Canning Recipes...

Thanks for posting. My recipe is very similar except no tomato sauce and paste. What does that provide? Makes it thicker?

 

Great idea for a thread. I will be contributing a bunch once we get the recipes out. Going to try lots of pickled peppers this year.

 

I agree Adam. Great timing for this thread. I've never done any canning but I'm gonna giver it a go this year for sure. I've looked into it a little and think I'll get a water bath canning setup to start with. Pressure cookers are pretty spendy new. Which method do you guys use?

 

We do both in either a 8 or 16 quart canner, I can't remember. It's the one big enough to hold 8 quart jars so I assume it's an 8 quart. We have trouble getting it up to temp some times, so I think I will try it out on the burn barrel this year.

 

I use boiling water bath for fruit, tomatoes, pickles and jams and pressure cooker for fish, meat and veggies. I just finished canning 21 1/2 pts of pink salmon and coho my BIL brought over last night. I posted a seven day pickle recipe on Pickling Time thread by basod

http://firewoodhoardersclub.com/forums/index.php?threads/pickling-time.4801/

Looking into getting some cherries on sale later this afternoon.

 

Be careful of deviating from recipes for boiling water bath - adding vegetables outside of tomatoes(salsas with peppers/onions/cilantro etc.) changes the pH of the canned product and can result in botulism.
Dill pickles/peppers etc. in vinegar are fine as acidity is not really altered - not the case with bread & butter pickles/sweet pickles.

I do Rotel(diced tomatoes&jalepenos) blanched peeled & diced with no vinegar just boiling water and a 1/2tsp canning salt in boiling bath without issues, again tomatoes have their own acidity.

Best way to prep tomatoes for canning: get a pot of water going and a bowl with ice & water in the sink. Drop tomatoes 3-4 at a time in boiling water, remove after 3mins straight into ice bath(replenish as it melts) more tomatoes into boiling water then start removing skins under cold running water , core and chop. 3-4 at a time is about what I can keep up with the boiling ones.

 

I can tomatoes to use in soups and spaghetti sauces so I don't bother peeling them. I (or else Campinspecter) slice them in 1/2 slices, heat them up in a little water which gets juicier as you do more, hot pack them into jars and then process for 20 mins in the boiling water. Peeled tomatoes are nice but as basod explained, it is quite a process.

 

Does anyone have any interesting pickle recipes or pickled pepper recipes?

 

There's another option for whole tomatoes - flash freezing them, easy to do when over run with Roma tomatoes
I put a sheet pan in the chest freezer let it get cold and then lay washed and dried tomatoes on it, after frozen transfer to a freezer bag in quantities that I'll use for chili or soups. Putting the freezer bags into a brown paper bag seems to help with freezer burn.
Run them under hot water and the skins peel right off.

 

Doesn't seem to take 1-2 Roma plants for a bushel of them

 

I have 12 plants total, Rutgers Atkinsons Early Girl, and a Big Boy if I recall correctly - I still have bags of Roma's from last year, and I didn't plant a sweet 100 cherry because I seem to never be able to eat them all

 

What a good idea. I hadn't heard of doing that before. It would be a quick way to process tomatoes.

In my previous post, I meant to say 1/2" slices.

 

It's the "easy" way of doing it and it really does work provided you don't have to worry about power outages from large storms in the non-winter months...I figure I've got a good 2-3 days before the thermal mass of the freezer gets above 30F in the summer, during Tornado season here in the spring I could go a week before having to hook up a generator.
I don't really have to worry about hurricanes being inland...just the spin off low class tornadoes (~200 post Katrina) those are rare but can be a very real reality

 

I will be cold packing spicy pickles this year. I could post that recipe if you like.