What size batches do you usually make? Trying to get an general idea of what needs the 1 vs 4 Tbl... Sounds delightful!
That's impressive. The zucchini relish, is it similar to sweet relish? Does it have a sweet taste? I do not like dill relish or dill pickles. When your talking "shredded" are they just small chunks?
I just go by feel for my batches. I look at my shreddings of veggies and start from there. Typically I start with 3 or 4 cups of vinegar and 3 to 4 cups of sugar. This will yield 7-9 pints I suppose. I may make a batch tomorrow morning along side my tomato sauce canning. I will start with 2 tblsp of salt and add from there for taste. Start on the low side with salt, as once it is in there it is too late to take it out.
Use a food processor for shredded veggies. Some folks chop everything, but that takes a long time. Like jam you can adjust sugar for taste. I have also made with equal parts vinegar, water and sugar. The sweetness is what makes it so good with savory foods. Plus I like adding a hot pepper to spice things up.
This morning's work...11 quarts tomato sauce and 6 pints of zucchini relish. The relish was made with a mix of things entirely from my garden...yellow and green zucchini, radish, 1 habanero, 1 full head of garlic, onions, red and green pepper. I have heard some people refer to such a hodge podge as "rummage salad relish."
I was thinking that's mighty yellow for zucchini..I always forget about there bring yellow zuccs. Do you chop the habanero and incorporate into the whole batch? Same with the garlic? Or do you put whole cloves in the jars? We need to stock up on jars and especially lids, when and if canning supplies come back around, for next year.
Everything went through my cheapo food processor set on "shred." It was one habanero and one head of garlic consisting of 7 large cloves.
I just kept pushing the pieces through, but would estimate on the higher side of 10-12 cups. After all is shredded I mixed in about 2 tbsp of canning salt and let it set a couple hours before draining it to pull out the moisture which also shrinks it down a bit.
Some of what I have put up so far this gardening season....60 quarts of tomato sauce; dill cucumber pickles, relishes, and cowboy candy. Today all the rings come off and this food gets brought down to the long term basement pantry to be organized on our shelves. For anyone interested, given the shortage of lids, I did experiment with a sample of 10 used lids from canned foods we have eaten. All 10 sealed perfectly. I am now going to be saving all lids from water bath canned foods and keep them separate for reuse if needed.
I've alway thought if a previously used lid didn't have any damage (dents, visible seal compound defects etc) you could probably reuse it....but you know how the food police are! What is cowboy candy?
Cowboy candy is sliced up hot peppers canned in a sweet vinegar sauce. In my case I used jalepeno, serrano, habenaro peppers, garlic and mustard seed. Sauce is equal parts white vinegar to sugar, with a little canning salt thrown in to sharpen the flavor. Then water bath pint jars for 15 minutes.
I used to save any commercial jar that used to have relish, jam or pickles in it. You know the kind with the screw lids that go pop when you open them. I would re-use and re-seal them for any jam or syrup I made. Usually use boiling water bath for them. I would save spaghetti jars and lids and do apple sauce in them in the same way. If you used a can opener to pry the lid away to make it pop, then the lid was useless for re-using.
We have done 6 qts rhubarb sauce, 24 qts pasta sauce, 17 pts & 10 qts canned tomatoes, 6 qts green beans, 18 pts salsa so far this year. We were far enough ahead on pickles and jelly that we didn't do any this year. It's really crunch time now though. I did my full time job yesterday, drove truck on soybean harvest til after dark, got up this morning before work, picked a double batch worth of tomatoes will go to work, drive truck again, and start canning when I get home tonight. Just wish I could borrow from long cold winter hours to add a few more to the days right now. Have a slug of green peppers to take care of in the next few weeks and hopefully find apples to can up 18 or so qts of sauce yet this fall, along with cooking up and freezing the buttercup squash. Why am I tired? Some of this morning's pickings. Last night's adventure. You bean farming long?
Just curious how much you all typically try to have canned by the end of season. A couple times we have had a crop failure weather it be hail/dry/disease/wet. Typically we at the end of canning season sit with roughly 1&1/2 to 2 years of canned food and it has bailed us out a time or two when we couldn't can something or other. The following year we accordingly plant to make the difference up.
Hi Hoarders, I bought a used pressure canner a year or so ago, he is thinking about using it tonight. The rubber seal feels supple, I vaguely recall the gal told me she had put a new gasket in it. But, there is documentation in there it's from 1944. Montgomery Wards "Magic Seal". Think it's safe? We have not tested the pressure gauge yet but the spring on the relief valve seems stout.
