Canning - How To Make Homemade Apple Chutney

During the fall season, we love to visit our local fruit orchard and pick our own apples so that we can make some homemade apple chutney.

We enjoy using this chutney as a sandwich spread or as an addition to our homemade chicken, turkey and tuna salads. If you are using it as a salad spread, cut your mayonnaise or salad dressing in half and replace the other half with the chutney.

This recipe requires the basic home canning equipment: half-pint or pint-sized mason jars, water bath canner, jar lifter, seals and rings, ladle and a funnel.

Apple Chutney Recipe

2 quarts apples
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 lbs. seedless raisins

Canning - How To Make Homemade Pear Marmalade

When it comes to home canning, one of the easiest recipes you can make is some type of fruit marmalade and this pear marmalade recipe is no exception.

You will need your basic home canning supplies: water bath canner, half-pint or pint-sized mason jars, seals and rings, jar lifter, ladle, silicone nonstick spatula and a funnel.

If you enjoy giving homemade food gifts during the holiday season, this is a nice one to make and give as a gift. If you seal your mason jars correctly, this marmalade should last for up to 1 year.

Pear Marmalade Recipe

4 lbs. fresh pears
8 cups granulated sugar
2 cups tap water
4 fresh oranges
1 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated orange rind

Wash and remove stems and leaves from pears. Peel off the skins and chop the flesh up into small pieces. Peel the skin off the oranges and discard the seeds and membranes. Reserve one small piece of the orange rind and finely grate it until you have 1 1/2 teaspoons of finely grated orange rind. Chop the flesh of the oranges into small pieces.

In a large stock pot, combine all of the above ingredients and bring to a rapid boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for approximately 45 minutes or until the mixture thickens. You will need to stir the mixture every 8 to 10 minutes using a nonstick silicone spatula to keep it from sticking to the pot.

Wash and clean your half-pint or pint-sized mason jars. You will want to warm up your jars using your oven set at 200 degrees F. Remove jars from the oven, one at a time. Ladle the hot mixture into clean warm jars leaving a 1/2" head space. Wipe the jar rim clean with a soft cotton towel. Place ring and seal onto the jar.

Process jars in your water bath canner for 10 minutes or according to manufacturers instructions.

This recipe will make approximately 4 to 5 half-pint jars of marmalade.

Homemade Canning Jar Labels - Make Cheap, Professional, Short Run & Custom Jar Labels

If you€re giving a jar of your best summer produce as a gift, you want a professional looking personalized label. These DIY custom label making instructions will show you how to make the perfect label for any occasion.

Here is the beauty of this custom label making process:

Multiple yet individual custom labels. For example you could setup your word processor to print 10 labels per page and print a unique jar number on each custom label (6 of 24). The base label material can be any color or texture you printer can handle. Cut your jar label to any shape or use specialty scissors for a decorative border. Use photos, artwork, birthday or greeting cards as custom labels. Hand or machine stitch cloth labels for special gift jars.

In my opinion, the perfect jar label(s) should relay two messages to the recipient.

The jar contents, maker, year, storage requirements, expiration dates, etc. That information found on that piece of masking tape on the jar and the info in your head.

Facts of interest concerning this unique jar, e.g., strawberries from your garden, peaches from Happy Trails Ranch or canned for the 2008 Lane County Fair.

I prefer the two label approach. The first label passes along all the necessary information allowing full artistic license for the second label.

For example, you could make the second label a birthday card. Using our carpet tape label making method, you could attach a purchased birthday card to your jar. Or better yet make a homemade birthday message. If you are the creative artistic type, make your own custom label. It doesn€t even have to be paper, e.g., needlepoint or embroider your message on the jar. Use your computer and an internet card generator to make a personalized message.

The birthday example is just one idea for the second label. There are countless reasons why you would give your home canned produce as a gift. Now you have a method of customizing a label for that occasion. Use our imagination! It€s a Girl cigars lack imagination. How about, It€s a Girl! Cathy Jo, May 28, 2008 jar of blackberry preserves canned just for that occasion.

