Canning, Preserving Food

🥫Canning & Preserving Foods🥫

Home-canned fig preserves, my photo.

My figs photo

Fig Preserves - I can mine the same as pear preserves. Equal amounts of figs and sugar. Cook until desired thickness, then can them. (Pictured above.)
Pick Your Own recipe and directions - Fig Preserves and Jam

HOMEMADE SPICY LIME PICKLES
Recipe HERE

My pickling photos.

Freezing Peas

Image by lisa runnels from Pixabay

Purple Hull peas are a necessity in a Southern garden, and if you don't or can't grow them you can almost always find them for sale at a local u-pick farm, roadside produce stand, or have neighbors who will sell them to you.

Once you get them, or pick them, it's important to spread them out on a sheet in a cool room if you are going to shell them yourself. This prevents them going through a heat and getting sour. Also important with other veggies, fruits etc. You can also soak them in cool water. It's very important to be ready for them when you get them.

Things to have on hand:
Big bowls for shelling
A bucket or other container such as a clothes basket for the hulls/shells. (You can feed them to pigs, horses, chickens, goats.)
A clean sink, to wash them, or use a big clean dishpan.
A big colander to help rinse and clean them.
A big pot to blanch*** them.
Plastic containers, or freezer bags.
Freezer space, of course.

Basically, you shell them, wash them, put in boiling water and blanch them for 5 minutes, place in ice water until cool, bag them up and freeze them.

***Blanching (scalding vegetables in boiling water or steam for a short time) is a must for almost all vegetables to be frozen. It stops enzyme actions which can cause loss of flavor, color and texture.

National Center for Home Food Preservation
https://nchfp.uga.edu › how › freeze › blanching

OLD SOUTH CUCUMBER LIME PICKLES, or what I call my Sweet Lime Pickles.

My family's favorite home canned pickles. Stays crispy, not too sweet, not too salty, just right. I lost my old clipped recipe, and I'm so glad I had posted it on my Pinterest page! Here it is below!

My personal photo of the actual label I clipped from my bag of Mrs.WAGES Pickling Lime. Photo posted for educational purposes only.

SO SIMPLE!!! Pear Preserves

My pear prep photo

After peeling, coring and slicing into slivers, add equal amounts of sugar and simmer until light pink, can in clean jars while still hot and seal (according to canning directions).
***In this particular batch, I added lemons to mine, but didn't particularly like it. They left a bitter aftertaste.
***I now add bottled lemon juice, or just the juice of fresh lemons, and a pinch of non-iodized sea salt to all of my fruit preserves to enhance the flavor. I can't deal with that bitter after-taste.

My pear photo

Water bath canning:

Tomatoes - Includes all or most recipes using tomatoes, like catsup, diced, salsa, whole, etc., can be water bath canned with the exception of "low acid" tomato varieties*** READ NOTES BELOW.
Fruits - Jams, jellies, preserves, and marmalades can be safely canned using a water bath canner.
Pickles

Pressure Canning:

Meats - Includes beef, pork, venison, poultry, seafood, etc. All of these must be pressure canned.***
Vegetables - ALL vegetables, especially green beans (low acid); (with the exception of "high acid" tomato varieties*) must be pressure canned.***

PRESERVING FRUITS-Historical
Make choice of the most perfect fruits for preserving. Let them be fair, unblemished, and free from specks of decay. These will discolor your syrup, give it a bad taste, and produce fermentation. Let your fruit be ripe, but not on the decline of its perfection; let it rather be approaching this desirable condition.

There is no economy in using cheap or inferior sugar for preserving. The best clarified will do for cherries, plums, blackberries, and the like, intended for tarts or pies; but these should be well boiled, skimmed, and sunned. They should, too, be thoroughly done, till their syrup is very thick. Such may be kept in stone jars in almost any quantity, with pound for pound of sugar; but for all other preserves, glass tumblers or small glass jars are best. Sunning is very beneficial to preserves of all kinds.

The best double refined loaf-sugar (or crushed) is indispensable for all fine preserves, and even these should be clarified with egg or isinglass.

Preserves of every kind should be done slowly. Rapid boiling injures the form, and toughens and shrivels the skins of plums, cherries, and grapes, breaking such fruits as have been peeled, and often discoloring them and their syrup.

