Canning Etc. Season 2018

I am trying to delay cucumber pickling… Still have a lot from last year and just discovered couple jars from 2015 :grinning:. I planted twice less this year, just 8 plants. Still looks like a lot :slight_smile:. Will have to pickle eventually. For tomorrow raw currant jam and also eggplant/pepper saute are scheduled. Eggplants another thing that gives me hard time. Doesn’t matter how few I plant, they always ready in numbers before anything else and I have to figure out what to do with them. I do not can saute, I freeze it - it comes out like just made, when you defrost it in the fridge. And I have less preparation time as I do not have to be that super careful in how I handle produce(keeping botulism in mind!). Will post pictures tomorrow.

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I had not planted cucumbers last year. But we finally finished the pickles from 2015 this winter. I planted just two plants, but they grew big and started to produce. In a month cucumber beetles will kill them so I will be relived from my duty. This year I put celery stalks with cucumbers when I pickled, I hope they will stay crunchy and give the celery spiciness to cucumbers.
I also have a lot of eggplants usually. I dry them and add the powder to the salsa or sauces, they make them thicker. There is also Italian recipe for the pickled eggplants. Sauté also sounds good.

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Horse radish leaves and tart cherry leaves also made them crunchy, but most important thing is hard water. I was not able to repeat my own results back home where we had very hard water, until I started to use special granules to harden the water.

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Productive weekend…

21 pints, 4 quarts salsa
5 pints sweet pickle relish

Katy

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What is a good juicer for soft fruit such as grapes and apples other than the Mehu-Liisa - Stainless Steel Steam Juicer & Food Steamer - 11 liter? Any recommendations? Thanks.

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Finally got to those pictures:
Black currant raw jam for freezer:


Eggplant Sauté:
Produce:


End results:

Packed for freezer:

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Nice, all home grown ingredients? Do y’all make yer salsa hot?

My wife got a big cabbage from a neighbor today. She wants to make some hot kraut tomorrow. That ought to be interesting…

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Almost. I did buy the cilantro. We do have some cilantro growing but it’s one of those things that is inexpensive and easily obtained and really difficult to grow a big bunch of it unless you are devoted to growing it. Cilantro bolts and seeds quickly in the heat here. Everything else is homegrown. Hot is subjective. :flushed: It does have a bite!

My mom would make kraut. I really like it. I hope yours turns out great!

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Galina, it looks like you have a lot of early vegetables, including eggplants and peppers. Are they in greenhouse? Very nice sauté. Mine usually have too many tomatoes and gets mushy

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No, they are not in greenhouse, but I start them in February, and they spend May in portable greenhouse on my deck. I plant them out already blooming and some times with green fruit. This year they are actually late, especially tomatoes, I use paste from last year. About too much tomatoes - this is another thing why I like to freeze. In canning you have to have it at least somewhat watery for proper sterilization, but you can freeze it as dry as you like it.

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When Mom canned when we were kids, every time a lid would “ping,” we would yell, “Sealed!” at the top of our lungs.
I’m sure she found it as amusing as we did.

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Antmary, do you use pectin in the Beauty, or simmer until thickened? Last night I made a test batch of beauty with some black currants in it to see if I like the combination. I figured it would be a good way to stretch the currants, add nice color if I use some less ripe beauty, and add pectin since Beauty is so watery. I’m looking forward to trying it tonight.

I did a test batch of Beauty with Columbia Star blackberry and I think it was better than Beauty alone. I don’t have enough Columbia Star to make a batch of it alone, I’m wondering if that would be even better.

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No I had not used pectin and the end results are watery indeed. I have Kuban Comet ripening at about the same time as beauty and they are a lot meatier and less sour than Beauty, although not really sweet as well. Next year I may mix them together. I think Kuban comet should make the thick jam.

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The Doodette picked about 10lb of cukes this weekend, and yesterday decided to make some some bread and butter pickles (or sweet and sour). She added cauliflower, onion, green tomatoes, and sweet peppers to the mix. We also grew the peppers, and tomatoes, the rest was from the store.

We haven’t tried any yet, but I wanted her to leave a jar behind to sample. We did 12 pints and 3 quarts. Here are a few pics before they go down to the cellar.

I tasted the brine before we canned them, and it was very good. The added sugar cuts some of all that vinegar bite, plus the herbs (dill, celery seed, mustard seed). add a nice subtle flavor.

She did some got kraut last week, and we have opened a jar, and tried it. Has a good tangy flavor to it already.

She said the rest of the future cukes will be used for dill and hot pickles.

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Just tasted a jar of lacto-fermented dill pickles I made a few weeks ago. Delicious! Crunchy, crispy, garlicky. Not as sour as I like, so I put a little vinegar in.

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Thing with lacto-fermented cucumbers, you can make them as much sour as you want - you just need to keep them longer on the counter before sterilizing them. My usually come out a bit too sour, as I never can catch a moment when they are right. At the end of fermenting process hours matter. But usually 72 hours do the job.

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Yeah, I usually take them too far and they get too soft. I wanted these nice and crunchy. I actually like the mix of lacto and vinegar. Complex.

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@KYWeaver and @galinas, we made about 8 jars of salt pickles (lacto-fermented) last month for our niece. We tasted them but thought them too salty. How much salt do you use for each jar? Or if you used a brine how much salt in how much water?

Thanks.

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For cucumbers, 2/3 cup of salt per gallon of brine. For other brined pickles (carrots, cauliflower), 1/2 cup salt per gallon of brine. For sauerkraut and similar shredded ferments, 2-3% by weight (start with 2% and add more to taste). I use Redmond Real Salt. Different salts have different densities so exact amounts may vary. I have also noticed that some pickles taste less salty after being refrigerated for a while. Texture improves too.
I do make my pickles to be stored in the fridge after fermenting; if you use a recipe designed for room temperature storage ( like a really old recipe) it may have a higher salinity.
Hope that helps!

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Here is how I do it:
For 1/2 gallon wide mouth jar:
6 black currant leaves, 6 skinned garlic cloves, 8 sour cherry leaves, two flowering dill branches, 1 hot pepper, two horseradish leaves.
Half of well rinsed spices put on the bottom of the jar starting with horseradish leaf.
Small cucumbers are best, wash them, cut off the ends and place vertically in the jar. Make sure they fit tight. After first level finished, add second same way. The key is to put them there tight. Cover with the rest of spices with horseradish leaf on top like a plug.
Add water to the jar to cover the content, then drain it to measure to see how much brine you need.
To make brine:
1 liter of cold drinkable water
40-45 gram of not iodized(!) salt
This is amount that is usually enough for 1/2 gallon jar. Dissolve salt in water, add 1/2 tsp of Pickle Crisp granules(per 1/2 gallon jar, not per liter of water!), mix and add to the cucumbers just to cover the content. Then add 2 tbsp of vodka on top trying not to mix. Cover with a cotton cloth and let it stay on the counter 48-72 hours, depending on the room temperature.
When ready, I remove cucumbers from big jar, pack them already without spices(to save on space), in quart jars. Boil the brine and add to the jars to cover cucumbers. Sterilize as usual.

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