What are you canning now?

[wyoDreamer]

A friend was visiting last weekend and he loves to talk cooking with me. He has come up with a novel idea that want to share with you folks.

He recently acquired a dehydrator and is experimenting with new recipes. His wife made homemade tomato soup for supper one night and after she strained it she left the chunky bits in a bowl on the counter. He scooped it up and filled a fruit leather pan and popped it into his dehydrator. After it was dry, he crushed it up and tasted it. Yummy! so he used it as a seasoning mix for grilled chicken. It was fabulous!

 

[rancher hicks]

1. When I strain juice through cheese cloth, I use 3 or 4 layers - usually just 3. I only strain it once. I have always been happy with the result from one straining, but I may not be as picky about it being clear as I should. My Sunshine Rhubarb Juice always ends up with a little lemon zest sediment on the bottom of the jar.

2. I am not sure of the optimum number of layers to use, but I am fairly frugal and it seems that 4 is enough to do the job - I use 3 layers because when I fold the cheese cloth to fit my strainer, folding it in thirds fits best.

3. Don't know about glass vs. plastic. I have picked a whole bunch of wild grapes for making some jelly. How important is it to let it sit and precipitate out the crystals?

4. I never reuse my cheesecloth. However, I have a couple of jelly bags that I wash and reuse all the time. They are linen and I prefer it to cheesecloth. Just throw it in the laundry with my dish towels.

I forgot to let my first batch sit for 24 hrs and was told it was crunchy. Not that I recall what I kept for myself but the recipe does say to let it sit. I have been just tossing my cheesecloth into the washer and running it on a rinse cycle.

 

[rancher hicks]

So what I learned from this batch. I used eight sheets of cheese cloth to pour the grape juice through after letting it sit for 24 hrs and avoiding the crystals and sediment. I let it sit a couple of days since I was busy, but today on measuring out the five cups I found no crystals or sediment. What this means is I got them all the first time around and won't go through a second screening.

Now to see how the jelly turns out.

 

[rancher hicks]

Grape jelly turned out good. Now doing Pomegranate Grape.

I had a bottle of Lakewood organic pomegranate juice ( 4 cups in the bottle) and one cup of the grape juice. So I'm doing it up just like I did with the grape jelly. Thankfully I noticed sediment in the bottom of the Pomegranate juice bottle and poured the juice through some cheese cloth.

I also dumped the too tart gooseberry jam and ran that through a strainer and will add strawberries to that and hope it comes out good.

 

[lcertuche]

Harvested the green bean tower yesterday. Put a pound or two in the freezer and then made spicy pickled green beans with the rest (homegrown jalapeno in there). Used nine 12 oz. jelly jars, which allows for longer beans and less waste.

 

[lcertuche]

I have wanted a pressure canner so bad but I finally decided to start doing what I could with the boiling water bath method. So far I have made blackberry jelly, elderberry syrup, apple pie filling, apple pie preserves, and jalapeno jelly. It won't make much of a dent in feeding the Wildbunch this winter but it is satisfying to get back into the game. I have also dried a huge amount of peppers, jalapenos, red and yellow bells, sweet bananas, along with sweet peas, tomatoes, carrots. I have froze around 40 qts. of tomatoes and at least that much potatoes for french fries. I have 3 of my roosters in the freezer but I wish still that I had a pressure canner to can them. I want to move away from so much of depending on the power company (freezer).

 

[hippiestink]

Plums are in season, so I might make some spiced plum jelly sometime in the next month.

 

[mamatink7]

5 bushels apples!!
Doing 80 apples right now (1 bushel)
This is #2 bushel done but 3rd total as I did 1 special for my dad.
Whew hope I've got enough jars.

 

[Peep_Show]

If you don't have enough jar, applesauce can be frozen!

 

[mamatink7]

If you don't have enough jar, applesauce can be frozen!

ahh good idea. Should I prepare same way as I always do it? Do I still need lemon juice?
My 80 apple batch made 12 qt jars, I was hoping for 2 more but still was thrilled!!