Start Home Canning your own Organic Healthy Meals.
Canning Meat: A Smart Growing Trend in Feeding the Family.
Learn how to begin home canning to save money and live self sufficiently! Try Canning Tomatoes, fruits, and meats to stock up your pantry and eat well all year long.
Canning food yourself is rewarding because you are providing for yourself without relying on the market. You can easily have pure organic food without chemicals, and it comes much cheaper than the cans from the grocery store. Canning Green Beans, peppers, sauces, and jams are just a few you can start out with.
The interest in home canning is exploding, and it is no wonder. At a time when we are in big economic trouble, families need to look for every way they can to be self sufficient.
Canning is a great way to save hundreds of dollars, more if you are a large family, on the foods we are used to just buying at the local grocery store. So let's preserve the Local Harvest and save money all year!
You will have a modest start up cost for Canning Supplies initially, but this will be offset in your very first year.
You will need a water bath canner for High Acid Foods like tomatoes and jam.
A Pressure Canner is needed for low acid meats and vegetables.
Not only do you get to keep the healthy organic produce you grew this summer, but you also get to keep your money.
Many of us are very frustrated at the spending that is not in our personal control, robbing us of being able to feed our families well, pay our monthly bills, stay employed and pay our mortgages.
Being great Americans, we are often go-getters and want to take back that control, so we decide it is best to limit our families spending and consumption habits. Alright, so even if we did not decide, it was decided for us.
We search for solutions. We decide we should rightly be home canning and taking care of our other survival needs so no one can take our food off the table, our jobs off the map and our houses off the block. If we still have one, that is.
We take action. We find we can grow a vegetable garden and we can put up a whole years of the best tasting homemade canned goods imaginable. We notice the money still in our wallet from not entering a store and needing to fill a cart for $600.00 that month. We begin to feel empowered and a little better again.
The seeds are planted! What did you teach your kids and neighbors about where food is supposed to come from? Would they like some time with you learning all about Canning Salsa?
Congratulations on a good days work! Through demonstrating your home canning skills, you have just passed on a fabulous life lesson for the next generation of savers, not spenders.
So sit back, hang on and choose from our fabulous home canning recipes.
Ready? Let's Start Step by Step
1. Prepare the Harvest.
Right after picking is the ideal time to get your fruits and veggies washed, peeled and sliced according to your recipe. Nutritional quality diminishes with every hour delayed, so plan on same day home canning if at all possible.
You may need the following additives depending on your recipe: Lemon juice, fruit fresh, cider or white vinegar 5%, pickling or Kosher salt (no iodine), either liquid or powdered pectin, and a sugar/water solution for light, medium and thick syrups. Do not mix liquid and powder types of pectin as you could have jam that refuses to set, no fun!
2. Now is the time to check your jar rims for small cracks or chips. If you find one don't bother processing as it will not seal. Wash your jars in either hot soapy water or an efficient dishwasher. Fill those big pots now, fire up the stove and get them boiling. Add the empty jars and boil for at least 10 minutes. At the time you start filling jars, you will use some of that hot boiling water and place it in a pan to set your lids and rims to soak.
3. If you are making jam or other liquid food, simply fill the jars using your funnel. When Canning Food Pack chunky fruits and vegetables with a spoon. In either case you will need to fill leaving a 1/4"-1/2" headspace.
4. Run your plastic spatula through the mixture and then take that clean damp dishtowel and wipe away any drips on the jar rims.
5. Center your lids on each jar, followed by the rings, firm but not over tightened.
6. Great! Now just put those lovelies into the boiling water and process for the time called for. Make sure they are fully submerged at all times. You start the time after the water is at a rolling boil. A good rule is 40 minutes for tomatoes, 25 for fruit, fruit pie fillings and applesauce, and 10-15 minutes for pickles. Check your recipe carefully for processing times.
7. When the time is up, get your jar tongs and take the jars out and place right side up on your towel. They need to cool, and there is nothing so satisfying as the little plink plink sound you will begin to hear that tells you your seals are securing themselves for you.
8. After a few hours check the seals by gently pressing the top of the lids. They should not move up and down. If one or more does, they cannot be stored with the others and you have several options. Either put it in the fridge for use that week, or remove and inspect the rim for chips, replacing with a new lid/ring and reprocessing for the full time, or you can freeze the contents in another container.
For storage, cool and dry is the only way to go. You can opt to remove the bands or leave them on. The prevailing wisdom for removal is if your jars could get damp over the winter and rust. If that is not a problem it is best to leave the bands on so you can use one on the mason jar in the fridge you are using that week.
You do not want to have to by new bands next year, so keep them in storage where they will not get stacked upon or bent. The lids, however, are done for and must be bought new each canning season. Ball home canning supplies are high quality and reliable products that exceed industry standards.
9. Label. Use the cute labels that come with your pectin or make your own. Be sure to date and don't forget to give one to someone you love. They will remember hand canned treats and fresh colored eggs from your hens far longer than any other gift.
Ready? Let's Start Step by Step
