Thank you for visiting my canning cellar!

Salsa!  here’s the ingredients I used

10 lbs green tomatoes chopped 
 8 cups onions
 2 teaspoons dried red pepper flakes
 8 lg red peppers chopped
 6 garlic cloves minced
 1 cup dried basil
 1 cup lime juice
1 cup lemon juice
1 cup  apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon cumin
4 tsp black pepper 
1 tablespoon sugar

• I washed the tomatoes and used the serrated knife to remove the stem part and any other blemishes, and used my food processor to chop them up, not bothering to remove the seeds or skin. I did the same with the onions and the peppers although I did remove the pepper seeds, and mixed them in the Mirro pot with the lime and lemon juice, the vinegar, salt, cumin, oregano, pepper and sugar. I let this all simmer for about 30 minutes, then I drained it all using the large strainer. I used the smaller strainer to weigh them on the postage scale. After it all drained, I used the funnel and a measure cup to fill pint jars to 1/2 inch head space. I wiped the rims using a vinegar soaked lint free cloth, put on the lids, and did just a tad more than finger tighten the rings, which I find makes them seal better for some reason using this canner. I water bath them for 20 minutes for my altitude above sea level. I used the jar lifter to remove them after letting them sit with the canner cover off for about five minutes to help the contents settle down, and then put them on a dish towel covered table. The dish towel is to avoid shocking the hot jars when put on a cooler surface.

I got 9 pints of salsa.

For the sauce I used the same equipment I used earlier, only this time I did not chop the tomatoes first.  Recipe linked below

As an FYI, the salsa and the sauce drained out a lot of tiny pieces of tomatoes so be sure to have a really good strainer in the sink or you may have a mess in your drain. 
Thank you for visiting my canning cellar. Talk soon. Stay safe.

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_03/spaghetti_sauce.html

https://laurelleaffarm.com/item-pages/farm/stainless-milk-strainer.htm

Pizza Sauce, Update on Evelyn's Jam

What I used for equipment was my presto precise digital canner, my electronic postal scale,  a dutch oven stovetop pot, a jar lifter, a canning funnel, a measure cup, a de-bubbler, a strainer, a wooden spoon, a dish towel, a vinegar soaked lint free cloth, small serrated knife. 

What I used for ingredients: 

10 pounds tomatoes

3 tablespoons oil, and I had some store bought fancy oil that I used, fancy meaning it was an Italian flavored one that I bought it at Big Lots on the after Christmas clearance sale in January

4 chopped onions

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 tablespoons dried Italian seasoning

3 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground pepper

4 tablespoons tomato paste

lemon juice

I filled the dutch oven pot almost half full of hot water and brought it to a simmer, then turned off the heat and put one layer of washed tomatoes in it, just long enough for the skins to start slipping off easily. Before I put them in the water I had scored each of them on one end with an x using the sharp knife. I used the jar lifter to take them out of the water, it only took about 30 seconds in the hot water. I put the oil into the emptied dutch oven pot and cooked the onions and garlic until the onions were translucent, added the spices, and then added the skinned and cored tomatoes. I had weighed the tomatoes before putting them into the hot water using my postage scale. I used my immersion blender to smush it all down. I let this cook down about an hour, stirring occasionally with the wooden spoon, then added the tomato paste. I then ladled the mixture into the hot canning jars, using the measure cup and funnel, de-bubbled them, and for this I used my actual canning de-bubbler but I’ve also been known to use other thin items that are not metal…the metal could be mean to the jar and cause a break if one is too rugged with the de-bubbling… I added 3/4 teaspoon bottled lemon juice to each jar, not for flavor but to ensure the correct acidity level for safe water bath processing. Then I wiped each rim with the vinegar soaked cloth to be sure they were clean of any sauce, then put on the lids and finger tightened the rings. I water bathed these for 25 minutes. I had found several different pint times so I took the longest, and even though I did quarter pints I still used the pint time which is what’s recommended. When the canning cycle was complete, I removed the canner cover and let the jars sit in the canner for about five minutes, just enough to let them simmer down a little so they didn’t spit at me. I used the jar lifter to remove them and set them on a dish towel. I ended up with 7 quarter pints, plus enough left over to put on two pieces of toast and a couple of crackers.

https://nchfp.uga.edu

Blueberry Jam!

My friend Nancy generously picked and gifted us 4 pounds of blueberries. Evelyn plans on entering jam at the fair again this year, last year she won a blue ribbon for her raspberry jam. I measured the blueberries out into two bags of 6 cups each and froze them until she and I were able to do some canning. I had looked at the recipe I was going to follow to know how many to put in each bag. 

What I used for equipment was the Presto digital canner, a strainer, a dutch oven pot, a old fashioned handheld potato masher the kind with the square holes, a wooden spoon, a 4 cup measure cup, a half cup measure cup, canning funnel, pot holders, a lint free dish cloth,  dish towel, jar lifter.

What I used for ingredients were blueberries, sugar, a box of powdered pectin and a pat of butter.

The morning we canned, I let the two bags of berries thaw out separately in strainers to get rid the little bit of water from being frozen. I made two batches of jam, making each one separately as research tells me that doubling a jam or jelly recipe can often lead to canning failure. I personally have never tried that so can’t say by experience.

I used the directions that came with the Sure Jel brand pectin, so besides the pectin and blueberries, I used 4 cups of sugar and a pat of butter. The butter is to reduce the foam that forms on top of the bubbling jam, and normally I just skim it off and save to eat. Foam is good to eat, it just takes up room in a jar that is best served by the actual product plus for entering contests it looks better without it. The butter did its job, I had no foam to skim off of either batch.

After rinsing the blueberries, making sure there were no stems attached, Evelyn used the potato masher to smash the berries in the dutch oven pot. As it’s a jam, she wasn’t concerned about making them too liquidy so she left a nice amount of blueberry clumps. Then she added the pat of butter, and sprinkled the pectin in, mixing them thoroughly with the wooden spoon as it all came to a rolling boil. At this point, she added the 4 cups of sugar and kept stirring and mixing, letting it come back to a rolling boil, which is a boil that can not be stirred down. She let that boil for one minute, and we also put a thermometer in it to watch till it came up to 220 degrees Fahrenheit which is the temperature at which it is supposed to set.

She already had the 8 ounce jelly jars warmed up in the canner, so I took each one out and because the jam was so very hot, I handled the jar filling using the half cup measure cup to fill the jars also using the canning funnel. I wiped each rim off with a lint free washcloth that I continually rinsed in hot water, put the lids on and finger tightened the rings. One jelly jar was a drinking jar with a plastic cover, so I filled that one and set aside for her to take home to put in their fridge. When putting jelly or jam into the fridge right off, it doesn’t have to be processed.

The jam processed for 10 minutes on the water bath cycle, then after the first batch was done I removed the canner cover and let the jars sit for 5 minutes just to let the jars simmer down a bit, then removed them using the jar lifter, and set them on a dish towel. 

While Evelyn’s batch was processing, I had my batch cooking, so I was able to put the 2nd batch in fairly quickly after hers was done. 

Each batch gave us six 8 ounce jars.

https://nchfp.uga.edu