Making Do Without Missing A Thing---Jars of Pure Gold--Week Four

   Hi there and welcome back to The Welcoming House! We are just starting our fourth week of a six week series on tips and tricks to cut your grocery budget, called Making Do Without Missing A Thing.

  This week we are focusing in depth on the methods that have had a significant (read:huge) savings on our family grocery budget---canning and dehydrating.
   There are two different types of canning, and we are going to be talking about the type that most people are familiar with today:                  
                                              water bath canning.

  If you have a pot deep enough to cover your jars for over an inch, and a lid that fits, you can be a water bath canner and start saving some serious money on your grocery bills. I really really REALLY wish someone had shared that with me eight years ago. I had to scrimp and save just to buy water bath canning supplies, never knowing that ALL ALONG I HAD A STOCK POT MORE THAN DEEP ENOUGH TO USE.
   I can more than enough now to need a very large pot, so I do have the largest waterbath pot on the market. Honestly, its huge, its cumbersome, and takes a good amount of time to come to a rolling boil, which is what you need in waterbath canning, but once it gets going I can do a very large amount of stuff at a time.
  What can you put up with a waterbath canner? Think anything that is a high acid fruit or vegetable, or requires a large amount of sugar to make it, (such as jellies, jams, syrups, fruit in syrups, etc) and you can water bath can it.
   Every year I put up a very large amount of jams, jellies, pickles, relish, syrups, spaghetti sauce, salsa, stewed tomatoes, and fruit using my water bath canner.
   Using one is very easy, you just have to follow a few simple steps.
   Since you are canning things from home I can not stress enough that you need to pay attention to cleanliness and safety precautions with your food prep, and processing. You are making this food for your family, and you should take the very best care of it to make sure you are safe, and so are they. Follow the directions included with the recipes to the letter. Don't cut corners. If the book says to wash your jars in hot, soapy water and then put them in the boiling water to sterilize them, then for Pete's sake, please do it.

It is because these rules have been followed that so many people are able to safely and frugally enjoy home-canned products that are of much better quality than a processing plant can give you.

   The gold standard in home canning is the BBB---otherwise known as the "Blue Ball Book of Canning". If you are serious about canning, you need this book. Click HERE to purchase this book on Amazon, or see what it looks like. I have found it cheaper in stores right around the beginning of summer, but since we are talking about starting now, I dont think you should make another move without having that book on hand.
   Water bath canning requires a few items that you will have, and use, over and over again. You will need jars, lids, rings, a large stock pot, oven mitts, a jar lifter, a smaller pan for warming up lids, and tongs, as well as a place covered with kitchen towels to place your jars when done. I also have a wet washcloth ready to wipe the edges of my jars after filling to ensure there is nothing between the jar, and the sealing compound on the lid.
  Here are some examples of the items you will need, followed by a link you can copy and paste to purchase it, so you can see about how much it costs to get into water bath canning. I will include a link for a stock pot, because they really are not that expensive and come with a rack for lifting the full or empty jars out which is easier for the beginner to canning.

   *First set I wanted to show you is a home tool canning kit. From left to right clockwise are: jar lifter, funnel, tongs (for lids), a jar holder, and a magnet wand for lifting lids out of the hot water. Honestly, I don't have the two items on the bottom because I find them just extra things I don't use very often. I also switched to a metal funnel last year and love it. The plastic ones break down over time. I have been water bath canning for eleven years this Spring, and am on my third set of jar lifters (first on the left). But this is a good basic kit to start with, and reasonably priced.

http://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-286-5-Piece-Canning/dp/B0002BF1WY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328628624&sr=8-1

   Next is an example of a simple stock pot that you would use that is specifically designed for canning.  This is a picture of the really large one, the one that I have . You can start with a smaller one if you are only planning on doing a little at a time, or just go "whole hog" and dive in feet first if you want. Best part is that you can use it for some amazing soups and stews as well when you get to the point that you want to pressure can. One of these babies can  make some huge amounts of soup or applesauce, pearsauce, etc. :) I always try to find multiple uses for items I put in my kitchen since I have a limited amount of space.

http://www.amazon.com/Columbian-Home-0707-1-Porcelain-Water-Bath/dp/B0001UZL8A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1328628624&sr=8-2

  **Now lets talk about jars. This post link comes from a great article on the different sizes of jars, and has some great information. I would encourage you to check it out by clicking on the link. From left to right, these are the sizes of jars pictured here: (back row) two quarts, one half gallon, two quarts...(front row) quilted jelly jar, wide mouth pint, and another jelly jar. The back row, with the exception of the popcorn and whatever the dry goods are in the half gallon jar, can be water bath canned. In the front row you can water bath can everything but the green beans, which require higher temps due to being a low acid food. They also make quarter-pints, which are half the size of the jelly jars, and we HEAR they are coming back out with 12 oz jars--which are pint and a halfs, great for making more jellies, jams, etc, if you have a larger family and go through those half-pints of jellies pretty quick! :)


   The process for water bath canning is laid out amazingly well in this video from youtube. I dont know about you, but I like to see and hear someone else do something before I even try, so for those of you just as weird as me (translate: not brave enough to do it on my own) then please watch this video.

   I know, I know,  it is 13 minutes long, but I am telling you, you will know everything there is to know about water bath canning when you get done. And with anything important, a few minutes of your time to learn how to do something the right way from the beginning saves a lot of time in the end.
   Take a deep breath and plunge in. Water bath canning is easier than it even looks, and once you start seeing those jars line up on your pantry shelves, or open a jar of spaghetti sauce from home after passing up the $3.00 one in the store....you will be glad you got started. This morning we enjoyed one of our last pints of home-canned peaches from this summer, put up with a honey and cinnamon syrup and I caught one of my two year olds trying to lick the inside of the jar.  
                                                    It can be just. that. good.
                                                                    SO try it!
   Like a lot of the posts lately, I am going to end today with a few of my home recipes that I use each year for staples. These are my basic recipes that I use to make spaghetti sauce, salsa and a few other things. :)
I hope you have learned a lot, and if you have any questions, please ask me. Our next post we are going to be talking about pressure canning, which opens up an entirely new menu of things that can be safely made at home and stored on your kitchen pantry shelves! We are talking soups, veggies, meat, and even a few other things that will really surprise you! Hope to see you back soon!

