Canning Adventures 2009

Now that it's been over a week since the canning (and canning clean-up) has been done, I am prepared to write about my canning adventure.

First, a little background...

I learned about canning from a man in his mid-eighties who was our landlord when we lived in Utah. We had a tree full of delicious peaches in the backyard. He had all the canning supplies and was more than willing to teach me how to preserve the yummy fruit. We worked alongside one another in his kitchen. I was pregnant with Eliza at the time and remember feeling so tired from being on my feet for so long and wanting so badly to sit down and take a break, but I couldn't let myself rest and make this elderly man (who has since passed away) continue on his own. After doing one batch together, he loaned me his supplies and I continued downstairs at our place.

The last jar of peaches that I canned with Gene in 2007. I guess we're saving these most delicious peaches for a special occasion. We just can't bear to have them be gone!

Last year, I canned applesauce with my friend Sara. I fell in love with homemade applesauce, especially when it's warm. Mmmm.

Undertaking such a canning project primarily alone with a newborn and toddler was not my brightest idea. I would definitely recommend a different arrangement. My mom and sister were in town for a day and a half of the canning madness. It was nice to have some help, especially watching the kiddos. Near the end of the canning project (it all took more than a week), Mike was able to help out (he would have liked to have helped more, but school and work were crazy). For a week, we didn't go to bed before 2 am. Needless to say, we're so glad it's done.

We got most of our produce at the Arthur Produce Auction. We also bought 2 bushels of apples at Beachy's for about $12 a bushel. I knew that I wasn't going to have enough canning jars for all of the produce, so I invited my mom and sister to bring any they had so we could fill them up and send them home with them.

This is the bulk of what we accomplished. I look at it and think "That's it?! All that work and this is all I have to show for it?!" The final result didn't look like very much to me because I did at least twice the amount of work that I should have to get this many jars done. Besides the green beans, I had to process (wash, sterilize, fill, and process) each jar twice. Let's just say I learn the hard way... a lot.

Here are a few of the gems I picked up a little too late:

1. Make sure your water bath has an adequate boil by using a lid. The large pot we were using didn't have a lid, so the water never came to a good boil. I didn't think to use something as a lid, so I just went ahead and processed the jars, thinking that maybe this was as boiling as it was going to get. Later that night I was reading about botulism and grave mistakes in home canning and realized that I should have used a lid and made certain the water was boiling. I was scared into compliance with the FDA standards. Scared enough that I re-canned all the applesauce, tomato sauce, and diced tomatoes that I had done.

I wanted to give up right then. I nearly cried (or maybe I did) as Mike and I dumped all the applesauce into a giant pot to re-heat it while we washed out all the jars and started over. I found that one of our pizza pans fit perfectly over the canning pot. It was really really late by the time we finished re-doing the applesauce, so I cleared space in the fridge for all the tomato products awaiting a second try.

We could have used a few more burners on our stovetop. In the back, you'll notice the lid-less canner with non-boiling water.

2. Tomato sauce takes FOREVER. Next time I am not wasting time, energy, stove space, or sanity with tomato sauce. After using a borrowed saucer/juicer to fill a huge vat with tomato juice, we waited all day for it to boil down to regular sauce thickness. By the time it was the right consistency, there was hardly any there. Our giant vat only made a few bottles of tomato sauce. I will continue to stock up on spaghetti sauce when it's on sale, as it is quite frequently, and use my canning sanity on diced tomatoes and salsa, which we also use frequently, isn't on sale nearly as much, and is a lot less work to can.

Saucer/juicer in action. This is the vat that when nearly full only produced a few quarts of tomato sauce.

3. Have help so you don't make silly mistakes. We got some salsa canning mixes (with dehydrated peppers and seasonings) on sale for a great price, so we decided to give it a try. I read the directions and understood that adding 5 pints of tomatoes meant that I needed to add 10 cups of tomatoes, but by the time I finished chopping the tomatoes, the number 5 stuck better than 10. I did 2 triple batches using 5 cups per salsa packet instead of 10 cup. I wondered why the recipe wasn't yielding nearly a much as the packet said it would, but I didn't even realize my mistake until the next day when I went to make more salsa and looked at the recipe again.

From my research on fatal home canning mistakes, I knew that canning recipes need to be followed precisely, as the wrong acidity level can lead to problems. Instead of going through the canning process again, I dumped all the salsa into freezer bags and labeled it salsa concentrate. It turns out that it is great for cooking. Good thing because we've got quite a bit in our freezer!

I figure my mistake was big enough that it wouldn't have slipped by if there were another pair of eyes watching what was going on (or if it weren't so late or I weren't so tired).

Salsa concentrate anyone? It's great in Mexican casseroles or with chicken in the crockpot.

By the time we got to the green beans, we pretty much had things figured out. Thankfully we didn't have any mishaps with them. At the bottom of the jars, you can see that we put a tablespoon of bacon for flavor. We borrowed a pressure canner for the beans, since a water bath isn't safe for canning beans.

It has definitely been an exhausting process, but by next year, I'm sure I'll be excited to can again.