What's in your canning/jarring pantry?

[MullersLaneFarm]

here are my very humble beginnings so far:

In the very back from left to right: two Sweet Pickle Relishes, Pasta Sauce, two Chicken Breast & Thigh meats.
The row in front of that: Sweet Pickle Relish, two Cranberry Sauces, and Chicken Breast/Thigh meat
In the front: Sweet Pickle Relish, Boiled Cider Syrup, and three Cranberry Sauces.

Your stash is beautiful! I've been wondering about the Wreck (sp?) lids. I love the glass tops on them

Cyndi- do you have any of the newer version of Tattler lids, i.e., the ones labeled as being 'EZ Seal'? If so, do you have a special technique you use with them? I ask because those are the type I have.

Yes, I have both the old and new EZ Seal.

Since the flats are thicker than normal metal lids, leave an additional 1/4" headspace than what the canning directions call for. Initial tightening of rings ... only until jar spins ...

Here's how I do it ... (best that I can describe) Put gasket on flat, place gasket & flat on jar, place ring on top. Put left index finger on top of flat lid & screw ring on just until ring 'catches' on threads, then release left index finger and then using just right index finger continue 'pulling' ring around until jar spins.

After pulling the jars out of the canner, let them sit for 5 minutes. Cover with a towel, using something to protect your hands, tighten the rings just finger tight.

Irish Lass, I did not know about Pomona Pectin. Is it widely available or should I look for it on the internet. I would sure like to cut down on sugar in my jam recipes.

I love Pomona Pectin. You can order directly from them (or find it on Amazon)

 

[Relle]

Relle- if you are referring to the types of recipes that call for pectin such as jams or jellies, there are pectins on the market, such as Pomona Pectin for example, that allow you to make the jam or jelly with the sweetener of your choice such as honey or agave nectar or stevia, or concentrated fruit juice, or even no added sweetener at all if you don't desire any.
IrishLass

Thanks for the info, I clicked on the link that Mullers gave and 225grms is $56 AUD plus postage ($11.95) Total - $67.95. At that price they can keep it. I'll see if I might be able to find something similar made here.

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Thanks for the info, I clicked on the link that Mullers gave and 225grms is $56 AUD plus postage ($11.95) Total - $67.95. At that price they can keep it. I'll see if I might be able to find something similar made here.

Holy crow! That's almost twice what we pay here in the States. :cry:

 

[Relle]

It's a US based product, so with the Aussie dollar running around 78cents to the US dollar that gets added on, plus postage, then obviously profit.
I've since found some here that I can go and purchase at a local store, very reasonably - $9 for 133grms, it pays to shop around.

 

[slk]

That would be so awesome to have your own maple syrup. My maternal grandmother grew up in New Hampshire on a farm where they had their own maple trees and a sugar shack where they made their own maple syrup. She moved away to Massachusetts when she was 16 and never went back, but she had such wonderful memories of it and would always regale us with stories of what it was like growing up there, and expressed to us a burning desire to see it just one more time before she died.

We are transplants from Southern CA and have been out here for about 6 years - fully embracing the New England life style. Wonderful that you were able to give her grandmother a trip back. It is beautiful here.

A lot of these type of recipes seem to have sugar added. I'm not eating anything with refined sugar or artificial sweeteners, at the moment to help with inflammation (it's slowly working, not so much pain), so looking for supplements to adding sugar.

Don't know if you can do added juice, but there is a pectin called Pomona Pectin that has several recipes with apple juice or white grape juice -

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Finally got the last of the 2017 garden canned up. I wash & core my tomatoes, then put in freezer bags into the deep freeze to wait until I have time after the holidays to process. The skins slip right off when the tomatoes are thawed.

This batch is for my marinara sauce & tomato water/juice, which is scooped off the sauce by laying a paper towel on top of the hot sauce and gently pushing down with a ladle. This saves hours cooking the sauce down to the right consistency and gives me flavorful water to use for cooking rice or noodles, or in soups, etc.

 

[SoapSap]

Great idea about freezing tomatoes for future canning. I will have to do that. In September or late summer I cannot keep up with the tomatoes and your idea would be a life saver.

 

[IrishLass]

That's awesome, Cyndi! That's actually what I've recently been thinking about doing with my home-grown tomatoes- freezing them until sauce/canning day.

