Canning Recipes – Page 2 – Preserving the Good Life (2024)

Canning RecipesAugust 10, 2018Leave a comment

We’re right in the middle of entertaining season – cookouts, cookouts and more cookouts….We do a lot of entertaining in the summer and lemonade is a must!

Ingredients

• 5 poundsLemons
• 4 cupsWater (or enough to match the amount of lemon juice your lemons yield)
• 4 cupsSugar (or enough to match the amount of lemon juice your lemons yield)
• 6-8 pint-sized canning jars, lids and rings

This involves some thinking and in most cases you won’t have the exact measurements as listed above.

Microwave your lemons for 1 and a half minutes.

Roll them on a cutting board, cut them in half and juice them!

Measure your juice. If you end up with 4 cups of juice, use 4 cups of sugar and 4 cups of water. This is a strict 1-1-1 relationship. If you end up with 4 3/4 cups of juice, use 4 3/4 cups of water and 4 3/4 cups of sugar and so on.

Combine all of the ingredients in a stock pot and bring to a boil. I prefer to use a stock pot to have lots of room in the pot because this will bubble.

As soon as it boils, it’s ready to can! Ladle this into pint sized canning jars. Wipe rims and place sterile lids and rings. Tighten finger tight. Place in a hot water bath canner and water bath for 15 minutes. Makes 6-8 pints, depending on how much juice you get.

Each pint will equal a half a gallon of lemonade. Add the concentrate to your pitcher and then add in 3-4 pints of water. Remember that this is a concentrate, please don’t try to drink it without water.

Enjoy!

Canning RecipesJuly 17, 2018Leave a comment

My family loves anything dill, especially my Daddy – Ha! Ha! (That’s a joke!!) I was so excited to get these beans to make dilly beans and my Daddy in his girly voice said – “I’m so excited too!”….. He was being totally sarcastic; he hates vinegar, so I definitely did not get the love of dill pickles from him! But that’s ok – that just means that’s one less thing that he will sneak off my dinner plate.

Canning RecipesFebruary 14, 2018Comments: 3

My family is all about some easy, ready made meals. This can be added to and used as a soup base. You can add thickening to it or it can be eaten by just as is it canned.

Ingredients:

• 10 pounds of stew meat
• 2 pounds of carrots, chopped, sliced or sticks
  • 1 cup per quart jar – if you like carrots! For my family this was too much. My 1st batch had a strong carrot flavor.
• 5 pounds of potatoes peeled and cubed
  • 1 cup per quart jar
• 1 pound of chopped celery – OPTIONAL.
  • My boys don’t like celery, but if I were to add it – 1/2 cup per quart jar.
• 1 pound of chopped onions
  • 1/4 cup per quart jar
• 1 tsp canning salt per quart

If you’re filling the jars with broth and not boiling water. Boil 6 quarts of water and make broth based on your beef base or bouillon cube directions. Chopped all the vegetables and put in bowls of water until you are ready to fill the jars.

Cut the meat up into 1″ cubes. Once the broth comes to a boil start filling the jars in this order – meat, potatoes, celery, onions, carrots and salt. We parboil our meat just for preference, it seems to make the jars a little bit cleaner.

Add the hot broth or water leaving 1″ headspace. Remove all air bubbles. Wipe rims with a sterile cloth, place lids and rings. Pressure can quarts for 90 mins at 10 lbs pressure.

Yields 14 quarts. Enjoy!!!

Disclaimer: Use this recipe at your own discretion, or adapt it to your own method. I take NO responsibility for these recipes.

Canning RecipesJanuary 11, 2018Comments: 14

When I first mentioned canning Tea Concentrate to my husband he thought I was crazy. I laughed, I may be crazy, but canning tea concentrate is not the reason….lol. We do a lot of entertaining and it never fails, I either fix too much tea or not enough. Having tea on demand – now we’re talking!

I make tea in a one gallon jug, so when I make concentrate it needs to make one gallon when I am done. I used the exact recipe that I always use, except instead of making it in a one gallon jug I would make it in a quart sized canning jar instead. Then all I need to do when I want tea is add the contents of the quart jar to my usual gallon jug and top it off with 3 quart jars of water to make a full gallon.

