Home Life

The seminar was mostly focused on canning.  I hope you can follow my notes - had to type fast at some points to get all the good information!

Food Preservation

Grow what your family eats and preserve it

Pro’s/Con’s of Preservation

-         canning: Food will be preserved without the need for electricity so you don’t need to worry about power outages, extra cost of electricity/appliance if you need to purchase/use an additional freezer.

-         More efficient to can than take up freezer space

-         Canned foods last longer than frozen

-         Less labor to freeze, no extra heat in the house while preserving, retain more nutritional content.

-         Dehydrating – not worrying about electricity, food stores on shelf, less space than canning.  Great for fruit.  Very easy, little preparation.

-         Freezing takes up a lot of valuable space

Basic Equipment to get started:

-         Good books to get: “Stocking Up” (covers a lot) and “Putting Food By” and Balls Blue Book of Canning (step by step pictures, good basic info, very inexpensive go to homecanning.com), “The Busy Persons Guide to Food Preserving”

-         Water bath canner or pressure canner (some can be used for water baths and pressure canning).  NOT Pressure cooker = is not going to be a proper piece of equipment for canning (not big enough to accommodate jars plus amount of headroom you need above jars to have enough water or enough pressure).  You can pressure cook in your pressure canner, but don’t can in your pressure cooker.  If you have a pressure canner you don’t need to invest in a water bath canner.

o       Water bath canning is less expensive and easier. Fruits, jams, relishes.  These can be found nearly anywhere and cost around $15-30 and can be found at garage sales and in thrift stores.  Used is fine if in good condition.

o       Big pots = don’t use unless you have a rack on the bottom to keep jars off the bottom of the pot.  Make sure enough water can be put over jars (about 2 inches) and at least about 2 inches above that so it doesn’t boil over and you need a tight fitting lid.

-         Jars: easy to find, thrift stores, grocery stores.  Just don’t use mayo or pickle jars – not made to withstand abuse they’ll go through in water bath or canner.  Canning jars are made to be used over and over again, thicker gauge of glass, lids are made to fit specifically on these jars and may not fit right on others.  Make sure any used jars don’t have any nicks or cracks around the top edge, if there is the slightest nick you won’t get a good seal and may break.  Use mason or ball jars. Stay away from collector type jars (or use for dried beans).

-         Lids – lids and rims are needed and usually come with new boxes of jars.  Instructions will be in the box.  Can be bought separately, good to stock up on (don’t want to run out when you need them).  Not expensive - $1 or $2 per package.

What gets pressure canned: all veggies and meats must be pressure canned with the exception of relish or pickled product, then water bath is ok. Acid content of product is raised by vinegar and acid is what is so important to help kill off bad bugs. Fruits naturally have high acid levels so water bath canning is ok. Sugar doesn’t add any “safety” and is not necessary to make product safe, just there to enhance taste.  Same with salt.  Only time you may need to use salt is for brines and things like that. Not necessary for canning.

How to be sure foods are safe to eat after first try canning: use recipes that are in valid canning books so you know proportions of vinegar to veggies will be safe.  Follow directions to the letter.  Have all utensils and equipment clean, clean work surface, fresh fruits and veggies (don’t ever use anything with mold).  Once you’ve followed instructions and have taken all the steps, pull jar out and first thing you want to do with water bath canned products is listen for the “ping” that happens when your jar seals (it’s the vacuum that sucks the lid down and creates the seal).  Once the jar cools completely, check each lid by pressing down on them in the center. If they’re concave and no give, you have a good seal.  If there is give or you can push down, you can re-can or put in the fridge to use soon, don’t store.  Once perfectly cool you can take screw bands off and check to see if any liquid or food material has seeped through the seal.  Occasionally some liquid gets sucked out of the jar and it’s ok as long as there is no actual food.  If there is liquid loss, put a towel on the counter, set the jar on the towel and try to pick it up by the lid. If there is a bad seal, the weight of the jar will pull the lid off otherwise the lid will stay on.  If these tests go ok, food is safe to store.  Once food is in storage, there are more signs you can look for before use: any sign of mold – don’t use, bubbling or gassiness in the jar – don’t use, bad odor or food looks slimy or has gotten really dark – don’t use (safely discard – burn if necessary or flush down toilet to keep out of the reach of children or animals).

Can when things reach the peak of ripeness.  Canning wont ripen, just cooks.  Canning with something sweet will help enhance flavor.

Alternatives to sugar: pomonas universal pectin (in health food stores, or urbanhomemaking.com), honey, all fruit/no sugar, stevia, artificial sweetners

Jars can sit on the shelf indefinitely.  Some books will tell you to can enough to use through the year ‘till next harvest.

Read instructions for your jars/lids because each manufacturer will have different instructions for prepping them. 

Jam/Jelly is fine if it’s runny as long as there is a good seal – makes good syrup, can thicken up with pomona’s universal pectin on a can-by-can basis.

Things that can effect crunchiness (with dill pickles): check water, if there is hard water it will effect crunchiness of pickles.  When pickles go in the brine, you want the water to be soft water.  Distilled water or hard water boiled for 15 minutes and left to sit overnight so sediment falls to the bottom of the pot (keep sediment on bottom when pouring) and use the clear water.

A drawback to canning, enzymes will be destroyed in the canning process.  But it is something that won’t take a lot of electricity to store.  There is still nutritional quality, especially things that don’t need to be water bath canned for long periods of time. 

Stocking Up or Busy Persons Guide to Canning, Home Canning Kit etc. can be found at website: www.urbanhomemaker.com I couldn’t find the Pumona’s Universal Pectin without doing a search on the site for “pectin” and it shows up under “Preserving” 

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