Should I take up pressure canning?

[pocossin]

The situation: I garden and produce a substantial surplus. Forty years ago when I considered taking up pressure canning, my late mother refused to permit a pressure canner in the house because a cousin of hers had been seriously scalded in an explosion of a pressure canner. And also, I now think, she so much enjoyed the social activity of selling my produce at the local farmers' market. Mother is no more, and I have regained enough health that I have expanded my garden this year and may expect an even greater surplus. I live in a hurricane zone where freezers are unreliable. A new freezer would costs more that a pressure canner and equipment. Further, in many cases I think canned food tastes better than frozen. And as a bit of vanity, I would have decorative jars of canned food sitting about the kitchen.

Casting:

6. tth = young yang
5. hhh = old yang
4. hht = young yin
3. tth = young yang
2. hht = young yin
1. hht = young yin

☴ ☶
☶ ☶
.5

53.5 → 52

I think I will make progress in pressure canning and will eventually become solidly established in preserving food. I don't care what Mama don't allow, gonna do my pressure canning anyhow, uh-huh, uh-huh.

 

[Trojina]

I think I will make progress in pressure canning and will eventually become solidly established in preserving food. I don't care what Mama don't allow, gonna do my pressure canning anyhow, uh-huh, uh-huh.

You have been wanting to can for 40 years....and now is your moment....nothing can stop you !

 

[Trojina]

Further, in many cases I think canned food tastes better than frozen

I have a synchronicity you may find interesting. I rarely if ever eat canned food, only tinned tomatoes or beans sometimes. Today I opened a can of tinned pineapple I have had for some time and was surprised how much it tasted like.....well good fresh pineapple. This is the first tinned fruit I have eaten for at least 40 years I should think. That has to be an omen doesn't it ?

I eat tinned fruit for the first time in 40 years at the same time as you start a thread about wanting to can produce for 40 years.

BTW I ate the pineapple with homemade rice pudding which is also something I rarely eat. I was enjoying the rice pudding and pineapple until I decided it needed a bit more 'zing'. That was my downfall. I added some strawberry essence which is generally used in baking cakes etc. It was ghastly and I had ruined my delicious pineapple rice pudding. Luckily I had already eaten three quarters of it.

Hmm so what is the message here ? Be satisfied with what is good and simple and don't start throwing in added flavourings to get a taste hit.

 

[pocossin]

]Hmm so what is the message here ?

The message is, that when and if I am successful with pressure canning, I will invite you over for a meal.

 

[Trojina]

Okay but I will need a cab home

 

[goddessliss]

You two are a bit hilarious!

Okay but I will need a cab home

Why's that - what exactly is in the cans? Home Brew or what?

 

[Trojina]

I live in UK, he lives in US...hence if I go to dinner he will need to book me a private plane there and back.

If I stayed over night the neighbours would talk and Tom's reputation would be in tatters.

 

[pocossin]

Why's that - what exactly is in the cans? Home Brew or what?

For home pressure canning, food is put up in glass canning jars. My jars would contain figs, tomatoes, string beans (cut green beans), sugar snap peas, cowpeas, corn, carrots, jalapeno peppers, eggplant (aubergine), zucchini, and cucuzza (edible gourd) -- ingredients for soups.

 

[pocossin]

I rarely if ever eat canned food, only tinned tomatoes or beans sometimes.

No mushy peas with fish and chips?

 

[Trojina]

No. I would only eat mushy peas from a fish and chip shop....but I don't eat them anyway, mushy peas that is, and rarely fish and chips since it is too expensive.

 

[pocossin]

No. I would only eat mushy peas from a fish and chip shop....but I don't eat them anyway, mushy peas that is, and rarely fish and chips since it is too expensive.

And I thought Brits lived off fish, chips and mushy peas. I checked the price some weeks ago for such a meal in a resort area, and it was £7.95, which I thought expensive. Anyway, I shall try to have mushy peas (or an imaginative American equivalent) on the menu when you visit.

 

[Trojina]

Fish and chips is usually about £4.50 or so. Maybe with peas £5. Not £7. £4.50 is not really expensive but it is for me. I think I have eaten mushy peas maybe once in my life. I don't know anyone else who eats them. Anyone with any sense would only eat fish and chips occasionally as it's very high in fat and can make you feel sick !

I shall want pudding BTW. Treacle sponge with custard, something like that

 

[pocossin]

I shall want pudding BTW. Treacle sponge with custard, something like that

Alas, I have never seen a treacle sponge.

 

[poised]

For home pressure canning, food is put up in glass canning jars. My jars would contain figs, tomatoes, string beans (cut green beans), sugar snap peas, cowpeas, corn, carrots, jalapeno peppers, eggplant (aubergine), zucchini, and cucuzza (edible gourd) -- ingredients for soups.

Sounds wonderful, pocossin. Especially the figs. Perhaps some of the Brits here will contribute "Figgie Pudding" recipes.