Nor should your fruit be crowded in the preserving-kettle. This also spoils the form. Rather put in a few at a time, allow them to simmer slowly for ten or fifteen minutes, then taking them out carefully, one by one, with a silver spoon or perforated skimmer, lay them on dishes to cool while another portion of your fruit is preserving. Take these out in like manner in another dish, and so on till the whole quantity has been simmered; then begin at the first dish, and repeat the process till all your preserves become transparent: then remove them to the glass jars or tumblers designed for them. Boil your syrup till thick and clear, wait till it becomes nearly cool, and then pour it over the fruit. Close your jars well, either with good corks, papered at the bottom, or thick white paper. Set your preserves away in a cool, dry place. Examine them frequently, and if at all inclined to ferment boil them again, first adding a few spoonfuls of pounded white sugar to the syrup. Let them boil very gently.

Set your jars in the sun for two or three weeks after your preserving is done, and there will be no danger of fermentation.

Preserves should be carefully skimmed while doing. The skimmings need not be lost, as they will add very much to the strength of your vinegar.

All the larger fruits should be pared. The paring should be narrow and thin.

No preserve will keep well with less than pound for pound of fruit and sugar.

Marmalades, jams, and jellies should be covered with a nicely-fitting paper in each jar, or tumbler saturated with brandy, and laid in so as to lie on the surface of the preserve. Besides this, the tumbler or jar should be covered with thick paper, and pasted down so as to exclude the air and insects.
Mrs. Mary Mason, 1802-1881

DISCLAIMER: PLEASE READ AND FOLLOW DIRECTIONS AND CAUTIONS ON ACTUAL BAG!

***Canning is/can be a controverial subject for many. I'd rather say "follow the guidelines", than give anyone false, or potentially harmful information.

I know there are many cultures who follow very different rules for canning, but I will not include those here. It doesn't mean I don't respect, or even use/have used other canning methods myself, it just means I won't put this information here.
I will say, for some unlearned people, (young and older) who are new to canning, don't be nonchalent. Don't think you can can just any old way. Cleanliness matters, cleaning the rims of jars matters, temperatures matter, canning time matters (whether pressure canning or water bath canning), and more.
For more thorough information:
Go here for links: https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/blogs/usdas-complete-guide-home-canning
Or go directly to "The free, 196-page publication can be downloaded from the National Center for Home Food Preservation website. The publication is also available in a spiral, bound book format from Purdue University’s Education Store."

*TOMATOES: My information about "low acid" tomatoes came from a book called, Farm Journal's Freezing and Canning COOKBOOK, Prized Recipes from the Farms of America. Edited by Nell B. Nichols (Field Food Editor) and Kathryn Larson (Associate Editor, Book Division) for FARM JOURNAL, INC. - Copyright 1963, 1964, 1973, 1978. I bought the 1973 version. I lost that book. It mentioned the "low acid varieties", then I later bought another copy, updated in 1978, that mentioned new guidelines about "low acid tomatoes", saying there weren't any "low acid" tomatoes...But while people sometimes quote the fact that there's no such thing as a low acid tomato, they fail to include other facts, such as:
As of 1978, there were two reported cases of Botulism that was traced directly to two cases of home canned tomatoes, or tomato juice, according to the book referred to above.
How did this happen if all tomatoes are acidic? Well there are certain levels of acidity, as well as certain varieties, also listed in the book as being at a different level of acidity.
And, "As tomatoes ripen they lose acidity." (also per the book referred to above), and from my own experience-you should be very prompt in canning, preserving any foods as soon as possible after purchasing or picking them. Don't let them sit around until you feel like processing them. Not only will you have a better quality product, but you might be putting your family at risk for not doing so. And you stand a chance of losing money, by having to buy more or buy storebought!
Read the book for further information, or better yet, just follow the USDA rules and guidelines! Of course you can decide for yourself, but why risk it with anything that could harm your own family or others. The way I see it, is if there is any risk whatsover, I would fall on the side of following the rules.
I will say, that I add an extra layer of protection to my tomatoes, by adding non-iodized sea salt, vinegar and/or lemon juice.

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