Up until a month ago or so, being the newbie, small-time, urban gardener that I am , I had no idea you could freeze tomatoes to make sauce later. I had been in a conundrum over this, you see, because I don't have a lot of tomato vines- only 3 different vines growing on my backyard, small-space, urban aeroponic Tower Garden. I had been desiring to make sauce with my own tomatoes, but didn't know how to go about it since my vines don't produce enough ripe tomatoes all at once at any given time for me to be able to gather as much as needed on whatever day for me to make a big batch of sauce to can.

Anyway, as I was perusing the questions and comments over on Garden Web one day, I ran into a poster who was in the same predicament as me, and she was given the sage advice to just freeze however many ripened tomatoes she had on hand at any given time, and then when she had built up a big enough stash of them in the freezer, to then just go ahead and make her sauce. Sweet! So that's what I'm going to do.

I live in the sunny, hot southwest and my vines are still producing tomatoes. I would say that about every 3 to five days or so I'm able to pick a good handful of ripened tomatoes off of them. If I can just keep myself from eating too many of them out of hand, maybe I'll have frozen enough to make sauce sooner rather than later. lol


IrishLass

 

[earlene]

My SIL even freezes lemons for later use. I would never have thought of that myself.

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

I discovered this accidentally because I had no choice the year (2003) we tore off the 100 year old kitchen addition on our farm house to build a larger one. The only time the contractor could schedule it was during the peak of tomato harvest. I did a lot of canning over the open fire that year but I wasn't about to try to put up a few hundred pounds of tomatoes, so I stuck them in the freezer and hoped for the best. I'll still put up a dozen or so jars of fresh tomatoes each year but the majority of my tomato bounty goes for sauces, marinara and salsas. This method is perfect for that.

That vertical tower looks pretty cool!

eta: just looked through your tower post .... How awesome is that!!!

 

[IrishLass]

That vertical tower looks pretty cool! What variety of tomatoes did you plant?

I can't tell you how much I love my tower! It's an ingenious gardening device for folks like myself who have no gardening space....or green thumb for that matter! lol

As for the tomatoes- I planted Brandy Sweet Plum, Buckabee's New 50-day, and Gold Dust, all of which have taken to the tower quite well. The first two are organic, heirloom indeterminates, and the third is organic heirloom determinate.

The only one out of the three I am not pleased with is the Gold Dust. Don't get me wrong- it has been producing well for me and the flesh is pleasantly meaty/juicy, but they rate a big fat zero on the flavor scale. My son likens eating them to eating water.

The other two plants, on the other hand, are most gloriously flavorful and we've been eating them up like candy! Yum! No one cares at all to eat the Gold Dust tomatoes in like manner, though- or even at all, really- so in order to use them up so that they don't go to waste, we've taken to adding them to our smoothies so that we can at least benefit from the extra fiber and nutrition if nothing else.

Once the Gold Dust plant is spent I'll be planting a different one in its place. I'm thinking of a San Marzano.

What kind of tomatoes are you growing?


IrishLass

 

[Relle]

We're in the middle of summer here and the tomatoes are not doing well at all. I know it's not just me as I asked others at the gym and some have even pulled theirs out. Some days the weather temp has been 40 and 45 degrees, it's hard to keep the water up to them.

Not sure I'll even plant any this next summer, it's a wait and see.

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Once the Gold Dust plant is spent I'll be planting a different one in its place. I'm thinking of a San Marzano.

What kind of tomatoes are you growing?

My 'go to' tomato varieties in the garden are Pantano Romanesco, Howard German & Amish Paste. I always keep a couple yellow pear tomatoes in a pot on the back deck for my husband to snack on as he comes and goes.

I grew the San Marzano the first year I grew the Pantano Romanesco and the Pantano won out. It's an odd duck ... a large, round paste tomato making it good for both sauces and sandwiches.

Relle, do you mulch in your garden? It really helps me retain water in the soil (and keep weeds down). I collect large cardboard boxes all year round. In the spring, I flatten out and lay down the boxes, keeping edges open for seed planting or cutting through the cardboard for inserting plants into the soil. Then I put down a thick layer of straw (not hay, hay contains seeds) on top of the cardboard. In the fall, after pulling plants & cages, we spread the spring barn clean out on top of the straw. The next spring, we repeat. I no longer even till my soil. I only have to weed my garden a couple times a year.

Before I did this, I would bury a gallon milk jug with holes in the bottom and lower sides & the top cut off next to the tomato plants. 2-3 times a week, I would fill the gallon containers with water.

