And so is the chili sauce!
I’ve been making chili sauce with Elegante Mother for the last 15 years, and it usually took us all day to cook it down to the point where it could be canned. Today we were done at 2:20!
My niece and I started chopping at 6:00. Yesterday I washed the tomatoes and peppers, and set out the cutting boards, knives and the pots. I weighed the tomatoes, and set aside those that still needed a little time to ripen.
At 6:30 we had enough veggies and tomatoes chopped to begin filling the pans, so I cranked up the burners. We tried something different this time. We used FOUR dutch ovens to cook this recipe. We divided the ingredients equally between the four pots, brought the sauce to a boil, and then turned it down to a simmer.
I was astonished at how fast it cooked down! We could have been done by 1:00 if I had realized how quickly it was reducing. I used the dishwasher to wash, sterilize and dry the jars, and it delayed the canning.
We gradually combined the contents of the pots until we were down to one, and I filled the canner with water, and set it to boil. The lids and rings went into boiling water, and we waited for the jars to be ready.
We ended up with 19 1/2 jars. I sent two home with my niece, and the rest will be shared with sisters.
I hope the apple butter and Damson plum jam go as well as today did!
Great idea to divide it up like that. Funny how over the years we learn great short cuts.
Mmmmm…I’ll be making up a batch of apple butter this year too. Can’t wait as I ran out about a month ago and daughter is complaining that she’s out too. Hopefully she’ll come in for a visit and I’ll be able to pass on the tradition.
You made short work of the chili sauce. And, the companionship probably made the time whiz by!
You and Bogie are so good about following directions. I’ve usually canned something that was either acidic (salsa, tomatoes, pickled beets) or sugary (jams), so haven’t felt the need to use a canner. In canning a few pints of apples, last year, I followed Bogie’s advice by using a water bath–but–failed to put the rings on and (of course!) the flats came off and the cooked apples bubbled over into the boiling water. Oh, me, what a mess. A lesson well learned!
I hope you get to share the apple butter session with your daughter, Pennie! I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed the morning with my niece, and she hopes to return, so I know it wasn’t a one-sided experience.
You are such a domestic goddess!
It was great having Cop Car here last year to help can salsa! If she would only make her way up here to do the same this year. Oh wait – I don’t think I need all that much help since I am only getting about 4 tomatoes a week – LOL!
I picked peaches the other day, but I have been so busy that last night I ended up throwing them in the mulch pile to let the yellow jackets get drunk as the fruit ferments.
I discovered that multiple smaller batches do much more quickly than larger batches while making lemon marmalade a couple of years ago. And I’ve found they taste better too, as they are cooked for less time.
Glad it’s not just us struggling with getting it all into jars!
BW….I hadn’t given any thought to the longer cooking changing the flavor of the sauce. I suppose I assumed that it gave it more time to blend. Mother tells me that the best batch was one that got a little scorched on the bottom of the pan. I haven’t tried to re-create that batch with my own cooking! lol
Thanks for the comment about the marmelade. I’ll keep that in mind when we do plum jam.
Bogie…the visit would be fun, whether you were canning or not!
We have three fruit trees left from the old orchard…two pears and an apple. We don’t spray the trees during the growing season, and let the fruit drop for wildlife and insects to feast on. We have to watch out for the bees and wasps. I haven’t raked up the fallen fruit, so you have to be careful when you walk in the yard, or a feisty wasp will think you’re trying to steal his dinner, and run you off.
Susan, I’m so far from being a “domestic goddess” that you’d have a great laugh if you could see me in the kitchen. The truth is…I like to eat, so I’m willing to work at cooking, occasionally! lol
(choking on my tea…) Cop Car….I just read all of the message you sent on August 22. The thought of all the apples drifting out into the boiling water had me gasping with laughter!
