Can it! Start Canning and Preserving at Home Today. Jackie Parente
food preservation. First time around, make just one batch. You’ve heard this before, but it’s worth repeating: if you are a novice, start simply. Try water-bath canning or freezing. Freezing green beans is a snap (pun intended) and the results are great! Canning tomatoes or peaches is easy. Making strawberry freezer jam is even easier, but cooked jam is a breeze, too. You’ll find recipes for these in the following chapters. Yes, it’s tempting to want to triple the recipe or try something exotic. But starting small and simple helps you to quickly find what works best for you, and then grow your new skills with confidence.
PUTTING THEM TOGETHER
Now let’s bring together the two key factors of acidity and heat. Remember, the high versus low acid determination only impacts food preserved by canning. If you are freezing food, acidity is irrelevant.
A FINAL NOTE ON FOOD SAFETY
If this is beginning to sound complicated, remember one fundamental truth: if you follow accepted, tested methods and recipes, all of the types of food preservation discussed in this book are safe and will provide you and your family with convenient and nutritious food. There is no reason to fear that your food will spoil or will contain harmful contaminants. You know where your food comes from and you know the care that has gone into its preservation. And I’m going to say it again: there is no one more vested in the safety of your food than you! Not the commercial farms, not the jam-manufacturing plants, not your local grocery store.
PLANNING: YOUR KEY TO SUCCESS
With the basics under your belt, you’re ready to begin. While it’s possible, sometimes even necessary, to work on the spur of the moment on a food-preservation project, you’ll find greater success and less stress if you plan ahead. Depending upon what you are doing, this can involve a small or large amount of investment of both time and materials.
STEP 1: WHAT AND HOW MUCH?
Decide what you want to preserve and how much you want to end up with. If you don’t have enough of what you want on hand, supplement your stock (see step 2). Check out the “Fruit Yields (Canning and Freezing)” chart in the appendix for approximate yields from a specific quantity of produce to help you answer some of these “how much” questions.
Don’t forget to check the recommended storage time for the product that you are storing. For example, current guidelines recommend storing canned and most frozen food for no longer than one year. This will help you decide how much to put up so that you don’t run the risk of having to throw it away.
Picking your own produce at local farms and orchards can be a fun and easy way to gather the fruits and vegetables want to presserve without growing a thing yourself, or it might simply supplement your own supply. Just pick as much or as little as you need.
Farmer’s markets are an amazing resource for fresh, healthy produce of all kinds. When canning and preserving, just-picked produce like this is best.
STEP 2: WHERE TO GET IT?
If you aren’t growing your own fruits and vegetables, look around your area for “pick-your-own” farms or farmer’s markets. Don’t forget that you can negotiate; if you are buying a large quantity, be sure to ask if there’s a quantity discount. As tempting as it may be, don’t buy seconds or drops (produce that is not top quality or produce that has dropped to the ground). They are sure to be less expensive, but there is a greater risk of spoilage with bruised or cut produce, and older produce has already lost much of its nutritional value.
STEP 3: WHICH METHOD TO USE?
Based on what you know about the product that you want to preserve, decide which method is best. Use the safest recommended method available to you. For example, if you’re going to preserve green beans and you don’t have any freezer space (and you don’t want pickled beans), then your choice will have to be pressure canning.
STEP 4: WHEN’S THE BEST TIME?
Try to synchronize your “canning calendar” with Mother Nature’s ripening calendar. It can be tricky, but aim to schedule the time for your food-preservation project and mark it on your calendar. For example: The tomatoes are starting to ripen. Enough of them should be ripe on Saturday to make a number of jars of stewed tomatoes, so plan to devote a few hours on Saturday afternoon to can the tomatoes. Making the time to put them up now means you’ll reap great benefits later.
Check on the fruits and vegetables in your yard often to gauge when you may need to schedule a canning day.
Just how much time you’ll need depends upon the quantity of food that you are processing, how large your equipment is, and how experienced you are. If you’re just starting out, plan on two to four hours. It really won’t take long before you become a pro and can zip through your food-preservation projects!
STEP 5: EQUIPMENT AND INGREDIENT CHECK
The instructions for each type of food preservation will give you a full list of equipment that you’ll need. Likewise, each recipe will spell out the exact ingredients. Read both of these ahead of time to make sure that you have what you need on hand. Nothing is more frustrating than starting a food-preservation project and realizing that you don’t have enough sugar for the jam or enough lids for the jars.
STEP 6: CONSIDER THE LOGISTICS
Check out your kitchen or other preparation area to make sure that you have enough space to work in. You don’t need a commercial-size kitchen or a sanitized science laboratory. You just need a clean and uncluttered area for staging and preparation. In general, you’ll need a place to gather the produce, a sink for cleaning and draining it, a place to clean and line up your storage containers (jars, lids, plastic containers, and so on) before filling, and a place to cool the processed jars. In addition, be sure to look at your long-term storage space. Do you need to make some room in the freezer or on your canning shelf?
Organizing your food and equipment before you begin helps ensure a successful and enjoyable canning experience.
STEP 7: JUST DO IT!
Your preparation is done. Now comes the fun part of actually starting your home food-preservation project. Each of the chapters to come provides step-by-step instructions, details, and recipes for: