What Do You Can?

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It seems to me that canning or otherwise preserving your own fruits and vegetables is a great way to save money. I was in total awe of the person who said they canned 2000 jars of food. Wow!!!

I own about 800 jars and they are usually all full in the fall and then they start to be emptied. I love to can and try different things.

These are some of the things I can, maybe you can make a list of what you can!

A friend always gives us a gallon of maple syrup. I can this into pint jars. Some I add walnuts to, other jars I add crushed raspberries, strawberries, or blackberries. I am going to try grape next. I do the following jams: strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and grape. I can applesauce, apple slices, and spiced apple rings, peaches and peach sauce with honey. I can a lot of green beans. tomatoes: spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, whole tomatoes, juice, salsa, ketchup, taco sauce, chili sauce. Hot peppers and hot sauce. Relishes (my favorite!) sweet relish, brown sugar relish, zucchini dill relish, pepper relish, corn relish, red relish, sweet and sour relish. Pickles: Dill stackers, spears, whole, and slices. sweet- spears, bread and butter, 14 day, slices and gherkins. Pickled cantaloupe, apple cranberry relish, whole cranberry sauce. Pickled cauliflower. Carrots, sweet potatoes, pickled beets, Venison, ham, chicken. I am probably missing something but my mind is drawing a blank!

Post your list, it will be fun to see what everyone does.

-- Melissa (cmnorris@1st.net), October 16, 2001

Answers

Not as much as I should or want to. If only it wasn't so much WORK!! LOL I did salsa, grape jelly, and blueberry/peach jam this year. No where near what I had planned but then my ideas are usually bigger than my energy level. I should get a bag of beets to pickle though...yummmmm.

-- Alison in N.S. (aproteau@istar.ca), October 16, 2001.

Wow, Melissa!! I don't do near that much. This year I did blackberry, blueberry, strawberry and pear jam. Also pear honey. I do lots of green beans and tomatoes, salsa, catsup, I ran out of tomatoes before I could do any spaghetti sauce this year! I do various kinds of dry beans and have done potatoes in the past. I do soups to have on hand, turkey, chicken, veggie. I feeze corn, zucchini, peppers and snow peas. I hope to can beets soon. Oh, and I forgot I did pickles - dill spears and bread and butter made with juice instead of sugar - they are delicious! I have been trying to figure out how anyone could do 2000 jars in a season. They must have had lots of help! Figuring say 90 days of canning a season that would amount to over 22 jars a day which would be approximately 3 canner loads! WOW! How could you possibly do anything else for 3 months???????

-- Barb in Ky. (bjconthefarm@yahoo.com), October 16, 2001.

YEs, 2000 jars.....building log homes....I am such a loser:)

On a brighter note: I built (with help) a chicken coop!

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), October 16, 2001.


Melissa, I meant to ask you, how do you can your maple syrup? Do you process them in a canner and if so, for how long? I'm going to try to tap some trees and make maple syrup next year but am not sure about the canning part. Thanks.

-- Barb in Ky. (bjconthefarm@yahoo.com), October 16, 2001.

I have gone from canning everything I could grow or lay my hands on to just canning the basics or food I just can't live without. This year I canned tomatoes, tomato juice, peaches, applesauce, applebutter, and black raspberry jelly. Some things went mostly in the freezer. Mostly, what we have changed is that we are eating seasonally. The root cellar is full of potatoes, beets, carrots, gilfeather turnips and soon to be joined by apples that will keep most of the winter. I have kale and parsnips in the garden. And there is lettuce in cold frames for part of the fall and winter. Upstairs I'll keep the onions, and winter squash, and some sweet potatoes. Cabbage is going in the garage. Dry beans are in jars for winter soup. This is so much easier and less time consuming than all the countless hours spent washing produce and jars, and this and that. And hey, did I say I hate to cook. Well, I consider canning to be cooking big time. I'd rather be outside, or reading or sewing. Bless all you who have the patience to put up all the produce.

-- vicki in NW OH (thga76@aol.com), October 16, 2001.


green beans, tomatoes, salsa, spaghettic sauce, soup, all kinds of jam, peas, peppers, not near as much as Melissa, does were on our last jars of salsa and grape jam and it's only Oct. My dream is to can everything we need and for a whole season.

-- Carol in Tx (cwaldrop@peoplescom.net), October 16, 2001.

Barb I just put it in jars and boil it for about 20 minutes. I found nothing that said how long to do this, except a recipe for maple syrup that you added karo and maple extract, walnuts etc... since we had the real thing I didn't need the whole recipe, I just added the walnuts and packed it into pint jars and boiled for 20 minutes. This led to experimenting with the flavored syrups. I can't wait to try the grape! I have a craving for it right now!!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), October 16, 2001.

Although I don't do 2000 jars, I still keep pretty busy at it. I try to do small amounts when possible, but when it comes to green beans I will do them every 4 days or so as I like them to be small without a huge "bean" inside. So sometimes I do 30-40 jars at a time of these. The kids all help and it usually doesn't take too long. I can have a bushel of tomatoes cleaned and through the strainer and ready for spaghetti sauce in 40 minutes by myself. If the girls help this can go a little quicker! to me it is entertainment. My least favorite to do is to put corn int he freezer. Cutting it off the cob takes so long! I did 6 bushels in one day this summer and I hope I don't see another bushel for awhile!

But I look at it this way, I would rather tinker around with this than work a job 8 hours every day, day in and day out!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), October 16, 2001.


I know I could have canned much more than I did but I was new to this and why does it seem that when you are at a critical point a child needs you or there is a sibling probleM?

I canned pickles, relish (pickle and zucchini), jellies: strawberry, apple, pear. Pear compote, butter, preserves.

All other vegetables went in the freezer. Would like to experiment with drying.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), October 16, 2001.


I forgot pears, and a great carmelized apple-butter. We also put a lot in the freezer: like strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, murrel mushrooms, chopped peppers, corn, cabbage,broccoli, and zucchini. We stor in our fruit cellar apples and potatoes, but I did not have much success with carrots and sweet potatoes! so I just can them now too.

I hope the women who canned the 2000 jars will post on here!!! My husband said, "She makes you look like a wimp!!!" Ha ha. Thanks Cale!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), October 16, 2001.



I just bought another box of jars. I think I am up to 5 boxes? :-) (sheepish) I am a nervous nilly about canning. I canned some with a friend, but have not done much on my own. I freeze or dry stuff. I even have a new canner... but relatives that always talk about how unsafe..bla bla bla. I suppose when I get the hang of it, those relatives will be coming to eat here if there is a supermarket scare. My G-ma canned everything, but died before I was smart enough to ask how. Maybe I'll buy some veggies (mine are frozen) and attempt it. ~ Good job on getting a coop built Ann! Just hope there are no hudini's that can find the only weak spot. My egg chickens can squeeze through small spaces and fly high. My meat birds just watch and go back to scratching. I have had to re-inforce my coop up high several times. They are like rock climbing chickens, they grab the fence with their feet and fly/walk up to the top. I put a strip of chicken wire by the inside roof, so they eventually give up now and flutter back down. Maybe I have "special forces" chickens! They keep me on my toes.

-- notnow (notnow05@yahoo.com), October 16, 2001.

Like everyone else, I, too, never get as much done as I would like to do. This year I did manage to get applsauce, maple apple butter, apple jelly, grape jelly, cherry almond jelly, watermelon jelly, peach butter, spiced peach jelly, turkey, manwich type meat stuff, bbq beans, and beef stew. Had a hard time with veggies this year, the U-pic we go to lost their whole crop of green beans, and we froze the corn for a change. Still would like to do apple pie filling this year, so thats on the to-do list.

Take care,

-- Judy L. (quiltjude@iwon.com), October 16, 2001.


This year I did green beans, apple sauce, jam, pickles, tomatoes, and tomato sauce. I decided that next year I will can with the water bath canner only; anything that has to be pressure canned I will freeze instead. Sometime in the future I may go back to pressure canning, but this year, doing the green beans made me nervous with my little ones running in and out of the kitchen. (The only door they can use to get outside is in the kitchen.)

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), October 16, 2001.

Someone asked about maple syrup, I only raise mine to about 180 degrees (the water) like pickles, just enough to pasturize and seal.

Our season starts with the maple syrup and ends with canning a few beets, carrots, celery and all the little potatoes for my "convienience" food. I try to can a bit of everything, even some of the things like asparagus that I prefer frozen. (we lost everything in the freezer one year but probably wouldn't again since we now have a generator) I have, counting the maple syrup, put up over 700 jars and containers this year, but then we live out of the pantry and freezers and only buy stuff like coffee, a little white sugar, a bit of pasta like macaroni and occasional orders from Walton's like cream of wheat in the big buckets. I freeze all the wild berries I can find and then in the winter make my jellies and jams. Same with strawberries, blueberries, and peaches. I make apple butter to can and can applesauce, and apple pie filling and apple juice. A variety of pickles and pickled veggies, tomatoes- whole, sauce, with celery and onions and peppers, catsup, hot sauce, india relish, v-8 juice and plain tomato juice. Grape juice and raisins from the grapes and also dryed sliced strawberries for the grandchildren's favorite treat. I can pears, peaches, some corn, green beans, carrots, celery, beets, various greens, corn relish, just a few peas (freeze the rest). Also can beef, chicken and various other meats; once again for convienience food. I like to have some winter squash in the freezer and some in jars and use it instead of pumpkin in pies and other recipes. I shred zuccini for bread, slice it small for stir fry, and large for breading and deep frying as a special treat in the winter. A few eggplant slices are frozen, also for breading and frying. Chopped green peppers for cooking are in the freezer and this year did another thing we love. We stuffed jalapenio peppers with cream type goat cheese to make "poppers" this winter and froze them. We tryed a batch before we did a bunch and they were quite wonderful. We grow a variety of beans to dry for soups etc. Funny, we have very little money but have a wonderful abundant life by the works of our hands and the grace of God.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), October 16, 2001.


