We've been inside for a few days

Though our area was a near miss for hurricane force winds, we have gotten rain, rain, and more rain. Last night, after I thought it was finished, we got even more rain. In other words, we have spent a good bit of time inside. The time was not wasted.

We made pear preserves.

Pear preserves are the most labor intensive of the fruit based canning I do, because you have to peel the pears, core the pears, then slice the pears before you can start cooking. Mississippi pears are not like the pears of the cooler climates. They are hard - hand cramping, claw producing hard. Peeling and coring are a labor of love. My husband helped peel since he was stuck in the house all weekend.

Once peeled, I run them through the food processor to slice them because I'm all about efficiency and uniformity of slices in the jar. In fact, I slip the end pieces in my mouth. Once sliced I sprinkle them with lemon juice so they won't turn brown before I get a chance to cook them.

Once the pears are peeled, cored and sliced you add sugar, lemon slices, and some water and cook. I find that the pears will get done before the syrup is thick, so I remove the pears at the end and cook the syrup longer until it is the color and consistency I like. Then, I return the pears to the syrup and make sure everything is hot before I put the preserves in jars.

Pears are a low acid food. Even though I use liberal amounts of sugar and lemon, care must be taken in the water bath or pressure cooking. By all means make sure you release all air bubbles and don't scrimp on the recommended times in the canning guides. You don't want to poison anyone.

Catsup, Ketchup, or Catchup? What's in a name? And in the bottle?

I've been using tomatoes. This time making catsup, which is what one of my grandmothers used to call it, ketchup, which is what branded varieties are called, or Catchup, which I find is an older version. Making this condiment takes lots of tomatoes and it is so much better than the bottled versions that are laced with high fructose corn syrup and who knows what else. I think I'll start calling it Catchup since it enabled me to rid my table of tomatoes. Look here and here for more information.

To make Catchup, cut about 2 gallons of tomatoes (about 50). The recipe in the Ball Blue Book says to chop them, but I don't find all that chopping necessary. I do chop the onions and bell pepper. Onion and pepper take longer to soften so I don't skip that step.

Once you cook all this until soft you run it through a food mill to get all the skin, seeds and big hunks out. You really only want pulp.


Add a spice bag, some sugar, salt and paprika and cook until the flavors begin to meld together. Add the vinegar and cook until thick.

Here's the recipe before I steer you wrong.

Tomato Catsup
4 quarts chopped, peeled, cored tomatoes
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped sweet red pepper
1 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 tsp whole allspice
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 stick cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon paprika
1 1/2 cups vinegar

Cook tomatoes, onion and pepper until soft. Press through a sieve or food mill. Cook pulp rapidly until thick and reduced by one-half, about 1 hour. Tie whole spices in a spice bag. Add spice bag, sugar, salt, and paprika to tomato mixture. Cook gently about 25 minutes, stirring frequently. Add vinegar; cook until thick. As mixture thickens, stir frequently to prevent sticking. Remove spice bag. Ladle hot catsup into hot jars, leaving 1/4" head space. Process 10 minutes in a boiling water canner. Yield: about 3 pints. Ball Blue Book

I doubled the recipe. I get a little freaky when my tomatoes go from 12 qts to 4 pints. Even after finishing it, I still have oodles and oodles of tomatoes.

Sweet Pickles

How much is too much? I ask myself that very question all the time. I know that there is no way my family can eat 3 gallons of sweet pickles in a year. I have 1 gallon of Kosher Dills, too. When I was jarring these sweet pickles, I ran short of sterilized jars. I was going to toss a quart of pickles in the compost, but my husband caught me. He then went out to the shed and produced two disgustingly dirty jars and said he would wash them. He did and I put pickles in them and put them in the refrigerator. I didn't want those two jars to get mixed up with the sterilized jars of pickles. Why did we need that last quart?

The pickles are Grandmother Florence's (my husband's grandmother) recipe. They take time, lots of time. I've spent years trying to create authentic pickles from her vague recipe, but I have it now. The cucumbers are brined, then sliced, then soaked with the pickling spices, sugar, and vinegar. So yummy, but unfortunately different every year. The recipe uses the words "to taste" more than is comfortable. In fact, everything is "to taste" once the cucumbers are brined. How's that for a recipe?

