What are you canning now?

[Olive Hill]

Ok, silly question... why do you can your dry beans? Seems like an unnecessary middle man, creating more work for yourself? I have never had dry beans go bad, and I just keep them in jars on the shelf.

 

[Terri O]

I use canned beans very often in my salsas, to fry up for re-fried beans, in chili and relishes. If you have to take the time to soak, cook and cool it kind of takes the spontaneity out of making something quick! It seems like I am always buying them by the caseload at the store thinking, "if only I had cooked and soaked beans yesterday..." THat is why I want to can them myself, and if they're better and I can save some money, why not?
Do you only use beans for soups? Terri O

 

[Kim_NC]

Quote:
Terri,

They are MUCH better than store bought. More flavor....and no chemical ingredients/preservatives....just beans, water and salt (optional).

Here are directions for canning dry beans:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_04/beans_peas_shelled.html

Also try this page for other canning ideas with dry beans - like baked beans:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can4_vegetable.html

Quote:
Sure, I keep just plain old dry beans around too. And yep, they keep well and are handy in their own right.

But canning them is about the convenience of having canned beans on the shelf....for salads, a quick soup, a casserole recipe, mexican recipes, a quick side dish, etc. There is not always time to soak and prep dry beans....not even for someone like me (no children, work from home).

I also can things like Hoppin' John, Seasoned Pintos, Beans & Bacon, etc, from dry beans.....again for the convenience.

 

[vfem]

We enjoy all those things about beans too... keep them dried & canned. What happens when you get a craving for some refried beans in your taco and you can't because you need 24 hours to get those dried beans ready. I totally agree with kim

Just a few jars are plenty. I still always have dried to do my chilis in the crockpot.

I'm so excited... I found canning jars at walmart today... 2 things of the 8oz jelly jars for $7 each!!! HOORAY!!!

So now I am offering my classes again.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/64832547/your-very-own-private-preserving-course

 

[3goodeggs]

I have found that dried beans will kill me with migraines, but store bought canned beans are fine. The dried bean has tyramines in them. The protein changes in the drying process or something. I thought that the can beans were not reconstituted dried beans and that was why I could get away with eating them. But possibly not.

What do you all know about that? Does the pressure canning break down the tyramines? It sure would be cheaper, we eat a lot of beans. I even thought about buying the giant cans of beans and recanning them into smaller jars, but then I may just get mush. Can canned food be repressure canned?

I love black eyed peas, but have avoided them like death...because that is what I was wishing for after I ate them last time. (Imagine the emoticon where the head explodes.) if I could have them again...

 

[Terri O]

Thanks for the links! You can get already canned black eyed peas...I get them at the Dollar General for about a buck a can. Now I am going to make my own! I cant help you with the Tyrines (or whatever you said) Maybe you could Google it and find some information? I guess it could be possible...Terri O

 

[Kim_NC]

YW, Terri O

3goodeggs - sorry, I don't know anything about tyramines. I agree, try a google search.

Here are pints of Chickpeas I canned late yesterday. They're our favorite for salads.
2 lbs of the dry peas made 9 pints. The cost of the peas was $2.90 total ....32¢ per pint jar.

I suppose we could count a bit in for the electricity. The typical average cost to run an electric burner for 1 hr is 10¢ - varies somewhat based on actual cost/kwh in a given location. Anyway a reasonable estimate would be to add 12.5¢ in total electricity cost to run the burner for 75 minutes.

But I would can my own anyway, even if there wasn't a savings.

oopppsss...had to fix the photo link

 

[Dragonfly Ranch]

As usual everyone is busy with canning. I agree with all the comments about canning your own beans. We can ours as well and they are AWESOME compared to store bought. In fact we just ate the last pint of pinto beans and need to get on with doing some more. Now that the holidays are behind us, we need to get back into the canning mode. We gifted ourselves with a sausage stuffer for Christmas so now we are really getting into the sausage thing. Made breakfast sausage and have to do a Apple/Leek with pork tonight when I get home.

I brought 24 jars of jams and jellies for Christmas sharing and it was so cool when I pulled out the boxes and the whole room did a big Ooooooo! To bad we didn't get it on video it was perfect that everyone did it at once with no coaching. Made all the work well worth to have everyone looking forward to receiving homemade gifts from us.
I was a bit in the dog house though since I didn't have any Jalapeno/Apricot jam this year which is everyone favorite.

Happy New Year to everyone - just in case I don't get a chance to get back on line.

Sandee

 

[theOEGBman]

Quote:
I had planned on gifting jams and jellies for Christmas as well. Half of the family didnt show up and the other half left when I was upstairs, so not a single jar left! I have 90 jars of various stuff in the cellar and I got 40 new jars for Christmas... I want these things empty so I can fill them again!

 

[theOEGBman]

Quote:
Great job! See, it wasnt so hard was it?

You are still alive and now you can expand your horizons even more! Whooo-Hooo! Terri O

Congrats, OEGBman! and just wait....pressure canning will open a whole new door to pantry goodies for you!

Late last week, we processed 4 turkeys into 18 lbs ground turkey (frozen), one whole breast (brined & roasted for a family holiday gathering on Sunday). I roasted all of the bones, etc from grinding, then cooked them down into a rich broth. From that I canned 9 quarts of meat and stock for soups/stews/meatpies on Saturday, and froze another 2 qts of meat without broth.

AND...Winter is the time when I can-up my own beans - kidney, pinto, black, chickpeas, etc - from dry beans. They're so much cheaper and better than commercially canned beans. I do them in Winter when there's no garden produce to deal with, and I try to do enough to last through Summer/Fall (a year's supply).

After looking for 3 weeks, I finally found cannellini beans (white kidney beans) at a Whole Foods store over the weekend! I canned those last night into 9 pints. I'm going to try them in our favorite Italian soup recipe - White Bean, Kale and Sausage Soup. If all goes well, I plan to buy a 10 lb bulk bag and can a bunch more of them along with other beans in January.

Terri, It wasnt difficult at all! A little frightening, but not hard, haha.

Thanks, Kim! I canned some "turkey stock" I made as well and I stayed in the kitchen the entire time.

I was discussing the dry beans with my mom as well. Sounds like something I'll be doing, because my brother, sister and her husband bought me 4 new cases of jars for Christmas.