Canning Chili Today for a Chilly Tomorrow

Kelli Peet taught us how to use a pressure canner today as we "put-by" several pints of scrumptious chili using venison harvested by Kelli's husband and fresh veggies from Ridgway Family Farm. Using a pressure canner is absolutely necessary for canning low acid foods including meat, beans, and most vegetables. We tripled the recipe from http://www.pickyourown.org/canning_chili_with_meat.htm using the following:

*only 6 cups dried pinto beans - soaked over night then boiled 30 minutes in 11 cups of water.

PLUS *3# red onions plus *2# green and red peppers chopped and browned in a skillet with 3 Tbsp olive oil. After they were browned we added *10 pounds of Ron's ground venison and continued to brown it with the peppers and onions.

Using rubber gloves for handling the chili powder, we added *1 Tbsp black pepper, *1/2 cup chili powder, *4 Tbsp paprika, *1/3 cup ground cumin, and 2 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano.

Instead of using canned tomatoes, we used *10# fresh tomatoes that we chopped after peeling by dunking in boiling water to loosen the skins. And we added*1/3 cup apple cider vinegar instead of lemon or lime juice.

 We set our clean, chip-free jars on a towel to fill.

 Kelli's 1-cup measure ladle with pour spout made filling the jars easy.

 She also had a canners' measuring stick so we could leave exactly 1 inch of head space in each jar.

 Then we stacked the jars in the preheated canners...

secured the lids, brought them up to temperature, and let them steam for 70 minutes while we ate lunch.

Once they cooled enough to open safely, we used jar grabbers to unload the canners and set our jars to cool and seal. Summertime stored in a jar! Thank-you Kelli!

we CAN do!

For descriptions of canning procedures see our past blog reports HERE

If you go to www.papercrave.com, you will find all sorts of printable canning stuff including little invitations if you want to have a canning party! These are all free to be downloaded.
Miss Marie tells her "secrets" for raw chocolate cake:

8 raw organic dates (soaked but not necessary)
1/3 cup of organic raw cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
dash of sea salt
1 cup walnuts
add water to desired consistency (no more than 1/4 cup usually - but I do this by eye)

blend all ingredients in a food processor. make sure it mixes well. take small scoops of mix and create "cake balls" rolled in additional ingredients (I like to use coconut and/or chopped walnuts). refrigerate until cooled and enjoy.

if too much liquid is added, this also makes a yummy raw chocolate "mousse" - equally decidant. feel free to experiment!





Tal went home to MORE canning! She writes: " I finished 18 pints of salsa from the tomatoes I so generously got from my friends Nick and Linda. And look how many more tomatoes I have! More salsa to come tomorrow night and then some peach jam and chutney next week (to share with N&L)"

Here's the link for the USDA's Complete Guide to Home Canning from Kelli

http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html. Wyatt says its the most comprehensive resource for canning.

UnCANny!

Once again, Can-Do Wyatt Whiteman has demystified home canning, while orchestrating an opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of working as a group to put food by. New this year, was making salsa. We learned not to touch our lips or eyes while cutting peppers and that one person's cool may be an other's hot. Click Can Can and scroll down to see more detailed canning reports of the past.

We CAN Do!!!

On August 14, Master Canner, Wyatt Whiteman of 1760's Farmhouse in Fairfield, CT met in Cornwall at Local Farm to impart his wisdom to 15 canning wanna-be's. As one happy participant noted, "The 'Yes, We CAN Can' workshop was just that; a demystification of the canning process and an affirmation of our ability to go home and can whatever. Even though there was little formal instruction and we were all so busy doing various parts of the process that no one had time to step back and observe all the steps, the group accomplished SO much working in such a primitive set-up, I now feel confident that I could find and follow a recipe to can almost anything." Wyatt recommends the Ball Blue Book Guide to Home Canning and Freezing for recipes and instructions. Other informational/experiential tidbits we gained were...








Even after carefully washing and examining jars for chips and cracks, sometime you lose one.




















We learned that pre-boiling beets and scalding tomatoes and peaches made them much easier to peel with next to no loss of produce. The skins just slipped off with minimal effort. However over-scalding fruit cooked it and made a sloppy mess.













Wyatt emphasized packing the jars very tightly so that they would still be full of fruit even after it had cooked, softened, and settled into place. We used knife handles and plastic spoons to release as many air pockets as possible so that the jars would not have a large empty space at the top after processing.
To ensure a good seal, one must leave the specified space between the produce in the jar and the CLEAN top rim. Carefully wipe off any spillage before putting on the lids and rings.


One can can acidic fruits (like tomatoes or peaches) and anything pickled with vinegar (like our dilly beans and pickled beets) with the hot water bath method. Everything else must be canned with a pressure canner. Wyatt recommends heating the loaded canner until steam has been pouring out of the top for ten minutes, then put on the pressure valve and start timing according to your recipe. A big fan of pressure canning method, Wyatt says "It uses half the time, half the energy, and a great deal less worry."