 Many Blessings to You and Yours,

Heather

Hearty Spaghetti Sauce (makes about 50 cups, so roughly 25 pints or 12-14 Quarts)
(this is a full batch, you can halve it if you want a smaller amount)

12 Qts tomatoes
3-4 Lbs onions, chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
1 Tbs Basil, and Oregano
1/2 Tbs Thyme and Sage
1 cup brown sugar or sucanat (raw sugar)
1/2 cup sea salt
2 tsp crushed or minced garlic
4 12-oz cans tomato paste (I puree up the skins and this makes a very thick paste that I add back in for one or two cans of this--the skins have the vitamins in them that I dont want to lose)

   *In the last couple of years I have stopped taking the skin off of my tomatoes and just cooking them down. You puree the final product in either your blender, use a stick blender, or in a food processor. You would place all this in a stock pot, after chopping the tomatoes in quarters and removing seeds if you want. I cook this on low for about six hours, stirring more often as it gets to the end of the time in the pot as it will condense and get thicker. Since not skinning the tomatoes I only use a couple cans of tomato paste at the end (MUST be added at the end or it will give your spaghetti sauce a scorched taste as it burns easily), and you can cook the sauce down to the thickness you like. This processes in a water bath canner for 30 minutes for Quarts and 20 minutes for pints. A couple years ago I had a complete fail for my crop of tomatoes, went to the farmer's market and bought 50 lbs of tomatoes for around $20. It put up a tremendous amount of spaghetti sauce for us that year. The sucanat gives it a wonderful taste almost reminiscent of molasses if you want to try that instead of brown sugar. A friend on my canning page was talking about how she roasts her tomatoes first and then makes her sauce, and it is out of this world. Guess who is going to be trying a batch of that this year? Part of the fun in canning is making your own thing!

Sweet and Spicy Salsa (this was passed on to my by my dear friend, Mary Schmidt. She taught me so much about canning that I dont think I could ever thank her enough! XO)

2 Qts tomatoes (water bath, peel, chop---or dont, your choice)
3-4 jalepeno peppers
2 serrano peppers, seeded
3 medium onions, chopped small
4 large green peppers, chopped small
   *put all these veggies in a large stock pot and add:
1 cup vinegar
2 Tbs sea salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 6 oz can tomato paste
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
   *combine all in the pot, cook on low 2-4 hours until thick. Must be stirred occasionally or it will scorch. Process 15 minutes in a water bath for pints.
   **for medium spice, only seed the serrano peppers. Otherwise, for mild, just seed the jalepeno's and skip the serranos.
   *** you can add corn and black beans (already cooked) to a jar before serving for a southwestern style salsa. I also add a Tbs of fresh chopped cilantro per pint, chill it for a little while, and then serve with homemade tortilla chips. Very very good.
   *I can actually smell this right now as I am sitting at the computer typing this recipe out. It has been five months since I made any, but I promise you, this one is a keeper. I have changed up the recipe to add different colored tomatoes and bell peppers, and it still turns out amazing every time. :)

Super Dill Pickles (for those that like the pucker when you eat 'em)
 *use 3-4 inch cucumbers. Pack loosely into jars, either chipped, sliced or whole. To each quart, add 1-2 Tbs dill seed, and 1 tsp mustard seed. Add 1 Tbs minced garlic and onion.
 *For each Quart of cukes you have, combine the following in a stock pot: 2 cups water, 1 cup vinegar, and 1 Tbs canning or sea salt (dont use table salt as it will make your pickles cloudy). Put in a heavy stock pan, and bring to a boil. (will make your nose tingle). Slowly ladle the hot liquid over the contents, leaving 1/2 inch from the top of the jar to the top of the product so it can seal properly (this is called head space). Process 20 minutes in a waterbath canner for each Quart, 15 minutes if you do pints.

Carol's Sweet Pickles:
*in a pan, heat these ingredients to boiling (this amount is per Quart jar, so multiply accordingly)
 1 cup apple cider vinegar
 1 cup sugar
 1 Tbs canning salt or sea salt
   *in warm, sterilized jars add: 1/4 tsp Tumeric, 1/4 tsp mustard seed, and 1 head or dill or 1 tsp of dill
Then place thinly sliced cukes over this, and ladle hot liquid over contents, leaving 1 inch of "headspace" (space from where lid will be to top of product). You can add sliced onion rings, green pepper dices or even celery if you wish to make this more appealing to the eye when serving. I have even added very small halved cherry tomatoes, and these never fail to be the first gone from the table. :)

Peaches in a Honey Syrup: this is the Ball recipe that I use: click here--amazing

For jams and jellies, check out this link for ideas

For applesauce or fruit sauces, click here for some great recipes

If you have something in particular that you would like a recipe for, please comment, and I will share it if I have it, or link you to someone who does. I put up a lot of fruits each year, so if that is something you are interested in I can tell you about how I do it.

If you happen to be on FaceBook, this canning community page is AMAZING and I have learned a ton, as well as found some seriously awesome recipes on here. You have to request to join, but so many people are just starting out and learning, that you will be one of around 4000 here pretty soon! Lots of great tips, and friendly people who don't think there is anything such as a stupid question. They have been a big support to me here at The Welcoming House, so go on over and send them some love! :)