Canning/preserving

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mjd

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I am interested in learning more about canning. I have only made apple butter. The main reason is that my ex wanted me to cook everything from scratch and hated the idea of using a freezer or anything that was preserved. That's a topic for another day. LOL I would love to make various fruit jams and pickled veggies (ie. onions, beets, etc.) but don't know where to start.

What do you preserve and how do you do it?
 
Mod.Edit - I added 'preserving' to the thread title as in the UK canning means putting things in tin cans.

Jams, pickles and preserves aren't very difficult. You can even do them using the microwave. I do a few jams when fruits are in season and also pickled veg. Maybe mjd-lovescooking you could suggest an ingredient you want to work with and I (we) could give you a few ideas?
 
In the UK, I had two pantries and a room for the chest freezer in the outside corridor. So we had space to store preserves. Here we freeze the fruit we want to Jam (strawberries/ apricots ) in bags with the correct portion weight for the bread machine.Chutney (mango) I just buy the fruit as a when. In 80 mins you have a 1 KG of fresh product.
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Recipe - Bread Machine Mango Chutney
 
Do you have any particular ingredients in mind? My experience is limited to what is in abundance in the garden. This year it has mainly been apples. Two batches of apple butter so far, a spicy chutney planned, and probably some juice for freezing. I have also frozen lots of runner beans and blackcurrents, and have pickled some chillis.
 
I don't have anything particular in mind. I am just interested in making something to try it out. I like strawberry jam and think peach jam or jelly would be interesting. I do not care for fresh peaches at all but will eat cling peaches so I don't know if that's a good idea.

I tried to make grape jelly a few months back when someone gave me a crate full (~30 bags) and it was a waste of time and ingredients as it had no flavor whatsoever. I threw it all away.

I also love pickles and always have a big jar of them on hand. I have pickled green onions but did those in brine, not as preserves.
 
mjd-lovescooking said:
That looks awesome! I cannot find sultanas in my local grocery store. Do you happen to know of a good substitute for that? Thank you!
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Perhaps a 50:50 mix of raisins and dates might work. Any dried fruit is probably OK, but you will get a slightly different flavour. Dried cranberries?
 
Hello, I would like to know If anyone here is experienced in the field of making preserves. My situation:
I'm working in a french kitchen and I think we throw away a lot of food, now I did start to take home meat pieces quite often, some are uncooked, some are cooked, and put them into the freezer. My mother tolerates it, but she told me, I shouldn't freeze to much.

My idea is, take the uncooked meat, blend it, season it, fill it in twist-off-glasses, poach the meat in the glasses on a deep baking dish filled with boiling water in the oven until my measuring device shows 60°C/140F in the middle of the glass. If the already cooked meat is suited for preservings I suppose I would work after the same method, but faster or I could mix all the meat together. My questions, is it safe in terms of bacteria?

In the winter time we'll be selling a lot of geese and we won't use the offal and not all of the fat, that is dripping out of the skin while we roast them. I hope I can make some cool preserves with that as well.

Funny side note, I calculated my yearly needs of nutrition (carb, fat and protein) and the sources of nutrition. I need 18.000kg/39,6832lbs of meat with around 20g/0,7oz of protein per 100g/3,5oz and when we humans could eat more than just 250g/8,25oz offal in a week, I would prepare all the kidneys, livers and hearts just for my next year. 250g/8,25oz is still a big number, currently I'm eating about 375g/13oz meat every week.
 
I founded a Preserves company in 2004 - called it Masala Sabe Bien (masala tastes good). The company closed in 2015, due to government restrictions on supplies. I probably made around 3 million jars over the years, and when we closed, the products were in all the major supermarkets in Caracas. I´m currently working on compiling the recipes so I can publish a book, with a bit of luck. My products were chutneys, jams, jellies, marmalades, pickles (both Indian and European style) and hot sauces.
So I´m happy to share my experiences in the area, although I never preserved meats or fish ( unless you count Bacon Jam!)
 
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I've made lemon curd before (pictured above), and when I feel like it and the mood strikes I make a batch with Nigella Lawsons recipe from the book How to eat. It's incredibly tasty and easy to prepare. I also sometimes use oranges or limes, and the recipe is always succesful.

This picture also showed a jar of Cranberry sauce I made, I use Jamie Oliver's recipe for that. It can be found here Apple & cranberry sauce | Fruit recipes | Jamie Oliver recipes

I also sometimes make dulce the leche using a can of sweetened condensed milk; Easy Dulce de Leche Recipe . I add some salt after to make it into a salted caramel spread, and it's absolutely gorgeous and so easy.

The most important thing for preserves is using a sterile jar, and if you want the preserve to last beyond a few weeks boil the jar in hot water after closing the lids carefully. How long you need to boil it depends on the recipe.
 
That's a lot of food you preserved there. Right now I just want to learn how to preserve meat in mason jars, but in the future I would like to make my own jams, pickled vegetables etc.
 
After my research in the internet is done I set up this plan. 1. Try out to preserve something in a twist of glass, try out all the methods, in the water bath, fill in raw/cooked, in the oven, what kind of seasoning I like. 2. Ask my boss for permission to gather 10kg/22lbs of offal, 15kg/33lbs of necks (I like to eat chicken bones) and maybe 1kg of geese fat. Buy around 70 glasses with 375ml/13oz. 4. Do it, prey to god for working seals. 5. Enjoy home made, preserved meat for the rest of the next year.
 
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