I made 2 different kinds: Sweet, as in sweetened with sugar and our version of Unsweet which is actually the Lipton’s Southern Sweet Tea blend.

My Recipe: (Per quart jar)

• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 family-sized tea bag or 4 regular-sized bags
• Hot water

NOTE: If you’re using gallon size tea bags, use wide mouth jars to allow room to easily remove the bags at the end (you’ll thank me later).

I measured out the sugar for a full gallon of tea and poured it into each sterile quart jar. My boys like their tea sweet, not as sweet as McD’s, but still sweet enough! I know it looks like a lot of sugar, but that is 1 1/2 cup in each quart; which is what we use for a full gallon of tea.

We have our sugar poured into each jar. We have our tea bags ready and waiting. We use 4 bags per gallon, so I have 4 bags tied together to place in each jar. Next, bring a large pot of water to a boil. The water needs to be hot in order to steep the tea properly. Once the water is nice and hot, it’s time to fill the jars 2/3 of the way full. This will leave room to add the tea bags.

Stir the water to dissolve the sugar and then add the tea bags to each jar. Once the bags are down inside the jars, I top off each jar with a little more hot water and give the bags a push with the spoon to sink them down a little farther inside the jar. I would walk by and stir the jars every 5 minutes or so. You can place a lid on top of each jar to allow the brew to steep. I let mine sit for 20 minutes, we like a brisk tea.

After about 20 minutes I begin removing the bags from the jars. I give each bag a gentle squeeze to extract as much liquid as I can. Be care to not tear any tea bags.

Once all of the bags are removed, fill the jars up with hot water leaving 1″ head space.

Once filled, wiped the rim of each jar with a clean sterile cloth and adjust the hot lids and bands, getting it ready for processing.

Waterbath for 10 minutes. Once the jars are placed in the pot, cover the jars with 2 inches of water. Tea has a great deal of acid so there is no need to pressure can it. Bring the water to a full boil with the lid on the pot and boil for 10 minutes. Once it’s turned off and cooled, remove the jars and place on a towel on the counter. Listen for the sweet “ping”! We allow our jars to sit for 24 hours before moving.

Entertaining will never be the same…..

Canning 101, Canning RecipesJanuary 1, 20181 Comment

They say whatever you do on New Year’s Day you do all year long; well, we must have canned New Year’s Day 2017. John and I canned something almost every week; oftentimes, two to three times a week . There was never a “season” for canning with us, we canned ALL year long and ended up with 1,319 jars canned in 2017.

We’ve canned for years, but this is the first time that we’ve actually kept a list of what we’ve canned. This is a year’s supply for our family of four plus we often feed our in-laws, family and friends. Some things will carry over another year or two, some things will run out. We don’t waste anything and the neighbors know it. There’s several times throughout the year that things get left on my front porch because people know that we don’t waste, we’ll put it in a jar. We’ve canned a lot of “old faithfuls” and we’ve experimented. We enjoy canning. Some folks enjoy reading, crafting and outdoor sports, we enjoy all of that too, but we LOVE canning.

Here’s what we canned in 2017:

• 43 ~ Greens – Pints
• 18 ~ Greens – Quarts
• 10 ~ Strawberry Pie Filling
• 11 ~ Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
• 6 ~ Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling
• 10 ~ French Onion Soup
• 22 ~ Pintos
• 17 ~ Navy Beans
• 12 ~ Red Beans
• 20 ~ Black Beans
• 12 ~ Baked Beans
• 4 ~ Chickpeas
• 7 ~ Watermelon Rind Pickles
• 51 ~ Pickled Beets
• 32 ~ Squash
• 14 ~ Zucchini
• 21 ~ Blackberry Jam
• 28 ~ Blackberry Pie Filling
• 134 ~ Green Beans – 98 of those in 36 hrs!!
• 10 ~ Garlic Dill Pickles
• 13 ~ Garlic Dill Zucchini Pickles
• 9 ~ Mrs. Patty’s Bread and Butter Pickles
• 21 ~ Mrs. Wages Bread n Butter
• 5 ~ Slaw
• 42 ~ Cabbage
• 19 ~ Pickled Okra
• 15 ~ Peach Jam
• 14 ~ Peaches – Pickled
• 14 ~ Peaches – Cold Packed
• 7 ~ Peaches – Hot Packed
• 7 ~ Peach Cobbler Mix
• 4 ~ Peach Syrup
• 14 ~ Pepper Jelly
• 38 ~ Cranberry Sauce
• 8 ~ Cranberry Juice
• 62 ~ Potatoes
• 24 ~ Sweet Potatoes
• 27 ~ Apple Sauce
• 8 ~ Pear Sauce
• 16 ~ Stew Meat – Deer
• 6 ~ Stew Meat – Beef
• 25 ~ Pork Loin
• 7 ~ Chicken
• 23 ~ Hotdog Style Chili
• 36 ~ Creamer
• 6 ~ Ground Beef
• 10 ~ Swedish Meatballs
• 17 ~ Meatloaf
• 87 ~ Sausage
• 36 ~ Vegetable Beef Soup
• 24 ~ Spaghetti Sauce
• 53 ~ Tomatoes
• 21 ~ Tomato Jam
• 15 ~ Tomato Basil Soup
• 12 ~ Tomato Soup
• 34 ~ Salsa
• 16 ~ Oatmeal
• 20 ~ Dried Apples
• 8 ~ Spice Cake
• 14 ~ Tea Concentrate

Plus we froze over 250 ears of corn! Needless to say, it was a good harvest year on the family farm. Approximately 90% of our produce comes from Marshall Farms. We joke that I will work for food, but I literally do. I work in exchange for produce, one of the benefits of being a Daddy’s girl who lives close to home.

Now, let’s get canning, 2,018 is going to be an AMAZING YEAR! Seriously, I’m going to make some coffee creamer today – inventory is low.

Canning RecipesDecember 5, 2017Comments: 5

My crowd LOVES a good pot of vegetable beef soup, so much so that we’ve started canning it in 1/2 gallon jars! You can add stew meat or ground beef to it but a good soupy vegetable base is important.

Here’s what canning soup day looks like in our kitchen. This day we canned nearly 10 gallons. I like to mark things off my list. By canning 16 half gallon jars and 12 pints (for our parents) it makes for a lot of work but we’ve got our stash of soup for the year!

Remember when we can, we can big. This recipe will easily fill 2-3 pressure canners. The quantities below will give you eight 1/2 gallon jars and a Crockpot full for lunch.

We go to all efforts to keep from using store bought canned vegetables when making our soup. We use lots of frozen vegetables, dried beans soaked overnight and vegetables that we canned. Spices in this recipe are an estimate – due to the fact my husband cooks like most Grandma’s – shake and sample. We grab our largest stock pot and we start by literally dumping our favorite veggies into a the pot, bringing it to a low boil. The goal is to get this huge pot hot. If you don’t have these canned goods on hand, use roughly the same quantity of store bought fresh, canned or frozen.

At this point I add my jars to the oven and turn it on 200 degrees to get the jars to the desired temperature before filling them.

This will fill a 20 qt pot:

• 3 quarts of canned tomatoes
• 1 lg bag of frozen corn kernels
• 2 small bags of frozen sliced carrots
• 4 – 15 oz cans of diced potatoes, drained and rinsed (I’ve yet to find a frozen diced potato that I like)
• 2 quarts of canned pintos
• 2 quarts of canned green beans (or 1 bag frozen)
• 2 lbs of green dried peas, soaked over night (or frozen)
• 2 lbs of northern beans, soaked over night
• 1 cabbage head diced
• 2 onions diced
• 32 oz Beef Broth

Then start adding the spices listed below to taste….if I had to guess, we start out with 1 Tablespoon of each the salt and pepper, 2 Tablespoons of the Worcestershire and 2 Tablespoons of Texas Pete. This is where you will have to trust your taste buds.