They are finished, to taste.

Figs!

How many figs is it possible to eat without making yourself sick? We'll get back to you when we reach that point. Pink Panther and I picked Saturday morning. When we got ready to leave his basket was still empty - not one single fig. I ate my share, but I did bring home a few to preserve.

For my favorite preserves, whole figs with stems, you must choose your figs wisely. The figs need to be perfectly ripe with no blemishes. Feel free to pop any fig not meeting standards into your mouth. Rinse your figs, remembering that ripe figs are delicate. Then layer figs and sugar in a bowl or if you want to save dish washing, the stainless steel pot you will use to cook them. The standard is one cup of sugar for one cup of fruit, but if you are doing whole figs which can't be measured accurately because they are so loosely packed use less. I use 3/4 cups or less. My mother and I agree on this because the idea is to highlight and preserve the fruit, not just eat sugar. This time I used 2/3 cup. It just looked right. Finish your layering with sugar, then cover with a dishcloth and let sit for 24 hours to let the sugar draw juice from the figs. If the weather is steamy hot, the process may not take as long. Check on them often so your figs don't spoil.

Once juice is drawn, add some lemon slices. You do this to raise the acidity so you don't have to use a pressure canner, because it is pretty, and it tastes good. I squeeze the lemon ends into the mix, but don't cook them. Start cooking your figs over low heat until all the sugar melts, then raise the temperature and boil without stirring (the figs will break and you lower the temperature) until approximately 220 degrees Fahrenheit. Adjust accordingly if you are in the mountains.

Remove from heat and carefully jar the figs in sterilized warm jars. I spoon in the figs first, then add the lemons. Finally, I strain the syrup into the jars. With truly ripe figs, some will not endure the processing so will explode and leave their seeds in the syrup. Though there is nothing wrong with the seeds, I don't like to see them floating around in the jars. I also eat the exploded figs, so they don't have to go into the jars either. Just call me obsessive.

Once you have the lids fitted, let your jars enjoy a hot water bath. These jars are beautiful and delicious gifts.

Canning Wisdom

I've been putting up fruits and vegetables for a long time. I started toying with making pickles around 15 years ago and when I moved back South reacquainted myself with my mother's techniques, talked to the ladies in the community, and added the wisdom of my husband's grandmother. The first few years I was a maniac. The standing joke in the house was, "Don't put anything on the kitchen counter because she'll seal it in a jar."

The joke was a valid assessment. I canned anything and everything I could get my hands on. I canned things we didn't even like fresh. I canned enough that it would be impossible to use the jars in eight or nine years. I know, because I just tossed some Red Tomato Pickle (red chow-chow) that I canned nine years ago so I could reuse the jars. Nine year old Chow-Chow - Blech!

During these nine years of serious canning, I have learned a great deal - mostly through mistakes. Remember these things when you start the pressure pot.

• If your family doesn't like it fresh, don't waste your time putting it into jars. They won't like it any better jarred and stored. Sure, it's alright to experiment, but do so in small quantities.
• Don't make enough for an army unless you have an army. Let my Red Tomato Pickle be an example to you. If there are two adults in your family and two children under four, you don't need 20 to 30 gallons of chow-chow type product because let's face it, children under four don't usually eat foods that are vinegary and mixed. Remember that relishes are just relishes and not the main course, so plan accordingly.
  
• Just because the fruit or vegetable is on the vine, doesn't mean you have to use it. Give it to your neighbors or perfect strangers. Yes, people will start avoiding you in high garden season if you dump too much, but if you ask around you will always find someone whose cucumbers didn't do well or someone who doesn't garden at all but would love fresh produce. If all else fails, give yourself a break and let it hang on the vine. "What difference does it make if you throw it out now or a couple of years from now," my husband's grandmother sagely asked.
  
• Decide ahead of time which items you want to give as gifts and jar them accordingly.
  
