Recipes For Summertime Canning: Sweet Lime Pickles, Watermelon Pickles, and Zucchini Relish

"Putting Up" your own pickles and relishes is a favorite summertime ritual for many of us. This was on of my favorite things as a child, teenager, mother and wife. All except for washing and scrubbing hundreds of canning jars as a child, that is!! It is also one of the things I miss most now that I am a senior citizen living in the city. But I do still enjoy sharing my canning recipes. If you want to try some "new" recipes for canning, let me introduce you to some "old-fashion" ones. Today's article includes recipes for canning your own Sweet Lime Pickles, Watermelon Pickles, and Zucchini Relish. These will make great additions to your pantry!

HOMEMADE SWEET LIME PICKLES
Slice 7 pounds of cucumbers and soak in 2 gallons of water. Add 2 cups of lime. leave in this for 24 hours. Wash well and soak in water for 3 more hours.

Cover with this solution:
2 qt. vinegar
9 c. sugar
1 tbsp. salt
2 tsp. whole cloves
2 tsp. celery seed
1 tsp. mixed spices

Let stand overnight in this solution. Bring to a boil and can.

How To Can Homemade Southern Chow Chow Relish

If you plant a garden every summer season and looking for a way to use up some of your excess garden vegetables, this is a great southern relish recipe to make.

You will want to store your jars in a cool and dry place when finished. If you like to give homemade goodies as gifts, this makes a great gift to those on your gift giving list.

Supplies Needed: Water bath canner, canning jars, seals, rings, jar lifter, funnel and a ladle.

Chow Chow Relish Recipe

2 pints carrots, cut into slices
2 pints small sweet pickles
3 pints lima beans
1 head of cabbage, cut into pieces
4 pints cauliflower, chopped into pieces
2 cups water and celery juice
3 pints celery, chopped into small pieces
3 pints red and yellow sweet peppers, diced
1 pint of onions, chopped
1 pint canned yellow corn
8 cups granulated sugar
4 cups white vinegar
4 teaspoons table salt

In a large stock pot with hot water, cook the peppers, lima beans, cabbage and cauliflower until they are fork tender. Drain water and set aside. Using the same stock pot, cook your celery in 2 cups of boiling water until it's fork tender. Drain celery juice into a bowl and set aside. Add celery to the first vegetable mixture.

Drain sweet pickles and reserve juice for later use. Add sweet pickles and drained onions to vegetables and mix well. In your stock pot, combine the granulated sugar, white vinegar, sweet pickle juice, celery juice, 2 cups of water and table salt. Bring this mixture to a boil and then stir in the mixed cooked vegetables. All this mixture to come to a boil and boil for 2 minutes. Turn off heat.

Ladle relish into clean, hot and sterilized jars. I like to use wide mouth pint-sized jars for canning relish. This recipe will make approximately 15 pint jars.

Canning - How to Can Your Own Strawberry and Blueberry Jam

During the summer months, I look forward to canning my own homemade strawberry and blueberry jams. People often tell me that they don't get into canning because they think it's too hard, however, one of the easiest things to can is homemade jam.

For the following recipes, you will need some jelly or half-pint sized canning jars, seals, rings, and a water bath canner. If you have a jar lifter, silicone spatula and a funnel, they would be useful too, but not necessary.

Easy Strawberry Jam Recipe

3 cups fresh strawberries, caps removed
3 cups granulated sugar
1 envelope of fruit pectin (Sure-Jell)

Fruit Preparation: Wash and remove the caps from your fresh strawberries, place them in a medium sized saucepan.

Stir in 1 cup of granulated sugar and bring the mixture to a rapid boil and boil for 4 minutes. Stir in the second cup of granulated sugar and bring it back to a boil and boil for an additional 3 minutes. Finally, stir in the remaining 1 cup of granulated sugar and contents of 1 envelope of fruit pectin, bring mixture back to a full boil and boil an additional 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove pan from the burner and let it cool down for 10 minutes, stirring mixture occasionally with a nonstick silicone spatula. Spoon mixture into hot clean jars and seal. Process the jars in your water bath canner for 10 minutes.

Homemade Canning - Increasing and Canning Your Individual Food

For a extensive time, this posed a dilemma for hydro growers who wished to opt for organic rising approaches. But today organic and natural hydroponic fertilizers are extensively accessible, which make it doable to deliver a plant with the excellent mineral resolution, with out having to resort to non-natural and organic means. Reduced-acid veggies have to have to be canned a lot more cautiously to prevent spoilage. Even so, like fruits, the ideal garden can develop anything to can weekly or bi-weekly all 12 months-prolonged.