Home canning has become very popular in recent years. Giving a jar of your finest home canned produce as a gift is a very unique personalized gift. But that masking tape identifier label on the jar just won€t cut it. You need to make it more personal and add some class.

The whole process of making a canning jar label is quite simple.

Start with a page of printed custom labels or craft project to be used as a label. Apply double sided tape to the back to make a homemade label. If desired apply a clear acrylic coat for longevity. Cut the label to the desired shape and size. Peel the backing off your new jar label and place it on your canning jar.

That€s it! You€re done!

Here is an example of a simple nice looking canning jar label for Mom€s peaches. We used clipart and standard fonts font on most word processors.

How simple and cheap can a personalize canning jar label be for your home canned produce? The most difficult part of this project is designing the custom label.

I have several tips to aid you in making a professional looking custom label. The most important tip is that when making a long label for a curved surface; use several pieces of tape parallel to the curve to avoid buckling. Remember to experiment first on an old jar and unwanted or blank label material.

Homemade Canning - Where's the Beef? Canning Your Meat, Poultry, and More!

Why limit your home canning to produce? Scoop up a great seasonal deal on meat, poultry, or fish and experience the ease of meal preparation with canned meat. The best part is you know what is in the jar, there are no added flavors, no undisclosed spices, and no MSG.

The Art of Mince Meat

Mincemeat is really an overlooked delicacy and method of preserving meat our ancestors came up with. Originally, it was a mix of lean beef, suet, apples, citrus fruits, raisins, brandy or hard cider, and various spices. There is no need to stick with older recipes that call for a long list of ingredients that are exotic by today's standards. Unless your family has a taste for old-fashioned mincemeat, feel free to come up with your own version.

Simply use a roast beef recipe and cook as directed. Add such spices as garlic, onions, savory, marjoram, salt and pepper or use your favorite blend. When the meat can easily be pulled apart and chopped, allow it to cool and then chop it up. It will then be ready to slip into the freshly boiled and cooled jars and slipped into a homemade canning device.

Roast carrots, whole onion, garlic cloves, and potatoes or other vegetables like cauliflower and chop them up with the meat. Drain excess broth before canning the meat and vegetable mixture. Can the broth separately. Now you have jars of ready-to-go beef broth and jars of meat that are perfect for sandwiches or one-dish meals that are perfectly seasoned.

Poultry is Easily Preserved Too

Home-canned chicken and chicken broth can put the store-bought products to shame. Not only is it more cost-efficient, it is tastier and healthier too. Make low-sodium versions or salt-free versions delicately seasoned with your blend of seasonings such as poultry seasoning, garlic, onions, or even add chopped up vegetables to the broth and strain before canning it to add a healthy and tasty twist.

Canned chicken, once drained of the broth, makes an easy addition to salads, soups, one-dish meals, and meals heated up in less than 30 minutes. Leave the aforementioned vegetables in with the chicken or can them separately. Either way, all you need to do is add the two jars, chicken or broth, to a saucepan and some noodles for a nearly instant chicken noodle soup.

Don't Overlook Fish When Canning

If you live in an area where fresh fish is in season, such as salmon in coastal areas or pike around the great lakes, don't overlook homemade canning as a method of reserving the bounty.

Store-bought canned fish can have additives such as excess salt, or a funny fish taste if the fish was off-season or previously frozen when canned. Following your favorite plain canned poultry recipe, go ahead and can the season's catch. The best part is, it's one of the foods that doesn't need to be precooked, just add it to the boiled jars and pressure can it.

When homemade canning, do not overlook the possibilities of canning your own meat, poultry, or fish and preserving the seasonal bounty or fresh game. Canned meats are quick and easy meals and unlike freezing the meat, it won't get freezer burn. Canned beef, chicken, and even some fish can be made into salads, for sandwiches, potato toppers, or side dishes and are great additions to freshly boiled noodles for delicious and quick soups.