• Plan your garden to take into consideration how much your family needs and how much you already have. Do you need quarts of creamed corn, or would pints suffice? Does your family like green beans, peas or butterbeans better? How many times will you want to eat corn each week? How much do you have left from last year? Some people around here only plant corn every other year. They would rather endure the cramped hands and corn pelted kitchen every other year. The point is to plan your pantry and freezer input, so that you don't waste your energy and time over producing. Trust me, no one really wants to eat those beans that have been in the freezer three years.
  
• By all means, don't fool yourself into believing that you will want to learn to make artisanal smoked tofu during the middle of canning season if you are the only one in your family who likes tofu. You won't need that entire row of soybeans that you have nurtured and weeded. Plan realistically, not idealistically.
  

If I had listened to my husband's grandmother the first time she asked me, "Why are you making so much of that?" I could have had more time to spend doing other things, though canning seems to be cheap therapy. Perhaps over-canning made more time.

Blatant and Shameful Gloating

I should be embarrassed, but aren't my beans pretty? I like the yellow of the wax beans with the green of the dill. I've canned a lot of stuff, but this is the first time I have canned beans. I was always scared of botulism. Poisoning my family is not on my Top 10 List of things to do, so I have always frozen my green beans, yet I've never been satisfied with the texture after they've been frozen and that touch of freezer burn as they age is really off putting. So, I started asking around.

Last year a work friend of mine told me about the way she cans beans and I listened. Normally when you can beans you have to use a pressure cooker, but if you add the correct amounts vinegar and sugar to your water, pressure is not needed to maintain a bacteria free jar over time. My last whine before I was convinced was, "I don't want my beans to taste of sugar and vinegar." But if you pour off the liquid and rinse the beans before cooking, you don't have that problem. What you do have are crisp beans tasting of summer. I opened the jar Rachel gave me last night and they were the best one year old beans I have every had.

Rachel's Method of Canning Green Beans
2 gallons beans, snapped
1 gallon water
2 cups vinegar
1 cup sugar

Bring water, sugar, and vinegar to a boil. Throw in your beans and let boil for 30 minutes. Ladle hot beans and liquid in to hot, sterilized jars. Place lids. Let the jars enjoy a hot water bath. Remove them and listen for the pops.

Things to Know

• You don't have to do two gallons at a time. You can 1/2, 1/4, or double the recipe.
• Freshly picked beans will retain more flavor and crisp texture.
  
• Make sure you remove all flawed pieces or beans.
  
• You don't have to cook the beans as long as Rachel recommends, but you do need to cook them some.
  
• You may add stuff to your jars for flavor or beauty or both. I added dill to the jars of wax beans and will add lemon slices to the jars of green beans for the sake of beauty. Garlic or chili peppers would be pretty too!
• Never take a shortcut on jar sterilization. I sterilize my ladle too, because I'm my mother's child.
• Never pour boiling liquid in a cold jar.

The possibilities are endless. Make something delicious and beautiful today.

Jelly

Updated: I have added a picture of the "frothy stuff" that you skim and repaired some glaring grammatical errors.

Jove wanted more canning specifics so I will share what I know about jelly as a first installment in Canning 101.

Yesterday, I cooked two batches of plums, adding no water, until they were translucent pulp, transferred pulp to a jelly bag, which in my case is really just a piece of fine mesh gauze, and hung it until all the juice had dripped. You can buy ready made devices and bags for this, but I would rather buy nice knives, All-Clad cookware, or dishes with my kitchen money.

What is important to remember is that if you want crystal clear jelly, don't be tempted to squeeze the bag or even manipulate it much. Sure, you waste a little juice, but if you want Blue Ribbon jelly don't do it! Once the juice is ready you may store it until later (up to 6 months in the freezer or a couple of days in the refrigerator) or begin jelly making immediately.

Before you start cooking the juice, assemble everything you need:

• Sugar
• More jars than you think you need because sometimes you miscalculate. Adding a cold jar to boiling water is dangerous and not sterilizing it is scary.
  