When setting up a residence-grown garden for canning, decide on vegetables for individual seasons:

Winter months Garden Create:

Cabbage

Brussels sprouts (in coastal locations)

Kale

Spring Garden Generate:

Asparagus

Celery

Dark leafy greens like spinach

Summertime by Drop Garden Make:

Green Beans or Lengthy Beans

Rhubarb

Peppers

Okra

Onions and Garlic

Peas

Zucchini

Dark Leafy Greens like Kale and Swiss Chard

Herbs

Even a modest family members garden, or container garden, can create adequate to stockpile canned develop. Many of these meals can well with minimal or no earlier cooking. Simply just scrub them, chop them up, things them into a jar, pour boiling h2o over them, screw on a lid, and place them into the pressure canner. Each vegetable, vegetable mix, or relish has a specific time and recipe that wants to be followed to the letter when canning it. Failure to adhere to a recipe for the distinct meals can end result in an inedible products, or even worse, spoilage.

Canning - Hot Pepper, Corn and Cucumber Pickle Relish Recipes

During the summer and fall months, I like to spend time in the kitchen canning foods that we have harvested from our backyard garden. Canning is easy to do and you can preserve for your foods for up to 1 year by canning them.

One of our favorite things to make with our excess garden vegetables is homemade relishes. To make the following recipes, I suggest using a food processor to finely chop up your vegetables to get them to the consistency that is needed for the recipes.

Here are 3 of our favorite recipes that we enjoy making.

Hot Pepper Relish

1 quart hot pepper sauce
1 large onion
1 tablespoon table salt
2 cups granulated sugar
1 pint white vinegar

Mix together the first 3 ingredients in a small bowl. Cover the bowl and let stand for 4 hours. Stir in the granulated sugar and white vinegar. Cook in a medium-sized pan, stirring frequently for 45 minutes. Pour mixture into hot jars and seal in a water bath canner. Makes 1 1/2 pints. This recipe can be easily doubled.

Homemade Canning - Include Canning in Your Emergency Food Stockpile

Many people equate food stockpile with end-of-the world scenarios. However, stockpiling food is essential for a number of reasons including weather emergencies, natural (and not-so-natural) disasters, cash flow shortages, increasing food prices, extended guest stays, power outages, and much more.

Stockpiling food by homemade canning can provide you and your family with healthy cooked food that is ready to eat with no electricity or fuel needed.

How Much Canned Food to Stockpile

To find out how much food to stockpile, figure four meals' worth per person in the household per day. Stockpile two weeks' worth at a minimum, while 3 months' worth or even two years is even better. The reason is, if the power is out due to the weather and you have guests or neighbors who need assistance, you may be able to provide for them too. Plus, if you (or your significant other) lose your job, you will have enough groceries in your storage for a few months or even years to supplement your food bill.

Make Home-Made Goods Through Jar Canning Quickly & Easily

An effective and safe way of preserving food is through jar canning.?While some people say that food canning is not that easy, it is actually an easy process. Safety should always come first when canning foods. Never fail to check canned foods before you consume them especially the expiration date which can vary depending on the kind of preserved food.

Containers should be kept for your next canning project. Take note that these jars should go through sterilization processes or steps prior to canning for safety. Also, this is a major factor in preserving your food thus, is a necessity. There are different techniques in canning but the two most common ones are pressure canning and water bath. The latter is largely used to process high acid foods and the former is mostly used for low acid foods.

A big no-no in jar canning is the reuse of the metal lids.?In contrast, the bands can still be reused to properly grip until they pop and seal throughout the cooling course. After, the band gives no other function so it can be already removed.?Lids are readily available and inexpensive. They can be purchased anytime.

The popping sound which happens during the cooling process is an indication that the jars are sealed. In canning, by using high pressure canner, forces air come out from the jars as the food is heated.?As soon as the containers cool, the seal or lid is bluntly sucked down to seal the jar. Unless the jars are intentionally opened, nothing can get in and out of the jar.

A cool and dry place is the perfect storage of canned goods. You have also to follow the recommended processing period specific for jar canning. For the reason that there are jar pop and seal, it does not mean that the food inside the jar is already safe.?The content of the jar should be heated using the right temperature, the right heating duration, and using the right technique.

Food must be heated and should remain that way for a definite period of time in order to destroy bacteria which it may contain. If your budget permits you and you can afford investing on a quality canner that fastens the way it should then it is much better. You should also remember that you should not skip steps, do short cuts or modify steps but to always follow jar canning instructions. This ensures safety. Lastly, do not fail to sterilize jars for canning.