Something I learned this year is that things which are not acidic should be finished off in a pressure cooker. Vegetables (like celery) added to tomatoes lessen the acidity of the mixture, so those products need to be canned in a pressure cooker. Fortunately, the chili sauce we make has a quart of vinegar added to it, so it’s acidic enough to be canned in a hot water bath. And, I’m happy to say….we used rings on the jars, Sunday! Yes, we follow directions in this house, or, at least some of us do! lol
Buffy–How do you get fruit to drop to the ground? Rarely does any of our fruit stay on the tree long enough to ripen and then fall–the critters eat the fruit on the trees. I got to eat two small peaches, this year. (I did get to eat almost all of the cherries on our tree a few weeks ago, though!)
Bogie–If I come up to help you make salsa, I must bring my own tomatoes, eh? Usually, I plant 6-8 tomato plants, plus allowing 2-3 of the volunteers to live. This year, according to the directions (for Buffy’s benefit), I moved my tomato bed and have not allowed any volunteers to survive. Having only planted 3 tomato plants, this year, they are producing more than we can eat–which is good, since the critters think that they deserve more tomatoes than we do! Just now, most of the tomatoes are split and scarred due to the sudden influx of rain. The tomatoes weren’t used to being watered so much.
I have read in books that Canning is done in America. I have to admit though that I have never seen it done or have ever seen the equipment that I assume that is needed. When I was a young girl my mother used to bottle fruit a lot, as well as maiking lots of jams. The bottling stopped round the time that they had their first freezer, and she found out how much easier and less of a fiddle it was to freeze rather than bottle fruit.
Jam isn’t something I’ve made, partly because I don’t have access to large amounts of fruit. Perhaps one day.
I have a wonderful book called “Stocking Up” that gives some of the best assistance in preserving food that I’ve found, and quite a bit of the recipes preserve by freezing. We do it both ways, Adele. I think many of us preserve enough that we’d need a second freezer to hold it all.
I suppose I can food because my full-sized freezer is overstuffed. I know….it’s one more thing I need to get to. DH says I can’t empty it out until the night before we put out the garbage, and he has a point. All that food defrosting in the sweltering garage wouldn’t be pleasant.
Adele–“Canning” is a misnomer, these days. In my youth, we did can in steel cans, in addition to using glass jars. These days, we only use glass jars. For acidic products or products that are heavy in sugar, the only equipment required is the equipment to cook the food and hot, sterilized jars and hot, sterilized (2-piece, these days) lids.
Fastidious people (like our own Domestic Goddess, Buffy, and like our own Independence Goddess, Bogie), then put the jars of food (with the flat of the lid in place, and the ring of the lid tightened somewhat) into a large kettle that has a rack in the bottom (to keep the jars off of the bottom of the kettle) and water (anywhere from 1/4-3/4 of the way up on the sides of the jar), and place a lid on the kettle. The water is gently boiled for about 20 minutes to kill any lingering microbes.
For foods that are that are more easily spoiled, being neither acidic nor containing large amounts of sugar (or salt), the jars are put into a pressure cooker, rather than a kettle, for processing at high pressure and heat. This is a more positive way of assuring that the microbes are destroyed and even more of the air is driven out of the jars by expansion due to the higher heat that may be obtained at higher pressure. As a jar cools, from either type of processing, a vacuum is left inside the jar by the condensation of the steam. Because the rubber around the flat of the lid is pliable from the heat, it forms a better and better seal as the pressure on the outside of the jar (vacuum on the inside) pushes the flat of the lid ever more strongly against the rim of the jar opening.
Yup….that describes what we did, with one exception. We totally covered the jars for their bath. I can see that I have to go do some more reading!
I have frozen a few recipes, but usually I use the glass jars when I “can.”
Cop Car, about the fruit dropping….I have no idea why any of it is left to drop, considering all the critters we have. I guess the trees just have bumper crops. I wonder at this point if we could get an edible crop if I instituted a spraying regime in the spring?
YOU FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS?? What, someone told you you’d get more tomatoes if you moved them to a different spot? I have a terrible time getting my tomatoes to produce. I plant them too close together or I forget to water regularly. I’m amazed that the cherry tomatoes are doing so well, but the year was so brutal I had to water the herb garden, so the tomatoes benefited from the attention. Yeah….they are fussy about getting the right amount of water at the right time. I’m familiar with blossom end rot and splitting due to uneven watering.
