Canning Talk

It's been a busy couple weeks as I do a lot of canning and freezing with all our garden produce!  Since we grow pretty much all the food we eat (with the exception of meat, flour, sugar, etc.),  I'm busy putting up a year's worth of food.   Actually I truly enjoy canning!  I find it very satisfying to grow and preserve what we eat.  I remember watching my Mom can up fruits and tomatoes and relishes.  Maybe that's where my love of canning started.   But I was in my 50's already before I taught myself how to do pressure canning, which is the method you must use when canning low acid foods.  I must admit that I was scared at first of using a pressure canner, and thought if I didn't do everything right it would explode!  I carefully followed every line of directions to a "T" as I worked, worrying at each step of the way.   Eventually I simmered down and realized that pressure canning was really easy.   Yes, you must do things right - but the house wasn't going to explode!
     Some things actually do better with freezing than canning.  I usually freeze carrots, peas, turnips and rutabagas.  Rutabagas, you say??  Yep - this is a vegetable I have learned to enjoy, especially in soups and stews.   It tastes similar to a turnip, but has a milder, sweeter taste.   It is excellent to throw in a small amount into a pot of vegetable soup.  I think it adds a nice depth of flavor to the soup.  Rutabagas are very popular up here in the north, too.  Scandinavians really enjoy them - roasted or mashed or mixed with potatoes. 
     I am pretty fussy about canning jars.  I swear by Ball jars and lids.   I have tried the 'generic' jars (probably made in China, ugh) and found them to have a lot of seal failures and breakages.  Same with Chinese made lids.   Don't use them!  I have talked with several experienced canners who have had the same problems I encountered with them:  seal failures and "wrinkling" of lids.   Also, don't use old mayonnaise jars for canning.  I know that many ladies say it's OK to use them, but the glass is thinner on them, and you are more likely to get a cracked jar in the canning pot.   What a mess!  I also don't believe in buying jars from Wal Mart.   I know this might annoy some folks to hear this, but I truly believe they have "seconds".  Wal Mart pays a very low price for things, and they get what they pay for.   I have talked with many ladies who have found (like I did) pieces of plastic in the glass, out of round jars that don't seal, chipped jars, cracked jars, and jars with odd seams.   If you do buy jars from Wal Mart, inspect them very carefully!  I once returned a couple cases I bought there and showed the customer service gal all the defects in the jars.   She pointed to a stack of them behind her that others also returned.   So it wasn't 'just me' that was unhappy with Wal Mart jars!
     Sometimes you can find those wonderful old - and very thick! - jars from the late 1950's and early 1960's at garage sales.   This was back in the heydays of canning and those jars were meant to last.   Even the rims were thick.   Back then, they made jars with lots of glass!!  By the way, a person should never can anything in those old blue/green jars, as in the old days they used lead in the process.   These green jars are collector's items for storing buttons or to use as vases for flowers, but not for food.
     The Ball company says you cannot reuse the lids, but yes, you can.  After all, when you buy a new case of jars, the lids are already screwed on tight and have rings in the rubber.   I called up the Ball company to complain about this and told them they were giving me "used lids" with my new case of jars!  The lids used to be packaged separately, but no longer are.   The Ball people told me that the lids "will recover nicely" in hot water.   Yes, they do.  And so do used lids in general!!  As long as there is good rubber on the lids, they will all "recover nicely" in hot water.   I reuse lids for things that are not processed for long times, like relishes and jellies and pickles.   But for the pressure canner, or foods that have long processing times, I will use new lids. 
     I know that canning things is more or less a dying art.  That's too bad.  In the midwest, canning is still quite popular, and in this neighborhood all the ladies do canning.   Canning used to be taught in home ec classes, but I don't think it is anymore.  Last year, all the women's magazines had articles on canning, so perhaps there is a resurgence of interest in canning.  I sure hope so!   We need to teach our daughters homemaking skills, and canning is a good skill to have.

Jars of green beans ready for the pressure canner

My trusty old pressure canner (that I was once afraid of!)

Most low acid foods are canned at 10 lbs of pressure.

I have several trays of tomatoes to work with.  I usually pressure can them also for safety and because it takes less processing time to pressure can them, rather than the long times in a boiling water bath.   Today's hybrid tomatoes are lower in acid than those of yesterday.  

Blanching diced rutabagas in boiling water for 2 minutes before freezing.

Then the rutabagas are cooled in cold water before packing into freezer bags. 

I am almost finished with all the food processing this year.   I only have applesauce, spaghetti sauce, tomatoes, pears,  and sauerkraut to can up yet.   And corn to put in the freezer later on.   It is SO convenient to have all the foods I need right at my fingertips all year long.   Let it snow!  (And with all the hot weather and humidity we've had lately, a little cooling snow would be a good thing right now, yes?) Maybe not...............