What are you canning now?

[sonew123]

7 quarts of beef stew! Best batch yet!

 

[GhostRider65]

Yummy Beef Stew, do you mind sharing that recipe, I would like to try it, I have afreezer full roasts that need to be used up b4 we order more beef......... I was just gonna can it plain, but stew sounds wonderful........... what about the veggi's do they get super soft in the canner?.. I would love to make soups of many kinds so its not an all day thing when we get hungry for soup, but I did pasta sauce this year and at the last minute decided to add burger, I was not happy how the burger changed the taste of my sauce, tasted like chefboyrd, LOL crap in a can...... and the day I made it I used chicken for our supper and it was so Delicious.....arggggg Kim

 

[mickey328]

So far, the only "completed" soup I've canned is chili. I canned other ingredients separately so that if I want to make soup, I can open a can of browned stew beef, a can of veg and a can of potatoes. Throw them all in a pot and add a gravy and voila...soup

I'd like to hear your version of it as well, sonew

 

[galanie]

Someone help me with this. I've always seen people put tomatoes and corn up in quarts. Nothing but quarts. Even my aunt, who is only feeding herself and my uncle. What do two people do with a full quart of tomatoes? Or corn? They're long gone and it never occured to me that it didn't make sense till lately lol. Or maybe it does? I can see it with feeding a tribe. But even feeding a family I never needed more than the pint jars full for anything. Well sometimes maybe two pints (which is a quart) but usually a quart would have been a real waste. And I don't trust it to keep in the fridge.

 

[mickey328]

I put all my tomatoes in quarts because when I use them it usually takes a quart, or even 2. I generally use them for chili or soup, and I always make a big pot.

I never can veggies in quarts...a pint is about 3 servings for us...unless DH is really in a veggie mood If we're having guests, I can simply open 2 of them. I've found that home canned things will keep in the fridge about as long as commercially canned things, so leftovers are okay if you can eat them in about 3 days or so.

Wait! I take it back...I do potatoes in quarts. Mostly I mash them, so a quart gives us about 2 meals which get eaten up generally within 2 days.

 

[galanie]

In that context, I'm guessing my aunt put them in quarts because that's what she always did. Then put the rest in the fridge for the next day. What you say makes perfect sense. I really wondered. I'm only feeding myself, sometimes me and my friend, and if I put it all in quarts I'd have food up to my eyeballs every time I cooked.. and lots of wasted food LOL.

 

[Darklingstorm]

In that context, I'm guessing my aunt put them in quarts because that's what she always did. Then put the rest in the fridge for the next day. What you say makes perfect sense. I really wondered. I'm only feeding myself, sometimes me and my friend, and if I put it all in quarts I'd have food up to my eyeballs every time I cooked.. and lots of wasted food LOL.

Your aunt probably used quarts because in the long run it was cheaper to can in quart size then to buy twice as many jars in the pint size.
I for one am all about the pint size except with tomatoes.

 

[mickey328]

I think back in the day, families were much bigger and quarts were pretty much the standard. I know my father's mother did everything in quarts, but they also had a family of 6 to feed, so it would make sense. Nowadays we're luckier to have such a variety of sizes so we can use what makes more sense portion wise.

LOL, it reminds me of a story I heard once. This family had a recipe for a certain type of beef roast that had been passed down for several generations. It involved cutting off a certain piece of the meat before cooking. One day a little girl asked why. Nobody knew. After checking with all the older generations, they found out that it was because the originator of the recipe's pan wasn't big enough to hold the whole thing, so she cut off a piece. LOL....talk about habit!

 

[off-grid hen]

Canned 30 jars ( some half pints for gift baskets and some pints) of applesauce yesterday. I started with about a bushel of apples. Well- the orchard gave me "half bushel" bags, so who knows.

I put a little bit of water in the bottom of the pot (largest stock pot you can find).

Cut the apples into 8 wedges-peels and all, and throw into the pot. Add cinnamon if you want.

Steam until apples are mushy and falling off the peel. They will look like pink applesauce with peels mixed in. Pass through a food mill (I use the Roma mill-creates the least amount of waste of any I've used). Jar it (hot pack) leaving 1 inch of head space, water bath for 20 minutes.

 

[galanie]

Your aunt probably used quarts because in the long run it was cheaper to can in quart size then to buy twice as many jars in the pint size.
I for one am all about the pint size except with tomatoes.

That's kind of what I meant about doing it because she always had. She already had the quart jars and they were much too thrifty to go out and buy more cans.