoes and fruit. It is rather satisfying to see all the jars stacked up in the pantry.

 

Port McNeil, don’t you have some great salmon fishing. Canned smoked salmon is fit for any pantry shelf. Did you ever can spruce tips, a lady I know in SE does this. Especially when the kids were still home a full pantry sure helped me breathe easier.



Owl

 

Port McNeill is probably the best salmon fishing place on the coast. I can plain salmon as campinspecter isn't keen on anything smoked. Never heard of canning spruce tips. Just googled it. It sounds different alright. So no, I haven't canned spruce tips.

 

I'm trying to get the wife interested in canning so we can enjoy our garden year around.

 

thread somewhere here.
Preppers, are you one?

titled something like that.
a fair amount of information there.

 

Im in that pm yes. I actually want to build a traditional root cellar for longer term food storage. I haven't picked a spot yet but it wouldn't be visible from the road thats for sure. Canned venison is about the only way I like it, outside of jerky or sausage sticks. Instead of giving them away we could get usage from them plus the garden produce we grow.

 

We typically can lots of stuff. Garden was a failure this year because of all the rain we got at an inappropriate time. Never dried enough to re plant. Still have lots left from last year’s though. Last weekend we put up 14 pints of mincemeat from the moose we got in October. Wife is the only one here that will eat that garbage. Working on doing 3 20 pound turkeys right now. Did 11 pints yesterday. Have to see what December brings for venison. Haven’t been able to get out this month because we are so far behind in everything this year between the weather and other stuff.

 

This years garden wasn’t my best. In late July we had a devastating hail storm. We canned potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, chicken broth,grape juice, apple and grape jelly. We also freeze dried 5 chickens , a bushel of beans and a half bushel of tomatoes. Put a 1/4 beef in the freezer.







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Above, boneless chicken meat
Below, chicken and beef broth



Rendered chicken fat for the freezer


Bean soup from homegrown Ireland Creek Annie beans and homegrown smoked turkey instead of ham.


Squash canned in chicken broth for squash soup. It really carmelized.


Somehow I fluffed getting pictures of what 51 lbs of ground meat (turkey, beef, pork) in jars looks like. There's still a bag or two of grapes (Kay Gray and Swenson Red) to do something with plus a few gallon bags of assorted fruits to make into jam and jelly.
With few exceptions I only eat what I raise, gather, hunt, or fish for.

 

Looks good. That's a lot of work right there!
What do you do with the rendered chicken fat?

I've canned turkey/chicken bone broth.....makes for good soup stock.

your collection looks good.

 

I haven't canned anything in 4 years. I gave up on gardening, I couldn't keep the deer out of it.

 

Shoot them suckers and then can em.

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Nothing like chicken fat for frying taters or greasing the fry pan for scrambled eggs.

 

so I've rendered lard for that, but never chicken.
So you just grab all the fatty pieces and heat slowly as with lard?

 

Yup, same process. When I'm whacking chickens, even the ones for sale, I keep a good portion of the fat for rendering. When all the butchering is done it's time to get the fat in the pan. Once rendered and strained it goes into wide mouth pint jars and into the freezer so it doesn't take up space in the spare fridge.

 

I have the ability to can. I have a pressure canner as well as a water bath. I have enough jars to put up over 120 quarts and pints.

I generally just buy canned foods in stock up. The jars are for stuff I get either from farmers market, relatives or surplus.

my plan is to use canned foods to get through the first growing season and then can The harvest. I have an heirloom seeds to be able to get through two or three growing seasons in stock

 

That's neat. I guess I never did bulk chicken processing enough to grab that much fat.

Store-bought chicken is sketchy at best, not sure I'd render that fat.

 

I think a freeze dryer would be a blast to have, unfortunately it's not on the horizon at the prices asked. I have 3 Excalibur forced air dehydrators and they do the job (albeit differently) for me. The apple crop last year was amazing in it's size, had 19 gallons of dried apples plus 15 qts of apple leather, 60 quarts of cider and lots of fresh eating. They were late coming on so some weren't ready even in late October.

It really stinks when the garden is a bust no matter the reason. Did you dry the chicken cooked or raw? Curious about that since you'd have to rehydrate to eat. I have no idea what the process is. What about fruits and veggies?