Buffy–You’ve done it again. *sulking with hurt feelings* I could not even input that with a straight face! Cherry tomatoes are generally great producers–as are the pear and grape tomatoes. I like them all, but have none of the three, this year (that’s what many of the volunteer plants were.)
As a purist, you WOULD cover the jars in your water bath processing. I’m doing well to have a kettle that is tall enough that the jars can be set in it (on jar rings–since I have no rack to fit the taller kettle) and still get the lid on. No way can I get the water that high. But, you are undoubtedly correct that the jars SHOULD be covered with the water. (As long as the food inside the jar reaches the boiling point, for 20 minutes, I doubt that the amount of water makes a whit of difference.)
(laughing) It does my heart SO much good to read that phrase!
I applaud you for your inventiveness in creating an alternative for the commercial hot water bath!
I’m sure you’re right about the amount of water not being critical, I just do it this way because it was how I learned to do it.
Buffy and I can stand arm-in-arm while we cover the jars completely with water (at least 1/2″) during the water bath.
We don’t spray our fruit trees either. That means we only get a couple of apples that aren’t bug-ridden. Peaches, however, don’t seem to be “bugged” by many insects. Our poor peach tree is so overloaded it is laying on the ground (Obviously I failed to pick off 2/3 of the fruit as I normally do to keep that from happening).
I have trouble keeping plums on the tree thru ripening though. I have even more trouble getting any pears or cherries to even think about starting to form,
Neither do I (spray trees), which is why I took out the plum tree (that had layed itself down on our driveway one spring). 99% of the plums had a worm at the pit. They didn’t seem to ripen–they went from “hard” to “rotten”. Oh, well, I’ll enjoy my Oklahoma redbud! (The two peaches that I got to eat this year didn’t look pristine.)
We have just the two pears and an apple tree, so I don’t have a lot of experience with fruit trees. I remember reading about spraying in a Stark Brothers catalog, and did a little research on the subject ages ago, but decided against spraying when I realized I was going to have to calibrate a sprayer.
I’ve seen a few trees lean with the weight of their fruit, but I thought only the plum trees did that. A friend used to bring baskets of small Italian plums to give away any time we gathered to quilt.
Atta girl, Bogie! Sooner or later we’ll wear her down! COVER the jars with water!
This is my second attempt to post. The software ate my first version posted this morning.
Ah, so it is all down to nomenclature once again. When you say Canning I should visualise Bottling. That makes much better sense – I had visions of you having tins and tins of produce stored away on shelves and was wondering where you got the equipment to seal the tins. Now Bottling fruit, veg and pickles I understand. When I was young (Oh dear, I never thought I would start to say that…) my mother used to bottle lots, but that was before we had the freezer. I certainly remember all the paraphanalia that went into making sure that everything was absolutely clean and that one ended up with a vacuum seal to preserve what was in the bottle.
I have to admit that it has not occurred to me to start such preserving myself, mainly because I don’t grow the produce myself to do so and would have to trek down a Pick Your Own farm for the produce and also try to find the actual equipment which I have to admit that I haven’t seen around – not that I have looked.
The thing is that our lifestyle is significantly different from that of my parents and so what we eat and how it is stored is totally different. For an example every time I make Minestrone Soup (see http://momentaftermoment.blogspot.com/) I have a small grin at myself at how scandalised my mother would be at my putting any cloves of garlic into the soup, let alone the 6 or so cloves that we like. Just different tastes. Another example of differences is our approach to is pasta – we love it and eat it a lot, considering it a good economical meal (depending, of course, what else you cook with it). To my parents it is a foreign food to be approached with caution. My late father could never get on with pasta and would just not like “foreign food”. My mother only likes it if she can immediately recognise every single other ingredient and every process used to achieve the finished meal. Even then she considers it something “different”. Horses for courses.
NO GARLIC??? That’s just criminal.
I can’t imagine a month without a couple of pasta dinners. We’ve cut back, because pasta isn’t the best choice for a diabetic, but we still eat it. We just eat less of it. Still, I understand what you’re saying about changes from one generation to the next.