• The lids and rings or the tops, gaskets, and clamps
• A canning funnel. I prefer stainless steel everything, especially if doing acidic foods.
  
• A ladle, again, stainless steel.
  
• A spoon. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, stainless steel is preferred.
  
• A candy thermometer (only until you hear and see the correct temperature)
• A pot for cooking the juice. Choose a wide bottom stainless steel. You're right, I am a broken record.
  
• A wire rack or wooden cutting board to drain jars and cool the finished product.
  

First, wash your jars, pot, spoons, and funnel, making sure not to leave any soapy residue. Then sterilize your jars by bringing them to a rolling boil and letting them swim in the boiling water for 10 minutes or so. I throw my funnel, ladle, and spoon in the pot for good measure. You can never be too clean when canning. Leave everything in the water until you are closer to using them.

Next measure your juice. Never be tempted to cook over 4 cups at a time unless you have an enormous shallow pot and a commercial stove. Experience speaks here!! Four cups of juice does not look like much in a big pot, but once sugar and heat are added the concoction expands. Plus, difficulty maintaining even heat throughout the pot without stirring adds further chaos to an overfilled pot.

Start heating the juice. When it simmers for about 5 minutes, skim off any frothy stuff that forms, then add the appropriate amount of sugar for the fruit. Start with amounts suggested in the Ball Blue Book or The Joy of Cooking. You can adjust to suit your taste or the ripeness of your fruit. Today, I used 3/4 cup sugar for every cup of juice. We like tart jelly and most of these plums were completely ripe.

Once the sugar is added stir using your stainless steel spoon until all the sugar is melted. Then raise the temperature and boil. Resist the temptation to stir now. It is fine to occasionally run the spoon around the bottom of the pan, but don't overdo it. Insert your thermometer, if you are using one. Don't leave the room! Again, experience speaks. You really only need to be making jelly when you are making jelly. Now is not the time for multi-tasking.

Watch and listen to the pot boiling as you watch your thermometer and you will only need a thermometer once. At first the juice/sugar mixture will expand until it looks as if it will erupt out of the pot. The surface will be covered with tiny bubbles (the second picture) and you will hear a faint and fast plip plip plip plip. As the mix is getting close to the gel stage (which is around 220 by the thermometer), the juice appears to shrink back into itself and the sound changes to a deeper, larger bubbled sound. Remove your jars and tools. Drain them on the rack. Insert your lids or gaskets in the hot (not boiling) water. When the juice takes on a thicker consistency and the bubbles make a slower gbluup, gbluup, gbluup, remove the pot from the fire. The jelly will quickly settle. Skim off any foam (lighter colored scummy stuff), then pour or ladle into jars. Apply the lids.

Many people don't use a hot water bath for hot pack jellies, but it makes me feel better to make sure I am not creating a petri dish in my pantry. Once the jars come to a boil and remain there 5 minutes, remove the pot from the fire and then set the jars out on the rack to cool. Listen for the pop of the jar sealing or watch for the tongue to droop.

You now should have Blue Ribbon worthy jelly.

And the Jelly Bag Hangs

Plums are ripe which means jelly making. This is one fruit that I go to the trouble to make jelly and not jam. The jars of crystal clear, ruby jelly are so beautiful that I waste the pulp. O.K., I don't really waste it since I give it to the chickens and compost pile. They seem to like mushy cooked plum leftovers. I imagine that the jelly bag will remain in that position for several days, even though I didn't have plums of my own this year. In the past couple of days I've had acquaintances and neighbors bringing plums. Plum jelly is my family's absolute favorite, Last year, I only made two jars because I didn't have plums for more, but I mentioned the lack of plums and jelly shortage to a few people.

The few people have remembered and now the whole town appears to be bringing plums that would otherwise be wasted. One man brought a bag saying, "I brought these for your children." They ate plenty, but then I took the rest for jelly. As I was getting ready to cook them, another friend brought a basket. Another woman told me I could come pick. I will. By the time I finish with the plums the blackberries should be ripe.

Let The Summer Canning Games begin!!!