Green beans, applesauce, apple jam, crabapple jelly, pears, cherries, cherry jam, mango chutney, apricots, apricot chutney, apricot jam, strawberries, strawberry jam, peaches, peach jam, tomatoes, salsa, dill pickles, pickled beans, pickled carrots, pickled jalapenos, pickled garlic, pickled beets, jardiniere, plums, plum jam.

I think that's it. I didn't get as much done as I wanted to as we moved in the middle of harvest season.

-- Tracy (trimmer31@hotmail.com), October 16, 2001.



Melissa, Hi I'm the one that does at least 2000 jars every year. For starters let me say I only have purchased about 20 cases of jars, all the others came from a ad I had placed in the paper about 15 years ago, asking for any unused canning jars. That day when the paper came out I had about 8 calls telling me that they wanted to get those jars out of the closets, garages, and basements and that they just didn't can anymore. Alot of people that are getting older and their kids are no longer at home have no use for them and really at yard sales they don't make much, and alot of older people love to see younger people that is interested in this. So when I started canning alot of people that I went to church with or friends parents and grandparent that knew me would always ask how much have you canned this week it kinda became a joke and when I was getting low on jars someone would always call and say you got all those jars ful yet if I said no but was getting close they would locate me jars. It has become a favorite among my friends that if they bring me a few jars they know that when Christmas comes they will get a Holidays basket with jelly and fresh bread.

Now what I can is, greenbeans, lima beans, beets, carrots, corn, pickles, okra, blackeye peas, purple hull peas, whippoorwill peas, green peas, peppers, pumpkin, bell peppers, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pickles, dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, relish, hot relish, sweet relish, pepper relish, salsa, barbecue sauce, chili, vegies soup, spaghetti sauce, catsup, bean soup, chicken noodles soup, apple sauce, apple juice, apple jelly, I also dry apple's for snacks, pears,(we use for cottage cheese and fruit) pear butter, pear preserves, pears(dryed for snackes), plum jelly, strawberry jelly, strawberry syrup, blueberry syrup, blueberry jelly, blackberry syrup, blackberry jelly, sliced peaches, peach pie filling, apple pie filling, fig preserves, meat: chicken, pork, beef, venison, I know their is things I am leaving out.

I would like to add one thing to me canning is a hobbie, It is something I really love to do. There is nothing that looks any better than to walk in the pantry (extra bed room that I turned into a canning and sewing room) and see the canned food on the shelf and say to yourself I did all this this year! Makes you feel good. God Bless. Tracy

-- tracy emily in TN (emilyfarms@tsixroads.com), October 16, 2001.


Aah! You just answered the question I had - where do you put your 2000 jars? LOL.

Just learned to can year before last and so far have only done green beans, squash, applesauce, apples, apple juice, tomatoes, stew meat, hamburger meat, meat balls, pickles, peppers and jellies.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), October 16, 2001.


Tracy Emily, How I admire you!! Wow, 2000 jars canned!!! Do you do anything else all summer? If I do a few hundred I think I'm doing great. Now I have something to aim for - 2000! Doubt I'll ever get than many canned though since for one thing there are just 2 of us now to eat it and my husband does not help with the canning, which is ok. I don't want to help him with the things he does either! Maybe I'll aim for 1000 next year. I love to can too but with my back problems I just cannot stand and work that long at a time in the kitchen. God bless you.

-- Barb in Ky. (bjconthefarm@yahoo.com), October 16, 2001.

All kinds of veggies and fruits. Pickles and pickled peppers. Dry beans. Chicken broth. I'm going t can chicken when we butcher next time. One year I canned 14 kinds of jelly, including dandylion, violet and sassafras.

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony@countrylife.net), October 16, 2001.

A good point was made about collecting jars. If you have to buy them new, it can really be expensive. I too have put the word out and received many, many jars from friends and relatives. In turn I love to give my stuff away, and rarely does a visitor leave without a few jars tucked into a bag. Nice way to convert people to my way of thinking too! When they can't buy anything like it in the store, they are usually calling for instructions and recipes!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), October 16, 2001.

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