I'd love to have those jars on my shelves, both for the flavor and for their beauty. So much nicer than frozen, canned, or anything you can get at stores.

Blofeld says of 52.5: "The wild goose moves gradually towards the hillock. In the end, the results will be incomparable -- good fortune!"

You will win at the county fair.

Is pressure canning different from just plain canning? My daughter will have excess veggies come October.

 

[sooo]

First, congrats on your upswing of health.

Though three years seems like a long wait, it shows optimism that you'll still be around for the payoff. Besides, half the enjoyment is in the effort. So I'm seeing this as a slow process originally but worth the patience and effort. They make welcomed gifts too when you grow and can them yourself, especially with your personalized labels. 52 is a nice visual for canned produce.

I too don't buy can foods, particularly veggies, because they typically pack so much sodium into them. But recently I bought canned very low sodium and organic garbonzo beans/chick peas for a whole grain Rotini pasta with olive oil side-dish for a neighbor's yard party, and stocked up on several cans for myself down the road. I think canners are finally getting hip to the growing low sodium conscious consumer market.

I'm sure you're smart enough to take precautionary measures against explosions.

Tom went a cannin' and he did go, uh-huh, uh-huh.

 

[pocossin]

Is pressure canning different from just plain canning?

There are two ways to can: the boiling water bath method and the pressure canner method. The boiling water bath method can be used only for high-acid foods like some varieties of tomatoes. Everything else needs pressure canning.

http://www.canning-food-recipes.com/canning.htm

Many years ago I did use the boiling water bath method, but I didn't understand the process and didn't trust it. I was lucky that all turned out well. I have since read that the boiling water bath method should never be used for canning figs.

 

[pocossin]

52 is a nice visual for canned produce.

And the trigram association is good: stuff that keeps.

I too don't buy can foods, particularly veggies, because they typically pack so much sodium into them.

Because of the sodium I haven't tasted a canned soup in five years. I make a home-made tomato soup. Just stew the tomatoes and run them through a food mill to remove skin and seed. It is amazing how good a pure tomato soup tastes. My sister loves it. I do not know why we did not have it in childhood other than lives are dominated by habit and convention, and we do not see the opportunities that surround us.

 

[Trojina]

It is amazing how good a pure tomato soup tastes. My sister loves it. I do not know why we did not have it in childhood other than lives are dominated by habit and convention, and we do not see the opportunities that surround us.

Yes same for me. My father grew a huge garden full of vegetable and had a greenhouse full of tomatoes yet my mother bought canned soup during my childhood. I think it has much to do with food fashion. In the 60s and 70s 'convenience' foods were being so heavily promoted as the way forward we even had cookery lessons using packet foods at school. I remember having to write an essay on the virtue of convenience foods. IOW attitudes were 180 degrees different to they are now. In those days convenience foods were promoted as being good for you too as they had 'added vitamins'. The idea seemed to be natural food couldn't give what packaged food could.

It is a joke in my family that at harvest festival time when us kids had to take food in to school for charity my mother used to send us in with tins in even though we had an abundance of fresh food.

We all thought the packaged food was better somehow. But people do get brainwashed by food manufacturers. My mother now makes soup with fresh vegetables. For fresh tomato soup I just roast tomatoes, onions and red peppers and then add water and whizz them up.....very easy.

 

[pocossin]

My father grew a huge garden full of vegetable and had a greenhouse full of tomatoes

A man after my own heart. The extremes in weather here do not favor growing tomatoes in greenhouses. There are hundreds of relic greenhouses around here -- skeletal frames like abbeys in England. I have learned how to do much that is done in greenhouses by inexpensive cold frames. I tire garden and need only to cover a tire with glass to have a solar-heated cold frame. I may now have twenty different vegetables sown and sprouting, although it is still winter here. This year I have made a serious commitment to gardening. I have made six compost piles, comfrey fertilizer, plant collars, and homemade cloches. Using plastic and glass, I think I can advance the gardening season here by almost a month.

It is a joke in my family that at harvest festival time when us kids had to take food in to school for charity my mother used to send us in with tins in even though we had an abundance of fresh food.

My harvest festival time consists in taking vegetables to my neighbors in summer. They tell me, "I have not had a cucumber this year" or "I have not had a watermelon this year." Grocery store produce is often expensive and of poor quality. It is shipped in from Mexico and is typically hard and tasteless.

 

[pocossin]

I have been delayed but have now ordered canning equipment and expect to begin canning this week. I hoped to begin months ago, but my early crop of string beans was destroyed by pests (spider mites, shrews, opossums). Canning needs large quantities. I now have more than enough carrots and tomatoes to fill a pressure canner.

 

[anemos]

helping a relative to make jar for the tonnes - lol- of caper they have produce; labels etc.

Have you decide your brand-name Tom for your new industry ? there are free label programs if you'd like to put labels

 

[pocossin]

Have you decide your brand-name Tom for your new industry ?

I haven't thought that far ahead, but some day I might want a label.