Tag: Canning

October 19, 2015

Apple Pie Filling

Apple pie is a real treat but it can take an awful long time to make. The filling, the crust, and ultimately baking it can take hours. This recipe helps you prep the filling ahead of time so you have less excuses in the end preventing you from enjoying a hot and fresh pie.

Ingredients

  • 5-6lbs tart pie apples
  • 4 1/2 sugar
  • 2tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2tsp nutmeg
  • 1c cornstarch
  • 1tsp salt
  • 8c water
  • 3Tbsp lemon juice

Direction

  1. Always start with making sure you have 6 clean and sterilized quart jars, lids, and bands. You don’t want all your hard work to be wasted on dirty jars.
  2. Peel and core apples. (An old fashioned apple peeler/corer is an essential tool for all apple cooking. If you don’t have one, get one.)
  3. cut into small triangle or long slices and pack them into the jars. Here is where there is a little difference in the apple quantity because you have a finite amount of space in 6 quart jars.
  4. In a large pot add the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cornstarch, salt and water.
  5. Bring the mixture to a boil on high heat, stirring frequently. Boil for just 1 minute.
  6. Remove from heat, add lemon juice and stir.
  7. Using a funnel, pour the filling sauce into the jars full of apples up to 1/2′ from the lip.
  8. Seal the jars with lids and bands.
  9. Place the jars in a boiling canning pot for 20 minutes to fully process.
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October 4, 2015

Sweet-Hot Zucchini Relish

This is a great option if you find one of those forgotten, and grossly over-sized, zucchinis when cleaning out the garden in the fall. Zucchini is a blank slate summer squash that can take the character of whatever you pair with it in a recipe. Here we substituted our usual go to relish ingredient (cucumber) for zucchini. Enjoy.

Ingredients

  • 8c finely chopped zucchini
  • 3 medium(2 large) sized onions finely chopped
  • 2-3 colored sweet peppers(or mix in a hot pepper or 2)
  • 3Tbsp pickling salt
  • 1 1/2c sugar
  • 1c cider vinegar
  • 2tsp celery seed
  • 1tsp ground mustard
  • 1tsp hot pepper flakes(just a guideline)
  • 1tso tumeric

Directions

  1.  After chopping zucchini, onion, and peppers, combine in a saucepan.
  2. Add pickling salt and mix well. Then let stand for 1 hr.
  3. Thoroughly drain the veggies and then rinse and drain again.
  4. Add the remaining ingredients to your drained veggies and mix well.
  5. Bring mixture to a boil then reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes.
  6. Ladle into sterile canning jars to within 1/2 inch of the rim and seal. This recipe makes about 2 1/2 to 3 pints of relish depending on how much you eat before canning it.
  7. If you wish, place jars into a boiling canner and boil half pint jars for 10 minutes or pint jars for 15 minutes

Note: I have found that your relish is hot enough when you place it in the jars, they will self-seal as they cool without time spent in the canner, but that is completely up to you.

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August 26, 2015

Quick Dill Pickle Spears or Slices

A healthy cucumber plant is a prolific producer. You know you can’t eat all of them, right? That means you need to do one of two things. Either sneak over to your neighbors and leave bags of cukes on their porch and run away or pickle them. Sure, there are breeds of cucumbers specifically for pickling, but all cucumbers can be preserved in jars. This just happens to be our down and dirty way of making a quick two quarts of dill pickles. Feel free to scale this recipe as you need for larger quantities.

INGREDIENTS

  • 3# Cucumbers
  • 6 cloves of garlic(minced)
  • 4 tsp dill ceed
  • 1 red pepper flakes
  • 2c cider vinegar
  • 2c water
  • 3 Tbsp pickling salt

DIRECTIONS

  1. Start by making sure you have two cleaned and sanitized quart jars.
  2. Wash, dry, and cut cucumbers into spears or slices.
  3. Add 1/2 of the garlic, dill, and pepper flakes into each jar.
  4. Pack cucumbers into jar.(With spears you might want to tip jar and switch between thick and thin ended spears at the bottom of jar)
  5. In a pot mix together the vinegar, water, and salt. This is your brine.
  6. Bring your brine to a boil and pour into jars up to 1/2 inch from the top.
  7. Remove excess bubbles by gentle tapping the jar on the counter.
  8. Place lid and band onto the jar and boil in a canner for 10 minutes.

As the jar cools it will seal. If not, something when wrong. You don’t have to have a pressure canner for this, just a deep stock pot that will allow water to come up over the lid is necessary.

 

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