Canning And Preserving

[lperry]

If anyone gets the Post, today's food section is devoted to canning and there are a few interesting and unusual recipes.

In the meantime, would anyone be willing to recommend a tomato jam recipe? I've looked at several online and was thinking about Bittman's recipe from the NYT. Has anyone made this one?

[zoramargolis]

If anyone gets the Post, today's food section is devoted to canning and there are a few interesting and unusual recipes.

There was also a live chat on the subject, featuring Kim O'Donnell and Cathy Barrow. The transcript is here.

Can you post a link to the Bittman tomato jam recipe? I don't want to use up more of my free page views to look for it. I made tomato relish a couple years ago, and it was great on hot dogs.

[dcs]

Can you post a link to the Bittman tomato jam recipe? I don't want to use up more of my free page views to look for it. I made tomato relish a couple years ago, and it was great on hot dogs.

here

[lperry]

here

Thanks. I always hesitate to post links to the NYT because of the viewing limits. I bypassed Bittman this time, something about the cumin didn't appeal, and have the jam from this tart recipe simmering on the stove right now. I only had about half romas, so it will take a little longer to cook. I also subbed apple vinegar for the cider vinegar, and some salsa negra for the chipotle powder. Salsa negra has a little bit of garlic in it, so I backed off on that too. While I was messing up what is probably a perfectly good recipe, I cut the overall sugar by about 1/4 and used less molasses. The house smells great!

[zoramargolis]

here

Hmm. Makes a pint and lasts only a week? Means you gotta eat a lot of it, all within a very few days. I actually find the blend of spices appealing--very middle-eastern.

Here's Joan Nathan's take on tomato recipes.

[lperry]

Hmm. Makes a pint and lasts only a week? Means you gotta eat a lot of it, all within a very few days.

The recipe is both high sugar and high acid, so there's no reason why you can't can this. I just finished processing the onion/tomato jam using chutney times in the Ball Blue Book. It probably freezes well too. If you are worried, just pressure can it.

For the recipe I linked above, I ended up adding a bit more salt, chipotle, and allspice to balance everything before I put it in jars. I think smoked paprika would have worked nicely with the chipotle as well.

Edited for a P.S. question. Has anyone used the plastic Ball freezer jars?

[lperry]

More tomato jam. The neighbors are starting to hide when they see me coming with tomatoes...

Jam tip lifted from Christine Ferber: if you only have beefsteak type tomatoes instead of Romas, after it's cooked for a bit, pour it through a strainer, then cook down the juices separately. This way, you don't overcook the fruit. Worked like a charm with my cherry tomato jam.

[DrXmus]

Anyone have a great pickled jalapenos recipe for canning?

[zoramargolis]

Anyone have a great pickled jalapenos recipe for canning?

You'll have to look up a recipe for the exact ratio of vinegar to water, but cold pack your jalapeños in a jar (whole or sliced, whatever your preference), boil a mix of cider vinegar water and salt, and pour it over the jalapeños, let them cool to room temp and keep in the fridge. Start eating them in a day or two.You could water bath can them if you want, but they won't stay crisp. I usually do a mix of onion, carrot and celery slices along with jalapeños and also some small cauliflower florets, some oregano and allspice, Mexican verduras en escabeche.

[lperry]

There's nothing like prepping a 22 quart pressure canner full of pints of black beans, only to find the gasket is going. Fortunately, it responded to a bit of random moving things here and there, so I'm not completely screwed. Now to order parts.

[lperry]

The tomato plants are taunting me by ripening everything during the two busiest weeks of work I've had in years. Late night hour canning sessions have ten half-pints of tomato preserves put up, and there are tomatoes slow roasting in the oven now for the freezer. I need to pressure can more chickpeas this weekend too.

[Ilaine]

I don't want to use up more of my free page views to look for it.

Zora, you can get infinite page views on the New York Times. if you clean out your history, temp files, cache, cookies, etc.. On my PC, I use CCleaner which is free, and removes all that stuff in seconds. On my iPad, I manually delete history and cache in Settings for Safari. There probably is an app for that.

[bettyjoan]

Got some home-grown okra and banana peppers on last week's trip to North Carolina, so I pickled most of it (saving some okra for a saute tonight). Hope it turns out well! I have gotten a few jams and curds down to a science, but this is my first foray into pickling. My husband is so very pleased.

[zoramargolis]

Zora, you can get infinite page views on the New York Times. if you clean out your history, temp files, cache, cookies, etc.. On my PC, I use CCleaner which is free, and removes all that stuff in seconds. On my iPad, I manually delete history and cache in Settings for Safari. There probably is an app for that.