• Salt
• Pepper
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Texas Pete

Once it is seasoned to your liking, lightly brown the meat in a cast iron pan before adding to the soup. Or you can add the raw meat to jars; whichever you prefer. We have found that it’s easier to distribute the meat equally if we add the meat to the jars rather than to the soup pot.

• 10 lbs of stew meat lightly browned

Then begin filling hot sterile jars.

Use a knife to get the air bubbles out of each jar. Once that is done, wipe rims with a sterile cloth and place on the hot lids and rings. Pressure for 90 minutes on 10 lbs of pressure. The pints we pressure for 75 minutes.

Enjoy!

Canning RecipesDecember 1, 2017Comments: 13

Cranberry juice is one of those things that I never seem to have on hand when I need it and one of those things that I always forget to add to the grocery list.

If you start looking for recipes to make cranberry juice, you’ll find 15 different amount for cranberries and 15 different amounts for sugar….

Here’s what I used:

• 1 3/4 cup fresh cranberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• Boiling Water

I start a stock pot of boiling water and place my sterile jars in the oven on 200 degrees to get them hot.

Fill hot jars with 1 & 3/4 cup of cranberries, then 1/2 cup of white sugar.

Add boiling hot water to fill up to 1/2″ headspace and stir well.

Clean rims of jar withsterile cloth and add hot lids and ring. Place in water bath and process for 25 minutes at full rolling boil.

Remove jars and leave untouched for 12-24 hours until they are completely cooled. Check the lids to make sure they are sealed. At this point, I turn my jars upside down and gently shake them to get the color to change throughout the entire jar.

Remove rings and clean jars with warm soapy water to remove any stickiness and store in a cool, dark place. Wait 4-6 weeks for the cranberries to really infuse the water before opening.

***Grapes can be processed the same way.

***I have learned this is essential to have you n the shelf for those with kidney and bladder issues. Better than anything you can buy at the drug store.

Canning RecipesNovember 19, 2017Leave a comment

It’s the first weekend of rifle deer hunting season here in North Carolina; so it’s only fitting that I share our processing secrets for venison, beef and bear.

Stew meat, creamed potatoes, homemade biscuits…..gravy….it’s hard to beat!!! My crowd loves stew meat so when my boys took up the hobby of hunting I had to figure out a way to preserve the harvest. There’s so many different ways this can be done. The two most important things to remember – 1 tsp of salt per quart and pressure can for 90 minutes.

As soon as the boys harvest a deer they place the hams, shoulders and tenderloin in a cooler with 1/2 cup of non-iodized salt and ice. If it’s a big buck we add 1 cup of vinegar. The type of deer, determines how long we soak the meat; a doe or young buck will soak 24-48+ hours. If it’s a big buck, we have soaked the meat as long as 72-96 hrs, draining the water and refilling the ice every 24 hours – but don’t add any more salt! This draws out the “gamey” taste. Wash the meat GOOD and cut it into stew meat chunks.

I chuckle as I say from the 1st of November until the 1st of January “we interrupt this marriage for Deer Season”…..true story……

With hunting season comes venison and preserving the harvest. We freeze most of our burger and can most of our stew meat. We’ve done this a couple of different ways I wouldn’t turn around for the difference – expect the appearance. Parboiling the meat first, makes for a cleaner jar.

Parboil and scrap off the scum. Pack hot meat in hot Wide Mouth jars. (Or you can skip the parboil and pack cold meat in cold jars). We prefer the wide mouth jars for our meats, the proteins can make it hard to clean the jars. **Note – if you parboil the meat, the jars will be much cleaner. The “scum” isn’t trapped inside the jar.

Take crushed beef bouillon cubes or beef paste and make a broth. Or you can put 1 bouillon cube in each quart jar and fill the jars with hot water.

Pour 1/2 cup broth to each quart, add 1 teaspoon of canning salt and fill with boiling water. Be sure to leave at least 1 inch head space as the meat will create it’s own juice as it cooks. Too much water and the juices will boil out.

Remove any and all air bubbles.

Wipe the rims with a sterile cloth, place lids and rings, tighten to finger tip tight and place in a pressure canner. Remember if the jars are hot, the canner needs to be hot and if the jars are cold, the canner needs to be cold. Let the canner steam for 10 minutes before placing the weight. Once the weight begins jiggling, pressure can quarts for 90 minutes and pints for 75 minutes on 10 lbs of pressure.

