Homegrown, Home Canned - Food Choices for the Water Bath Method

What do you want to preserve, and where can you find it? Well, the obvious answers are everything, and pretty much anywhere. The real answers are not so cut and dried. For instance, my garden typically has tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, white and red potatoes, green beans, sweet peas, black-eyed peas, and squash. Sometimes it includes okra, radishes, bell peppers, lettuce, turnip greens, broccoli, and more. It depends on the weather, seed availability, and other factors as to what actually produces. What I don't grow here, I get either at the produce stand or as a last resort, the grocery store. Even so, I don't put up everything I do harvest or buy. So the real answer is that you can preserve almost anything as long as you do it properly. If you don't grow it yourself, you may or may not find it elsewhere. And if you outsource, you're going to pay for that fresh food, so don't freak out about the cost.

Each season, I generally start prepping in March or April. The garden has already be planted, or re-planted if that's necessary. I give my kitchen a thorough cleaning, including my pantry. I want to be sure I don't have foods that are out of date still on the shelf. Most home-canned items are generally good for up to 2 years, but 18 months is the recommendation from jar seal manufacturers. This is why it's so very important to label things before you store them up.

The easiest way to begin the season is with things that process in a water bath, which is basically a large, fat stock pot with a rack to keep jars off the bottom of the pot. This is great for high acid foods, that do not need to be pressurized. This is also the least expensive way to process foods for storage. Walmart has an inexpensive stovetop version for just $12.00 listed on their website, so don't feel you need to spend $150 at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for the plug-in version.

 For pickles, you need pickling cucumbers. You can use the slicers sold in the stores, but be aware that these will not hold their crispy bite as well as the pickling variety. You also need white vinegar (yes, pickling vinegar is the same stuff at a higher price) and pickling spices. I use Mrs. Wages brand because they are the most consistent packages I have found, are reasonably priced, and always have a good flavor. I have also started adding a product called Pickle Crisp, which helps keep the crunch better.

For jelly or jam, you need fruit. Fresh or frozen, it doesn't matter. If you start from a juice rather than fruit, DO NOT get refined juices. I buy Martinelli's unfiltered apple juice, but all other jellies come from whole fruit. Strawberries are a low pectin fruit, and do not set as firmly as apple or other berries, so be aware of this when cooking it down. You also need Sure Jell (I use the yellow box - the pink box is low sugar, and sets differently) or Ball's fruit pectin. Two tablespoons is equal to one box of Sure Jell. And since we're talking sweet things, sugar is a primary ingredient. Each batch uses between 7 and 9 cups of sugar, depending on the fruit.

A third option to begin with is tomatoes. Whole, sliced, diced, crushed, pureed, juiced - whatever form you like. Again, I buy Mrs. Wages Salsa and Pasta Sauce mixes. I also can the tomatoes whole and pureed for soup. (I can't even begin to describe the difference between this soup and that condensed junk in a can!)

When I schedule canning classes, these will be the first items we prepare, so if you're going to join us, have your mind made up which one you want to start with. Each group and class will be based on this selection.