I ended up subscribing, so I can look at the NYT as much as I want. It's worth it to me.

[DrXmus]

I recently read (was it in the Post?) that tomatoes can be frozen for canning later, plus the skins slip off easily. The article says freezing won't affect the texture once canned compared to non-frozen 'maters.

Has anyone tried this?

[zoramargolis]

an elderly man up the street used to bring us figs from his trees every year. (we have a tree that my late MIL planted, but the figs don't taste very good.) by contrast, the neighbor's figs -- a kadota type, green when ripe -- are delicious. well, the old gent had to go into assisted living earlier in the summer, and his son has put the house up for sale. it's a tear-down and wildly overpriced, based on what another neighbor told me the asking price is. so I don't expect it will be selling anytime soon. I've been kind of keeping an eye on the figs when I walk my dogs, and yesterday I picked some ripe ones. seems a shame for them to just drop and feed the ants, since he was always so generous about sharing them.

I am currently macerating a small batch, which will become a jar or two of fig marmalade - with sugar, lemon & orange (peel and juice), Pernod, thyme and bay leaf. it will be tasty with cheese.

[zoramargolis]

Today I put up six jars of gingered plum conserve, made with products from the Dupont Circle farmers market: Toigo Italian prune plums and baby ginger from Next Step Farm macerated with some lemon verbena from Farm at Sunnyside. Added a non-Dupont splash of La Veille Prune—French plum brandy for good measure.

[lperry]

Seven pints of green tomato /cabbage relish are cooling on the counter. I find that, when I'm working with what the garden gives me, I have to adjust quantities of the various component vegetables or fruits in recipes, but I think it's still either chow chow or picalilli, depending where you grew up. I wish we ate more of this kind of thing because I've still got loads of little green tomatoes. I'm considering pickling the pretty green Sun Golds whole so I can invent a pretentious cocktail to garnish.

[Choirgirl21]

I recently read (was it in the Post?) that tomatoes can be frozen for canning later, plus the skins slip off easily. The article says freezing won't affect the texture once canned compared to non-frozen 'maters.

Has anyone tried this?

Way too late to be useful to you, but I freeze a lot of the tomatoes I get in my CSA each year. The major drawback is the use of freezer space, but if that isn't a concern (isn't for me since I have a second freezer) I highly recommend it. If I realize I won't be using them, or see some starting to get spots, I just toss them whole in the freezer. Once they're frozen, I put them into a freezer bag (that way they don't stick and can be pulled out individually).

I've never tried to eat one raw after defrosting, can't imagine that would be a great idea, but I use them in dishes and to make sauce and haven't noticed any loss in flavor. And yes, once partially defrosted the skins peel right off!

[lperry]

I remembered that it takes one of those really big bags of dried black beans to fill the pressure canner. I didn't remember that the really big bag is usually five pounds, not ten. (Said the woman with 32 pints of black beans.)

Edited to add the fabulous idea that I should pressure can dried posole, so the good stuff is at my fingertips. And I need something to go with all these beans.

[lperry]

Caponata in jars for this winter using Small Batch Preserving as a guideline and pH test papers as a back up.  I'm betting it would freeze really well.

[lperry]

Fig, vanilla, bourbon preserves are finished, cranberry habanero jam is getting started. 

[Rieux]

33 lbs of tomatoes converted to 11 quarts, not counting the one quart casualty that broke in the canner.

[lperry]

33 lbs of tomatoes converted to 11 quarts, not counting the one quart casualty that broke in the canner.

Hateful.  I've been lucky and haven't lost anything in a long while.  (Knocking on wood...)

[zoramargolis]

Just finished cleaning up after cooking, jarring and waterbath canning a dozen jars (5-1/2 pints, 6-12 ozs. and one pint)of damson plum jam. I prepped the fruit yesterday--8 quarts of damson plums I bought from Toigo on Sunday, boiled it up briefly with organic sugar, a shredded big knob of baby ginger I bought from Farm at Sunnyside and a muslin bagful of lemongrass, covered with parchment and let it macerate overnight. A LOT of work pitting those little bitty plums, so I hope it is tasty. I used about 3/4 of the official amount of sugar, which is 1 cup sugar per pound of prepared fruit, but I was able to get the temp up to 220f. I used my French copper confiture kettle, which can cook a big batch of jam at one time. Plum is about the last jam I usually make--apricot, sour cherry, peach and fig are the earlier ones--but the quinces haven't arrived yet, and meyer lemon marmalade is so good during the winter.