We discovered the truth in the adage, "Many hands make light work."













Working with others makes the job so much more fun AND productive!





Wyatt's DVD, A Visual Guide to Canning, is available for $12 from Debra@Motherhouse.us. For other Motherhouse workshops and events, visit Motherhouse.us.

Yes! We Can Can

Yes! We Can Can
Saturday s August 8 and 22 Wyatt Whiteman taught a group of canners in canning tomato's, peaches, pickled beets and dilly beans. The essentials: "when in doubt [of food's goodness after canning and time] throw it out". Get the Ball Blue Book the Guide to Home Canning and Freezing "it's the king of canning books"
For more details see last year's canning report.

Potholders Available

At the Yes We Can Can workshop, a few people asked about buying the beautiful potholders we used. They are available through Christy, who was at the workshop, and whose mom makes them. Send Christine Ciesielski an email, if you are interested.

Yes We Can Can

A group of 20 of us gathered at Local Farm for the Old Style Life Skill's Yes We CAN Can Workshop on Saturday. Such a large group meant many hands! Led by Wyatt Whiteman, who demonstrated methods of preserving food in glass jars, we canned over 100 jars of tomatoes, dilly beans, pickled beets, and peaches. Everyone went home with a few jars of the summer's harvest. We'll be eating local all winter long!


We worked in a summer kitchen that Debra Tyler had set up at Local Farm. Summer kitchens were once a part of just about any home and usually were a one-room building behind the house furnished only with a stove and chimney, table, and some generous-size pots and pans and stirring utensils. Having a summer kitchen kept the cooking heat and steam out of the main living space and was convenient for the big undertakings rarely taken on at home today. Our summer kitchen was outdoors. We had a dry, pleasant day for putting food by and a lot of group can-do comraderie.




We followed Wyatt's own 1760 Farm House, LLC, Fairfield, CT recipe for Pickled Beets. We layered onions and beets with garlic into jars. We boiled sugar, cider vinegar, water, and some Penzey's Pickling Spices and added to each jar. These beets should be eaten within 2 - 3 days and when the beets are gone, Wyatt suggests adding hard boiled eggs to the remaining liquid to make pickled eggs.


Wyatt recommends getting a copy of the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. He says it is the Bible of canning. It is available to order online at freshpreserving.com. You will find some recipes and step by step tutorials there as well.




Canned tomatoes are ideal for using in soups, stews, casseroles and sauces. To prepare the tomatoes for canning, we put them in boiling water until their skins split.





Then, we peeled the skins off and cut out the bad spots, before carefully packing the tomatoes, with their juice, in the jars.


We added lemon juice to each jar of tomatoes. The lemon juice makes the tomatoes that much more acidic and also Wyatt added, helps preserve the beautiful color. We filled the jars up to the neck, leaving some space at top. We also put a wooden spoon into the jar and slowly turned the jar to release trapped air bubbles. Wyatt checked the jars, telling us if they were filled too high or not, and then after wiping the rim and threads of the jars with a damp cloth, we put the lids on, but not too tightly.






Tomatoes and peaches are examples of high acid foods which can be safely canned using the boiling water bath method. Properly pickled vegetables can also be preserved using this method. In this method, glass jars of food are heated completely covered with boiling water and cooked for a specified amount of time. At the workshop, for example, the tomatoes were in the boiling water bath for 50 minutes. The boiling water bath method is safe for tomatoes, fruits, jams, jellies, pickles and other preserves.


The other method of preserving food is the pressure canner method. Pressure canning is the only safe way of preserving vegetables, meats, poultry, and seafood. We canned the dilly beans at the workshop using a pressure canner. In this method, the jars are placed in 2 to 3 inches of water in a special pressure cooker which is heated to a temperature of at least 240 degrees F, higher than boiling water. A microorganism called Clostridium botuilinum is the main reason why pressure processing is necessary. Though the bacterial cells are killed at boiling temperatures, they can form spores that can withstand these temperatures. The spores grow well in low acid foods, in the absence of air, such as in canned low acidic foods like meats and vegetables. The spores can not withstand the higher temperatures of pressure cooking.


You can order water bath canners and pressure canners online from Lehman's. In fact, Lehman's carries a complete selection of Canning and Preserving supplies, including a Beginner's Home Canning Kit which comes with the Ball Blue Book Wyatt recommends. Or, as Wyatt suggested at the workshop, go to your local Agway or Tag Sales.


At the very end of the workshop, while waiting for the peaches in the boiling water bath, a few of us canned Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Mix, adding the dry ingredients, layer by layer, to a 1 quart glass jar.