Who Likes Canning?
 

I hadn't planned on doing this today but I'm canning green beans. I sent my husband to pick peaches and blackberries yesterday and he came home with blackberries, peaches, and green beans. He wanted me to cook up a large batch to keep in the refrig. However, my daughter and two grandsons are living with and now, and there is no way it would fit in the refrig, so I'm canning. I enjoy it but it makes me nervous with the little ones around. When my kids were little I did it before they got up or after they went to bed. I'm too tired at night to do it once the kids go to bed now! Our garden is producing but it's not ready to pick. I'm freezing the blackberries and peaches.

I don't mind canning. I do it every year. Doing green beans today also. With the heat we have had and lack of rain there isn't as much as I would like. Hopefully things get better.

I can tomatoes. I freeze green beans, green peppers, and jalapeno peppers.

I make jalepeno pepper jelly each year. Also freeze green peppers and tomato (sauce) from the garden.

I have not canned in years...due to getting a new smooth top stove. For many years we did not have a garden because of the fact that when it was producing was when we were so busy with our 3 kids/livestock and 4H projects. Last year we put out a garden and I blanched and froze my green beans. I used a foodsaver to do it and was quite pleased with the results. I also freeze sweet corn, zucchini, and green peppers.

I have a smooth top stove and use my pressure canner. I don't like the stove (I love the smooth top, it's just the finish on the smooth top I don't like) so it didn't bother me to find out if the canner would be a problem or not. So far no issue at all using it. Darn. LOL. I don't can that much but I have lots of canning done by a local church group. I buy the produce from the Farmer's Market and jars and they can it at the church kitchen, they will even shell peas. The cost goes to fund summer camp for the kids.

I can but I don't like it.. But I hate wasting it more.. We have an orchard so I make lots of jellies and jams and an occasional pie or two if I'm up for it...

I like canning, especially jelly making, but am not yet truly proficient at it. I usually blanch and freeze veggies, such as green beans, brussels sprouts, etc. I also freeze tomato products. Our freezer is huge so it's simply easier.

My husband used to do that and my Mother too. I never learned.

I love to can. A couple of weeks ago my daughter and I canned 84 jars of tomatoes with jalapenos, 7 jars of tomatoes and okra, 13 jars of pickled yellow squash, and 7 jars of zucchini pickle spears......all in one day. With two canners on her stove going at the same time, we started around 8:00 a.m. and the last canner came off around 6:15 p.m. That stove was going full blast all day long and it was awful hot in that kitchen, but it was so rewarding to have all those jars lined up on the counter at the end of the day.

I teach the kids to can in school today still and then they use it in the recipes we make through out the year. ( tomatoes and salsa). I can at home too. I see it is becoming more popular with people having to watch there $ and it tastes so much like fresh food. Also less of the preservatives.

I make jellies with fruit and
freeze the veggies

I make relish every year and sometimes jelly. I have a hard time finding some of my supplies. I tried to make concord grape jelly one year and the product I bought online was instant and it bound up on me, I barely got it out of the pan it was so hard. Clear jel, I think the product was called. Does anyone know where to buy the regular kind, NOT instant kind of Clear Jel? I'd love to try again to make that.

When my Mother was still alive, we canned together every fall & I LOVED it! I'd leave my kids with DH & off I'd go to Mom & Dad's for a week or so. We canned stewed tomatoes, made something she called "chow chow" out of green tomatoes, made bread & butter pickles, made grape jam, made apple butter, made apple sauce, made pickled watermelon rind, made pickled corn, (sometimes) made mincemeat & also made sour kraut. It was lots of work but I loved doing it with her & really miss it now.

I to enjoy canning I canned 28 pints of cherries yesterday and will do more I can all kind of stuff even my own tomatoe soup and pie filling also do my own jams and jellys some of grandkids won't eat a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich unless they have grandmas jelly

I can everything I can lay my hands on ... and that includes stuff that's been in the freezer when I need to make room for more. With inevitable power outages I don't have to worry about ruined food and since we have a gas stove, there is always something to eat.

I'm w/Krystyna, I usually can everything I can get my hands on and have for years. Also, remember my mother canning as well. My husband plants and maintains a garden every year and I pick, prepare, and can it. This year however, between working and my dad's health issues, I took a vacation from canning and have enjoyed the break. However, I'm looking forward to getting back to it next year, hopefully.

I am so glad to hear that others still can and freeze produce. I started canning as a child and I still to this day make jams,jellies,tomatoes and pickles. I can't make enough seems the quilters are always wanting to buy a jar of this or that. It is another way I relax. I know, I am nuts. But I love the response I get from friends who eat and enjoy my labor. I am getting ready to make peach jam, just did 37 jars of fig jam,46 jars of blackberry jam, and so many I can't count of hot pepper jelly, I always add other fruits to the hot pepper jelly and everyone goes nuts. One of my quilting friends has bought so much hot pepper jellies for her husband, he eats it on everything and I love to see how happy it makes him when I go to their house for a visit. Really, its not about the work I put in to the process, I love to see the expression and excitement the recievers show after trying my canned goods. I hate to see such a great art getting lost.