[Rieux]

Any suggestions on a lower-sugar recipe for beach plum jelly?  My mother has given me about 10 cups of these wild beauties, and I just ordered a bunch of weck jars to can some jelly this weekend.

[zoramargolis]

Jelly or jam? Pectin or no? Have you made homemade preserves before?

[Rieux]

Never done jam or jelly before. I thought I'd do jelly, and use some pectin to make sure it jells. Found this recipe, but it seems like a lot of sugar! I'm not wedded to this one, though.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/15/nyregion/the-elusive-and-tasty-beach-plum-jelly.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm

[anzia]

That's a normal amount of sugar for a regular recipe, but if you're looking for low-sugar check the Ball cookbook/website and adjust the recipe accordingly.

[lperry]

You can use less sugar (80% of weight of juice) if you are willing to use a candy thermometer to check for the jell point (10 degrees above boiling).  If a few are underripe or even green, there ought to be a decent amount of pectin in beach plums. 

[zoramargolis]

I notice that the recipe has you flipping the jars over after filling them with the hot jelly and screwing on the lid and ring--the method I used for many years. I have since been told that the USDA frowns on this and that to insure safety, jarred preserves have to be water bath canned.

[thistle]

I'm signing up for the GMU Sustainability Institute's canning class- I've got a pickling book on the way from Amazon, I'm going to figure out a way to preserve some figs, can some other stuff...wish me luck.

[Rieux]

14 half pints of green tomato/apple chutney - Done! Used Sarah Raven's recipe after I cleaned out the tomato plants in the garden. A worthy use of the last of the year's unripe tomatoes.

[lperry]

Never done jam or jelly before. I thought I'd do jelly, and use some pectin to make sure it jells. Found this recipe, but it seems like a lot of sugar! I'm not wedded to this one, though.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/15/nyregion/the-elusive-and-tasty-beach-plum-jelly.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm

It is too late?  Punk Domestics has a reduced sugar recipe.

Two more batches of figs, one with vanilla, one with balsamico and peppercorns.  One more batch of habanero jelly.  I need to decide what kind of tomato soup to can so I can have my freezer space back.

[lperry]

It turns out that tucking tomatoes in the freezer adds up fast.  About 25 pounds of heirlooms got reduced to 12 pints of roasted tomato soup base that came out of the pressure canner this morning.  I used Ina Garten's recipe as a guide and the Ball Blue Book for canning time. 

[thistle]

My class last night was very good & hands on (I felt silly jumping in first for almost everything-we made pickled carrots-but I wanted to finish on time)- after being sufficiently scared about botulism (constant topic), I'm ready to do some small scale canning. I just want to preserve some figs, & then I'll try a few more things. It was sponsored by the GMU Institute for Sustainability & the VA Extension service, as much as I hated driving cross town at rush hour, it was definitely worthwhile, & I enjoyed it.

[monavano]

 

100 NJ Rutgers tomatoes. Not canning, but making marinara and freezing in quart containers.

$10  

[The Hersch]

100 NJ Rutgers tomatoes. Not canning, but making marinara and freezing in quart containers.

What do you do to get rid of the skin and seeds? I got about five pounds of very good roma-type tomatoes from New Morning Farm and put them, cut in 2 or 3, into a big pot with some salt, and cooked them until just broken down, then yesterday I put them through this wonderful device:

Then put the strained tomatoes in plastic containers and popped them in the freezer. I do this most summers. In fact, as I was making room in the freezer for the new strained tomatoes, I discovered an old container, which I think might be as much as two years old. I don't see why it shouldn't be perfectly fine, but I don't really know. I like to freeze just plain strained tomatoes rather than sauce, so that I'm not deciding now what I want to do with them three months (or two years) from now. The tomatoes in the illustration appear to be raw. I've never tried that, and don't know how well it would work. Of course, for the purposes of this photograph, they could have put raw tomatoes in the hopper and cooked tomato in the bowl.

Oh by the way: I discovered just now that I could copy the image above (into the clipboard) and paste it directly into my post. I don't know when that became possible, but I'm pretty sure it didn't use to be. That certainly simplifies posting images here.

[monavano]

^

I cut out the core, just as little as possible, and quartered these somewhat petite tomatoes, and into the pot they go!

First, I sweat a large onion in evoo and butter, and add the tomatoes along with a bit of s+p. They simmered for about 2 1/2 hours until totally broken down, then I simmered them uncovered for almost an hour, to evaporate some liquid and concentrate the flavor.