I don’t understand “Horses for courses,” though! lol It must be a bit of culture clash.
Adele–We did have shelves and shelves of home-canned (in cans) food when I was a kid. As each winter passed, the cans grew scarcer and scarcer on those basement shelves. As I recall, the lid was placed atop the can and we cranked a hand crank that turned the can as it crimped to top to the side of the can. After that, the can went into the pressure cooker for processing. And, yes, your bottling corresponds to what we now call canning–because “jarring” just doesn’t sound right–lol. I’m wondering if “Horses for courses” doesn’t correspond to our “Different strokes for different folks”?
Buffy–When I was growing up, there were two kinds of pasta: spaghetti and elbow maccaroni. I don’t recall ever actually eating spaghetti, but we all loved Mom’s baked maccaroni and cheese.
I bet you’re right on the “different strokes” thing.
CC…I think the first pasta I ever ate was spagetti. It was the pasta of choice at my mother’s table. Elbow macaroni showed up a little later. I was astonished to discover the variety available, once I was out and cooking for myself.
I enjoy a meal that is made with grilled salmon and farfale…bowties. Unfortunately, it seems as though the bowties that are available to me are HUGE, and I’d like to find a smaller version. We have ditalini for pasta e fagioli, and of course, lasagna, penne (ziti), and mostaccoli, linquine, fettucini, rotini, ravioli and shells of several sizes. Of all those types, elbow macaroni is probably my least favorite.
Over the course of this discussion I’ve been trying to remember if I ever saw anyone in my family use a pressure cooker, and I think the answer is no. I’ve seen one, but it wasn’t a family member using it. I can only remember finishing a canning (bottling) session with a boiling water bath.
Cop Car is right when she said “I’m wondering if “Horses for courses” doesn’t correspond to our “Different strokes for different folks”?” Yes, that is exactly what I meant.
At one time the only pasta one could normally find was the same as Cop Car mentioned: namely macaroni and spaghetti. Nowadays we can get a huge variety, may of which are now sitting in my store cupboard. However, there are clearly differences between what you have available and what we do. As mentioned elsewhere you have elbow macaroni, whereas our macaroni is straight and with no bend in it.
I have to admit that my least favourite type of pasta is spaghetti. I know it’s illogical as, of course, it tastes the same as all other pasta. I think it is just that I am so clumsy at eating it and end up looking a mess.
I do have a pressure cooker, it was a wedding present. We don’t use it very much though.
HH loves spaghetti, and it cooks quickly, so I always have it (and the afore-mentioned elbow maccaroni–that–yes, is curved) on hand. Other types of pasta tend to languish on our shelves, so they aren’t worth keeping on hand.
I also keep crinkly egg noodles on hand. The other day, I even made lasagne wih the noodles (but, I wouldn’t have been above using the elbow maccaroni). You know what? It was great! I may never buy another lasagne noodle.
For years, I had a large pressure cooker (I’m guessing that it would hold 10 quart-sized jars). I believe it was Grandmother’s. I only used it once–to cook applebutter when we lived in Seattle. At that, I only used the cooker because it was the largest cooking pot that I owned, not to apply pressure. Eventually, I got rid of the cooker–don’t recall how. Nor do I recall what Mother did with her pressure cooker. Come to think of it, Mom had a smallish pressure cooker (purchased in the 1950s) as well as her large one. She used the small one to cook roasts (which puts to lie my assertion that she fried all her meats, doesn’t it?)
Cop Car, Dear Husband’s kids don’t care for my version of Lasagna, so their Dad has to cook for them. When I cook for the two of us, I make “Baked Ziti,” which is virtually identical to Lasagna with the exception of the shape of the pasta. I think you can use whatever shape you want, as long as it holds up to the needs of the recipe.
Recipe? There you go, again–following directions–lol!
Cop Car – I got Grandma’s pressure cooker. I’ve never used it and would have to replace seals before I could do so. I find that the things that I would need a pressure cooker for (green beans and such), I would rather just blanche and freeze.