Just call me a lazy gardener!! LOL

 

[Relle]

Yes Cyndi, I mulch with straw, but the soil has become hydrophobic, so I've been using a wetting agent which is suppose to last but I'm having to keep watering with that through a watering can just to try to keep it damp. I think I'll just stick to herbs, they take care of themselves.

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Relle, Have you tried incorporating polymer crystals down to the root zone in your soil? I use these in my potted plants so I don't have to water so often.

My soil here on the homestead is predominately sand. After 16 years of intensive composting and "lasagna gardening", the soil in my gardens are rich and loamy. The first thing a gardener must grow is their soil.

I love my herbs! What types do you grow?

 

[jewels621]

Once the Gold Dust plant is spent I'll be planting a different one in its place. I'm thinking of a San Marzano.

What kind of tomatoes are you growing?


IrishLass

I did San Marzanos one year, and while the flavor was good, the production was very low. I've had the greatest luck with Burpee's Big Mama romas. Huge tomatoes, mostly meat, hardly any seeds, and phenomenal production.

Also, for my giant hanging plants on our front porch, before I put dirt in the bottom of the comtainer, I open up a newborn size diaper and place it in the bottom. Amazing how much water they hold, and also keeps control of the dripping water that stains my porch.

 

[IrishLass]

Yes, I have both the old and new EZ Seal.

Since the flats are thicker than normal metal lids, leave an additional 1/4" headspace than what the canning directions call for. Initial tightening of rings ... only until jar spins ...

Here's how I do it ... (best that I can describe) Put gasket on flat, place gasket & flat on jar, place ring on top. Put left index finger on top of flat lid & screw ring on just until ring 'catches' on threads, then release left index finger and then using just right index finger continue 'pulling' ring around until jar spins.

After pulling the jars out of the canner, let them sit for 5 minutes. Cover with a towel, using something to protect your hands, tighten the rings just finger tight.

Cyndi- I just wanted to let you know that I tried your above method yesterday with a batch of blueberry marmalade (used the recipe on Pomona Pectin's website) and I had a 100% successful seal rate with the Tattlers! Yay!


IrishLass

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Also, for my giant hanging plants on our front porch, before I put dirt in the bottom of the comtainer, I open up a newborn size diaper and place it in the bottom. Amazing how much water they hold, and also keeps control of the dripping water that stains my porch.

It's the polymer crystals in the diaper material. Love using polymer crystals in the soil of my potted plants on the front porch and deck

Cyndi- I just wanted to let you know that I tried your above method yesterday with a batch of blueberry marmalade (used the recipe on Pomona Pectin's website) and I had a 100% successful seal rate with the Tattlers! Yay!
IrishLass

YAY!! The extra bit of head space helps as does the re-tightening.

We planted blueberries 2 years ago. I'm hoping we get a good harvest this year or next!!

Be sure you always put a towel completely over your jar before tightening. I was in a rush one night and didn't. Late night canning of a 2 day marathon of putting up tomatoes. Pulled the last of the marinara sauce out of the pressure canner, didn't wait the 5 minutes and only used hot pads to tighten. One of the rings expanded as I was tightening and I had hot marinara all over my forearm resulting in 3rd degree burns.

 

[earlene]

They use polymer crystals in diapers? I had no idea! I wonder if they use them in incontinence pads too, then? Makes sense.

What does that do to the environment when all that stuff ends up in landfill, I wonder? So I decided to look it up. If they are the kind made of cassava (tapioca starch), then they are supposedly not an environmental issue. But that doesn't seem to be what's used in diapers (and other urine catching products). But the claim is that sodium polyacrylate is safe as long as you don't breath the particles or dump it into the sewers (can cause blockage). https://www.socochem.com/urine-absorption-crystal-material-used-in-diaperpet-pad.html and https://www.socochem.com/is-sodium-polyacrylate-safe.html

However, the longterm effects of these polymers (also called PAMS in the article linked here) is more a concern in my mind. The people with long term exposure such as workers in the industry (production of the product) or workers where the product ends up for years to come (compost, landfill, etc.) as well as effects on microorganisms within those areas; the impact on those areas has yet to be determined. It can take decades or longer to determine the long-term effects.

Still, what does an old woman do when incontinence pads become a reality in one's life? As a young mother, I chose cloth diapers and did not use disposables, an easy decision at the time.

So sorry. I hope this doesn't derail the thread!

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

I don't know what they use now. When I was a mother in the 80s and had to use disposables on occasion while traveling (I was cloth diapering), I cut one open and there were little bitty beads mixed with the filler. It was years later when I got my first pound of polymer crystals that I recognized what they were.