After that, it's into the Vitamix batch by batch, and poured into quart containers.

Got 12 today!

[monavano]

btw... we got these tomatoes in Cape May, NJ at a market called Duckies. Mr. Mv said "wow, these are gorgeous "seconds" (which is what we're used to buying here for processing for winter) and the farmer looked mortified.

Seconds?!

No! These are just the small ones and we have SO many of them at the end of the season, we just want to pass it on!

[The Hersch]

^

I cut out the core, just as little as possible, and quartered these somewhat petite tomatoes, and into the pot they go!

First, I sweat a large onion in evoo and butter, and add the tomatoes along with a bit of s+p. They simmered for about 2 1/2 hours until totally broken down, then I simmered them uncovered for almost an hour, to evaporate some liquid and concentrate the flavor.

After that, it's into the Vitamix batch by batch, and poured into quart containers.

Got 12 today!

I don't bother coring mine. So in the Vitamix, you pulverize rather than extracting seeds and skin? That would give you more sauce; I wonder what effect on the flavor it has. Probably the skin is a plus and the seeds not. The cores I leave in mine are probably a flavor minus also. My approximately five pounds of tomatoes, minus the skin and seeds, gave me about 2 1/2 quarts of passata.

[monavano]

According to Chris Kimball, you should not seed the tomato, because the seeds and pulp have glutamates, thus lots of umami flavor.

I don't skin either simply because it's easier (read, I'm lazy) and I don't appreciate a big flavor difference between the skin and flesh of tomatoes, compared to say, citrus where there's pith.

So, into the pot it all goes, sans core, then over to the mighty Vitamix.

[porcupine]

I discovered an old container, which I think might be as much as two years old. I don't see why it shouldn't be perfectly fine, but I don't really know.

The flavor fades a bit, but otherwise it should be fine.

[lperry]

I don't bother coring mine. So in the Vitamix, you pulverize rather than extracting seeds and skin? That would give you more sauce; I wonder what effect on the flavor it has. Probably the skin is a plus and the seeds not. The cores I leave in mine are probably a flavor minus also. My approximately five pounds of tomatoes, minus the skin and seeds, gave me about 2 1/2 quarts of passata.

If you have a food mill, putting everything through will take out the cores and skins much more quickly post-cooking than prepping them pre-cooking will.  I have done this with tomatoes that got thrown into the freezer whole when I was being overwhelmed.

[The Hersch]

If you have a food mill, putting everything through will take out the cores and skins much more quickly post-cooking than prepping them pre-cooking will.  I have done this with tomatoes that got thrown into the freezer whole when I was being overwhelmed. 

I use my tomato press pictured upthread instead of a food mill, because it's easier to use and actually works better than the food mills I've used, to take out the skin and seeds post-cooking, as you suggest. I suppose the tomato press is actually a special instance of the food mill. I imagine one could make applesauce with it too; I don't care much for applesauce, so I'll probably never really know. As to whether to leave seeds and skin in, Santa Marcella left the seeds in but took the skins out (she said to use a food mill disc with the largest holes, which would have that effect). I like them both out for textural reasons.

[goldenticket]

The Del Ray Variety Store has a good selection of canning supplies. I was told they intend to stock them year-round. They have also had a least one class on canning and preserving and  hope to do some more in the future.  Their Facebook page appears to be the best place to keep up with events.

[porcupine]

I have a lovely batch of black raspberries that I'd like to turn into freezer jam.  I want to cook them a little first, though, to bring out some flavor.  Freezer jam recipes use uncooked fruit, while traditional canning recipes use cooked fruit.  So here's my question: if I prep the fruit for traditional canning (cook it), but skip the water bath (processing) part, will it set up properly?

[lperry]

It will set if you cook to 20 degrees above the boiling point.  I think you will have to add powdered pectin to berries to get them to set when cooked to a lower temperature.

[porcupine]

Thanks, Linda.  Was unsure to which boiling point you were referring; the fruit and pectin boiled at 178 F; after adding sugar the mixture boiled at 214 F (I think) and wouldn't go higher than 218 F, but was already thickening so I took if off the heat and put it in jars.  It's been 15 hours and it's jelled quite nicely, and the flavor is nice.  Thanks for the advice!

[astrid]

It'll definitely set without the waterbath "processing".  I usually refrigerate the last few ounces of jam of each batch, and they set just as firmly as the ones that get processed.