Homemade Canning - Pickling and Canning Is A Great Family Project

As a youngster my grandmother used to treat me and my mom to delicious canned vegetables gently heated up on the stove. Even though I was pretty young then, I still remember the delicious blend of tomatoes, zucchini, onions, garlic, and hot peppers she put into her jars. Later on as an adult, I learned how to can vegetables from friends of mine who were all in their 60's. Now as an adult on my own, I prefer homemade canning to store-bought, and it saves money!

Why You Should Can and Pickle

In a world of prepackaged foods and processed fast foods, we often opt for the quick and easy. Not only are we missing out on important nutrients, we are also spending more than we need to on food with empty calories.

In addition to saving money and improving our health through eating home canned fruits and vegetables, homemade canning can turn into family time. It is a chance to teach youngsters the wonders of home-canned foods, and possibly homegrown foods, as well as a great time to spend with the family as you get together to clean, chop, and cook fruits and vegetables and of course, gossip about your lives.

Imagine how much fun you would have when you and your kids buy produce from a local farm and then spend time together canning it. Think of how much more your family will appreciate the food you spent time to pick and can!

Things You Should Know About Home Canning

These were the lessons I learned from my grandmother and my older friends about canning produce:

Some vegetables turn out sweeter when picked in the morning, others when picked in the evening. Wash and soak all vegetables in cool water to improve texture, flavor, and ensure all dirt and grime is off them. Blanch the vegetables to promote color retention. Add citric acid to the fruits to promote color retention and add Vitamin C. Soak things like cucumbers and squash in pickling lime (a special calcium powder) to promote firmness. Don't just add the blanched vegetables to the jar and stick on a lid; take the time to pasteurize them by boiling the jars first and then place the filled jars in the canning kettle to preserve them. If you run out of jars or time you can always flash freeze the produce separated on cookie sheets, then put it in zipper bags and use as needed. Make sure you have enough jars and supplies to finish the job.

Things to Consider when Canning at Home

Take into consideration the age of the children who will be helping and give them age-appropriate tasks. Also, always follow a recipe for the produce you are about to can the first couple of times you can it.

Use appropriate tools for the job such as jar tongs, the right size of jars for the produce, a real canning kettle with the jar-holding insert, and sturdy baker's racks to cool the jars.

Finally, can what is in season, this can be an enjoyable once per month task that carefully preserves seasonal produce at the peak of the season and something the family looks forward to each month.

Homemade Canning - Know What Foods You're Preserving - Because Knowing Is Half The Battle!

Food preservation is an art that allows you to store food without any loss to its quality, edibility and nutritional value. There are a number of food preservation methods, which prevent the growth of any bacteria, yeasts or fungi on the foods. Other than maintaining nutritional value, food preservation keeps the texture and flavor of the item being preserved intact. In history there have been some old methods of food preservation, which drastically altered the character of items being preserved. Common ways for preserving food at home are dehydrating, canning, freezing and pickling.

Home canning is a way of preserving food in an easy and cheap way. With prices of canned food increasing, many people are considering canning food at home. By following a home canning recipe you can enjoy so many things from canned apple butter to zucchini. There are different home canning methods that you can adopt like pressure, water bath and open kettle methods. Without having to invest on any expensive equipment, you can easily do the canning at home. There are many home canning cookbooks as well to help you prepare a mouth-watering dish that everybody in the family is going to enjoy.

Preserve vegetables that you can get either from your garden or market at a normal price. This will allow you to use the preserved food items even when they are not available at their standard price or are very expensive fresh produce. By home canning you can cut down on cost and be sure off that you are serving your family a healthy meal. The local farming market near you will offer you lot of option in terms of locally grown organic food. All the seasonal grown food items are generally cheaper compared to the off-season prices. There are some sites which tell you what fruits and vegetables are in the season and available at lower rates in your area. Buying from the local farmer's markets you will also be supporting the local vendors at the farmers markets and local economy of your area.

Local foods in season are the best to use for home canning. By buying local food in-season, you can stay away from any shipped processed food items that come from thousands of miles away. Eating fresh, non-processed fruits and vegetables is a step towards healthy eating.

