Canning Tips from Elizabeth

This week’s Green Friend of the Week, Elizabeth from Boston, shared some great tips with me about canning food, which is a great alternative for enjoying out of season foods during the cold weather. Before you get started, please read the U.S.D.A.’s Canning Guide to ensure safe canning. Once you’re ready to get started, follow Elizabeth’s recipe for canning:

Canning tomatoes

Equipment: You need a very large stock pot with a canning rack. I bought mine at a local mom-and-pop hardware store, it was about $25. You also need jar lifters, here’s a link to a picture – http://fantes.com/images/5481openers.jpg – you can’t use regular metal kitchen tongs because the metal could damage the hot glass. You’ll also need a small non-metal spatula or a chopstick. Then of course, the jars. This recipe make about 6 500ml jars. They usually come in packs of 12. Your first set will have flat lids and screw caps. The screw caps are reusable, the flat lids are not. You can buy refill packs.

Picking your tomatoes:

This goes for anything you are canning – you want to pick fruit that is ripe but not over-ripe. Avoid any fruit that has a lot of soft spots, and cut out any spots you do have. Bacteria tend to gather in the damaged spots of fruit so you want to make sure to get rid of those pieces.

Preparing your jars:

I put my jars in the dishwasher (with nothing else) and run them through a hot rinse. You can also put them in a sink full of very hot water and then add boiling water from a kettle. But they need to be hot because if you put hot liquid into a cold jar it can break. The flat lids should be simmered in a small pot of water until you are ready to place them on the jars. The screw caps do not need to be heated because you will need to be able to touch them and screw them on the jar.

Fill your stock pot with enough water to cover the jars by about an inch and put it on high heat so that the water is boiling

The Recipe:

Note – canning does not allow any room for creativity with the recipe. The proportions need to be exact because changes in the acidity level can compromise the hermetic seal. I prefer a really basic recipe without any spices because then when I open them up I can do almost anything with them. They will be a little more liquid-y than many tomatoes in cans, but you can just simmer them for a few minutes and it will evaporate.

Ingredients:

12 cups halved, cored, peeled tomatoes (to peel the tomatoes place them in a pot of boiling water for 30-60 seconds until the skins crack, then place them in cold water and the skin will slip off)

Bottled lemon juice (it needs to be bottled because there has to be a consistent acidity, which you can’t predict from fresh lemons)

Salt (optional)

Recipe:

1. Place tomatoes in large, stainless steel pot, add just enough water to cover, bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring gently, reduce heat and boil gently for 5 minutes.

2. Take each jar and add 1 Tbsp lemon juice and ¼ tsp of salt (if wanted). Then ladle tomatoes into the jar, leaving ½ inch of space at the top of the jar. Take a small non-metal spatula or a chopstick and run it around the sides of the jar to make sure there are no air pockets. Add more tomatoes if you now have more than ½ inch of space at the top.

3. Wipe the rim of the jar with a damp cloth to ensure that there is no food on it as this can disrupt the seal.

4. Using a magnet, take one of the flat lids out of the hot water and place it on the jar, then put the screw band on firmly, but not too tight.

5. Place the jars in the boiling water canner rack using your jar lifters, make sure water covers by an inch, then cover the pot. Bring it to a boil, and once it is boiling set the timer for 40 minutes. After that, turn off heat, take off the lid, and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then remove jars using your jar lifters and set them on a flat surface where they can sit undisturbed for 24 hours. Don’t dry them or wipe them, there will be water gathered on the lid but it is important not to disturb them so the seal can form. In a little while you will start hearing the lids pop down as the cool and seal.

6. The next day, take the screw band off, wipe the rim, and test to make sure everything has sealed by pressing down in the middle of the flat lid. It should be depressed and make no popping sound. If it does make a popping sound, it means the seal didn’t form. Technically you can try to process them again, but it doesn’t happen to me very often and I just stick that jar in the fridge and use it within a week.

Note: Please read the U.S.D.A.’s Canning Guide to ensure safe canning.

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