But then I haven’t grown any green beans for a couple of years (and the peas decided to die on me), and I’ve never been able to grow corn here, so all of that is moot at this point!
Bogie–You are playing with (what’s left of) my mind. I had said, once, that I gave you Grandma H’s pressure cooker and you said that you didn’t have it. You must have thought that I was talking about my mother (your Grandmother H) rather than MY Grandmother H? Or did I dream the whole exchange? Yes, that cooker needed new seals when I used it in Seattle for the applebutter; but, I didn’t need to build pressure so it was of no importance, to me.
I tried growing green beans here year after year, and the visiting deer kept munching them down to little nubs. I finally purchased green beans at the Farmer’s Market to make green bean pickles. There’s vinegar in that mix, so I didn’t have to worry about using a pressure cooker. Frankly, the darned things scare me.
Cop Car….would it have been more appropriate to have said “…the needs of the dish.”???
I keep forgetting that you don’t follow instructions! That simply amazes me since you’re an engineer. DH says that you probably figure you already know how to do things…why look up instructions.
Buffy–You nearly lost me. I had to go back to see to what you were referring. Yes, “needs of the dish” suits me.
Engineers think that they can figure out how to do anything better than anyone can tell them. Of course, 99.9% of the time we are wrong about that. When I do try to follow a non-engineer’s/non-scientist’s directions, it ends in frustration because I can think of 50 different ways to interpret most instructions–especially if someone has tried to do it with pictures instead of with words. Maybe I’m just too lazy to make the effort and too in-a-hurry to take the time.
When I GIVE instructions, in a technical matter, they are usually pretty good and easy to follow–I’ve had years of experience and been paid a lot of money doing just that. Heaven help anyone who tries to decipher my instructions that are not of a technical nature! My tongue gets in front of my eye teeth and I can’t see what I’m saying.
CC – I don’t remember that exchange. However, I have no idea who’s grandmother’s pressure cooker I have, I just know I got it after “my” grandmother passed away.
Buffy – thanks for letting us iron things out on your site!
Cop Car, I think Dear Husband must be an engineer at heart. He can think of 20 ways to resolve a problem to my one, and tends to get frustrated when I want him to do something MY way! lol
Bogie….it’s my pleasure! *G* I can’t think when I’ve had so many comments to a post! Is it all settled now?
Buffy–No, it wasn’t “all settled” because, now I realize that it was I who was confused about which grandmother Bogie meant in her first comment about having “…Grandma’s pressure cooker.” She was talking about HER grandmother, not mine. So, we are back to where I thought we were. I still don’t know who got MY grandmother’s pressure cooker. (Who cares? I hear you ask….) Finis
Lie CopCar I used to use our pressure cooker purely as a very large cooking pot, larger than all my other saucepans. Then, several months ago the Husband and I invested in a proper stockpot and now the pressure cooker is just now never used.
Although I’m not an engineer at all I do think laterally, which is something neither the Husband or either of his kids can do. That means that often I can reach decisions or find ways of doing things easier than they can.
Adele–You may not BE an engineer, but you’ve surely stumped one. I don’t know what it means to “think laterally.”
She’s discribing that ability that you and DH have to look at something and see a different way to do it. DH wanders through Farm and Fleet saying…”Now, HOW could I use THAT??”
I bet you had dozens of ways to solve problems, because you think laterally!
Thanks for ‘splaining that to me. Sometimes I barely think–let alone laterally! Engineers tend to view a problem with enthusiasm–thus, aren’t afraid to put a little effort into the solution–’cause it’s FUN! Is fun lateral?
Fun is multi-directional!
Buffy’s reply accurately described what I was trying to say (badly). To my mind it is fun, to try to find different ways to solve a problem, which I thought was what Engineers always try to do. I think the term “to think laterally” originally came from Tony Buzan, but I’m not certain.
Well, that led to an interesting search. Wikipedia had a listing for Tony Buzan. I’m not familiar with him, although I might have seen a program on his work on TV. This site might interest you:http://www.mycoted.com/creativity/puzzles/puzzles.php
It’s a page of Lateral Thinking Puzzles.