Home canning is the best way to preserve your garden gains. If you have your own garden or buy seasonal products in bulk, you can make the harvest lasts for months by learning the easy ways and recipes for homemade canning In today's world with so much of food adulteration, it becomes necessary that we stay away from any such food items to stay healthy.

Homemade Canning - Best Kinds of Soup for Home Canning

Canned soup is delicious and easy for lunches, dinners, and even snacks. Store-bought soup often contains large amounts of sodium and even hidden ingredients such as monosodium glutamate, yeast, and unknown spices and added artificial flavorings.

Soup done by homemade canning is not only healthier, it is less expensive than the store-bought versions and you can control what goes into it. Which soups are best for canning at home?

Canned Cream Soup

Tomato, mushroom, celery, pumpkin, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, and other vegetables and blends make delicious creamed soup. Creamed foods are often cooked vegetables run through a blender and then made into a delicious and creamy soup with fresh milk or cream and a variety of spices. These may take a few extra steps to prepare, but are well worth the effort.

To make them a condensed soup, simply leave off the addition of cream and extra water in the recipe you follow and note on the label how much to add for that particular recipe. When opening a jar of creamed soup, simply add the amount of milk or water just like the condensed soup you would purchase at the store, but at a fraction of the cost.

Canned Vegetable Soup

Depending on the recipe, you may or may not need to precook the vegetables. One delicious method of making homemade canned vegetable soup is to save the vegetable refuse from processing other vegetables in a bin in the freezer. These can range from clean potato skin and apple skins and cores to onion peels and lettuce cores. When you have enough to boil for stock, boil them up until soft and then cool the stock. Blend them in a blender and run through a food sieve or mesh strainer to remove the larger particles.

Take the resulting stock and use it as a base for any vegetable or meat soup base. Simply chop up the desired vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, onions, par-cooked potatoes or root vegetables, zucchini, peas, cooked beans, green beans, or raw dark leafy greens and place them in a bowl. Then add your favorite dried or fresh herbs or spice blends and mix it thoroughly.

Finally, add this mixture to the jar, leaving half to one-third head space. Add the broth, stir, and pressure can the blend for about 20 minutes, or as directed in the vegetable soup recipe you are using.

Canned Noodle Soup

Noodle soups are not that hard to can. The easiest part is that the noodles go in dry. You will need:

A vegetable or chicken stock that has just been boiled and is still hot. Chopped cooked meat such as chicken or beef. A favorite spice blend or fresh herbs; Italian seasoning works best. Fresh, raw or par-cooked vegetables. Dried noodles such as egg noodles, stars, alphabets, ditalini, macaroni, gemelli, or mostaccioli.

Measure one-fourth of the jar for each ingredient plus the spices. Again, leave roughly a half-inch head space air pocket for a good seal. Then, layer the ingredients as you add them: noodles, half the hot broth, spices, meat, vegetables, and half the hot broth again. Make sure that the rim and lid are clean and dry when you add the lid. Pressure can for the time specified in the pressure canning directions.

Canned Bean, Chili, or Split Pea Soup

Unlike the other soups, bean soup must be cooked and completely ready to eat before canning to ensure that the finished product is actually edible. When you are done cooking the bean soup, simply jar it up while still hot, leaving roughly a half-inch to an inch of head space and then pressure can it according to the manufacturer's directions.

Detecting Spoilage in Home-canned foods

Unlike high-acid canned foods such as tomato sauces and fruits, low-acid foods like soup are more prone to spoilage due to improper canning or not achieving a good seal. Before serving up your delicious creation, inspect the jar lid for leaks, a swollen lid, rust, strange coloring, or a foamy or murky appearance.

If all looks well, open the jar and smell the food€it should smell pleasant and delicious. If you detect any of the above, discard the food immediately. Before eating, bring the food to a boil for at least 10 minutes just in case any dangerous microbes are in the food. If the food still smells pleasant, it's probably safe to eat.

Home-canned soups are not only tailored to your dietary needs, they contain less sodium, fat, and artificial ingredients. Healthy, hearty, and cheap, soup made by homemade canning cost a fraction off store-bought varieties and definitely have better flavor.