I used to can, but with it being just me... its just not efficient. I do freeze my tomatoes, cooking them to a concetrate before freezing. I can freeze in small amounts.

How do you make zucchini pickle spears? Those sound good and would help so zucchini does not go to waste. Also gals, how do you manage to make sure you get a good seal? I have not used the pressure canner very much so not experienced with it, but my water bath system seems lately that my seal is not real strong and I cook it the recommended amount of time and give it an extra five minutes. Not sure what I am doing wrong and I use Kerr.

I love making bread and butter pickles and I cut the corn off the cob to use in soups during the winter. I don't have much room for much else but I would love to do some tomatoes, squash and okra. Just need to get to farmers market soon.

I can green beans and freeze zucchini, green tomatoes, and corn. This year I want to freeze broccoli and cauliflower. Has anyone done this and if so can you tell me how, please?

Krystyna how do you can stuff from the freezer?

I did a lot of canning in my day. I make dill beans in a hot water bath (pickled beans), but you have to pressure can the beans otherwise. The only stuff I hot water bathed were fruit, pickles, jellies and jams. You have to be so careful when you can vegetables. Oh, you can hot water bath tomatoes, Iknew that, just forgot!!!!!!! I have got four bags of frozen black raspberries that I am going to make jelly with and hot water bath. I have registered for the Minnesota State Fair to enter them, so when it cools down a bit I am going to get some new 1/2 pt jars and go to work. Have fun! Edie

its a family thing around our place .. Love to do it !

I just got home from a visit to my fav aunt in IN. She cans her own beef in pint jars using the pressure canner. We had beef and home made noodles for dinner one night. YUMMY.

Please, how do you prepare & freeze green beans. I tried to freeze some and they are delicious but soft as noodles when cooked.

Southern cooking demands green beans cooked until soft in ham broth, with new potatoes thrown in. A big cast iron skillet of cornbread, baked ham, ice sweet tea, with peach cobbler for dessert. So good!!

I have a smooth top stove and I use my waterless cookware to do cold packing and my pressure cooker works very well on the hot burner in the back. Mine has a dark finish so it stays looking nice as well. I like to can green beans, and all kinds of dry beans to make preparing a meal faster. I make mustard pickle relish out of green tomatoes. I like to make my own salsa out of peppers and tomatoes from the garden. My husband has decided this year that he doesn't want a garden, so we are resting this year. I will miss these items, because I have recipes that I use them in. I am hoping he will want to do a garden next year.

I used to come home from work around 530 fix supper then start canning til 1or so go to bed and get up at 6 and start all over again. I didn't like to can then but now when I can't can as much as I did, I love it. Just wish I was able to do more than I can.

I began canning jams a few years ago apple pear, pineapple apricot and apple butter and usually make them as low in sugar as I can.

Anyone have a good hot pepper jam? I would love to make some for 2 of my BILs who love hot stuff.

I canned 22 quarts of green beans, 7 quarts of soup mix, and 7 quarts of tomatoes... not all in one day. I thought I did good, but you put me to shame.

Made fig preserves and fig/strawberry jelly one year, it was fun!

I learned to can from my Grandma. Would like to have a nickel for every bean I have snapped. I always canned peaches and apricots, tomatoes and made all kinds of jams from wild berries when we lived in Oregon. Now that I live in the desert and am older than dirt, I don't do it much anymore. Really do miss seeing all those beautiful jars filled and sitting on the shelves. Also my DH and I had our own 19 foot boat and we fished off the coast of Oregon at Brookings every year for salmon and the last year I canned we got 78 pints of king salmon. Sure was good...

I have canned for 40 years. I usually do tomatoes and peaches--I have a pressure cooker, but don't like to do green beans (who knows why??). I also make freezer jam when I get strawberries. I know none of it is "cheaper" but the taste and the feel good feeling of a fully pantry makes up for all of it.

Learnt when young, did some when family was young but now not often. But, just happens that I did some
"WATERMELON RIND PICKLES " last week. Haven't had them for years. Already ate one small jar out of 7.

Not yet canning season here, extra long winter, I learned about 20 years ago on my own after moring to (out in the boonies) Oregon I started with jellies and jams from wild fruit (blackberries, huckleberries, black caps, salmon berries, Salal berries, oregon grape, and elderberries), then ventured on to canned cherries, cranapple jelly, fig jam, apple sauce, tomato sauce, dill pickles and squash pickles. I have made juice out of all that and grape, plums. I freeze fruits to can when the weather gets cooler, and blanch and freeze other veggies. I take classes sometimes through the extension office on canning meat and other stuff, they really help, and if you have questions you can call them. They are located in every state.

i made jalapeno jelly last year for all the neighbors for christmas and a loaf of amish friendship bread.. well since then i have already had over a dozen orders for more bread and jam... i tell them too hot to can and bake...lol...maybe for christmas again...not sure....