There’s several different ways to can this type of meat. I have one sister that simply puts cold meat in cold jars, adds 1 tsp of canning salt, places in a cold pressure canner and cans for 90 minutes. I have friends that add jalapeno peppers, friends that add onions; there is no right or wrong way to do this. The most important things to remember is to add 1 tsp of canning salt and can for 90 minutes.

Enjoy!

Canning RecipesNovember 16, 20171 Comment

I love sweet potatoes, any shape, fashion or form! And since this is one thing that I continually buy, I thought I’d try canning some this year. There’s 2 variations – plain and sweet. I prefer the plain; this way I have more options when I open the jars.

The first step is boiling the potatoes 5-10 mins then add them to ice water. This makes them easier to peel.

Place sterile jars in the oven on 200 degrees in order to get them hot and ready for packing. Begin a pot of boiling water to pour over the potatoes in the jars. Peel and cut the potatoes into 1 inch cubes. Set the potatoes aside in a large bowl of warm water and about 2 Tablespoons of salt to prevent them from browning.

Now is the time to put on a small pot of water to heat your lids and to put on your pressure canner to warm.

Once your water is boiling add your potatoes to each jar leaving 1 inch headspace. Try to pack those jars tightly.

Pour boiling water over potatoes again leaving 1 inch headspace and remove bubbles from each jar.

Wipe rims well, place hot lids and rings on hot jars and tighten.

Place hot jars in pressure canner and process quarts for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.

Remove jars from canner and allow to sit overnight to cool and seal. Wash jars in warm soapy water as they will be sticky from the high sugar content in the sweet potatoes . Remove rings and store. I put up quarts of sweet potatoes to make a nice addition to my winter meals. Simply drain and mash for a delicious treat with a little butter. They can be added to pies, breads, or even candied.

Canning RecipesNovember 10, 2017Leave a comment

I love the fall of the year, the changing of the leaves, Pumpkin Spice and Thanksgiving. One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is cooking for the family, a tradition my sister and I started several years ago. Each year we progress a little closer to a NON-Processed Thanksgiving and this year will be the closest year yet. Cranberry Sauce was one of the few things last year that I put on the table that didn’t come from our canned goodies. That won’t be the case this year! I found this recipe, made my own and oh my stars, it’s good!!! I could eat an entire jar – by myself!!!

Get the water bath canner, lids, rings and jars ready. I place my clean, sterile jars in the oven on 250 degrees until I’m ready to use them. Place a few metal spoons in the freezer to get them ready for the “sheeting” process later.

Yields: 7 pints

• 6 cups sugar
• 6 cups water
• 12 cups of fresh berries (1 – 12 oz bag = 3 cups)

Wash berries and be sure to pull out any berries that are soft, bad or simply not good.

In a large stainless steel stock pot, combine sugar and water.

Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil hard for 5 minutes. Add cranberries and bring it back up to a boil.

Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring occasionally, until all berries burst. This will sound like you’re popping popcorn! Boil until the liquid begins to “sheet” from a metal spoon, this takes about 15 minutes.

Ladle hot sauce into hot jars, leaving 1/4 in headspace. Remove any air bubbles.

If necessary, adjust headspace by adding more hot liquid. Wipe rim with sterile cloth to ensure there’s no residue to prevent a proper seal. Center lid on jar. Screw down band until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

Place jars in the canner, ensuring that they are completely covered with hot water. Add more hot water if needed to cover jars by 1 to 2 inches. Bring to a boil and boil for 15 minutes. Remove the canner lid, wait 5 minutes before removing the jars. Remove the jars, place them on a towel, on the kitchen counter and cover the jars with a towel. (Be careful not to sit the hot jars on a towel on a wooden table, it will make rings on your table). Let sit 12-24 hrs before moving. You should hear the PING within the 1st hour. If a jar doesn’t seal, reprocess or put in the fridge for immediate enjoyment.

Join 3,266 other subscribers