Does anybody do any home canning? - Page 3

Bus 17 in OH · #21 (**permalink**) 10-29-2002, 06:33 AM

KayCee,

I cannot add much to the wealth of info you have already received. First priority is getting canning book I would strongly recommend your county extension office manual that would come from a university. Get it properly bound with a water proof cover if it isn't already. Read it front to back mine has all of the background information relating to why it is important to heat jars, pressure vs. water bath, history (Napoleon started this whole canning thing), etc.... Hit your 2nd hand stores, goodwill, salvation army, garage sales, auctions and such. You will come across canners for $20.00 or less. Be sure to have 2 pressure canners so that while one is cooling down you can be heating up another batch. If you have an electric range the most efficient water bath should have a solid bottom not the rippled bottom found on granite water bath pans. I prefer using my pressure canner for water bathing pints, the quarts are too tall though so they go in the regular water bath pan.

Good Luck

AnnaInOhio · #22 (**permalink**) 10-29-2002, 07:22 AM

#17 OH

Welcome aboard, glad to see another Ohioan(sp?) on the site, my closest neighbor till now was Michigan and Pennsylvania. I can't wait till next year to start canning again, although with the cheap price of apples right now I am debating canning up apples for apple pies this winter. I saw in the paper they are now .47 cents a lb. pretty low and it beats buying the cans of apple pie filling. Take care and hope to hear more good ideas from all of you on your canning experiences.

Anna

momoftwo · #23 (**permalink**) 10-30-2002, 03:59 AM

Hi Anna ~ Just wanted to share with you some info I obtained on apples. My DS's pre-school teacher told me about it and does it all the time. Of course, she's fortunate enough to live on an apple orchard so she doesn't have to pay for the apples. Anyway, she said that you can just prepair your apples the way you would when making your pie/crisp/cobbler, etc. Add all your spices and such, then freeze them in freezer bags. This way all you'll have to do is take them from the freezer, dump them into the pie crust and bake. You don't even have to defrost them! If you have the freezer room, then this is a great idea. If you think about it, the colder it is the longer apples keep. It makes sence. Hope this helps. It's alot quicker then canning. No offence, I'm a canner too and I've started to take this road with the apples.

Have a nice day.

Tammy

AnnaInOhio · #24 (**permalink**) 10-30-2002, 05:26 AM

Tammy-
That is a good idea and yes I do have the freezer space, just bought a used chest freezer at a garage sale this past weekend, now I have 2. The other is a upright freezer which I will now be using exclusively for prepared meals *Once a month cooking*. I love canning, cooking and freezing and we have cut our dinner prep and serve time down to about 20 minutes. I should say we are almost 80% vegetarian, we do eat chicken and turkey and these meats I usually cook in the crock pot on the weekend and make into prepared meals. I am so happy over my weekend find on that second deep freezer, I have been wanting an extra one for a couple of years but my husband kept saying we don't need, can't afford, extra electricity, etc. but I got this one for $20.00 and I figure extra electricity should only be about $5.00 a month max and now I can take advantage of all those great sales that I didn't really have room for. Our Krogers has been running this "frozen food" month deal with manufacturers coupons in the store and last Friday I was able to buy 21 bags of Freshlike 16 oz. size frozen vegetables for .24 cents a bag

They also had Super Triple on the coupons and they had those Softpretzels that you microwave after coupons Free! unfortunately we are on diets and had to pass that up. Anyways keep the ideas rolling ladies.

Anna

momoftwo · #25 (**permalink**) 10-30-2002, 06:58 PM

Hi Anna, It's Tammy again. Seem's like we're on the same posts. LOL Glad I could be of help. It sounds like you have a great supermarket. I have a Big Y and a Stop and Shop. We have some ok deals once in a while, but seems like the really good deals are on the things that no one buys in the first place. I guess this is to insure the store that they won't lose any money. Who knows! Great yard sale find too!

Happy canning/freezing

Tammy

AnnaInOhio · #26 (**permalink**) 10-31-2002, 06:22 AM

Hi again Tammy-

Yes, I noticed we seem to be looking at some of the same threads, it's hard for me sometimes to realize that with people using call names instead of real ones. We do have some wonderful store sales here, alot I think because we demand it from the stores. They do hokey stuff every now and then like run a "Super Double" coupon sale and have all store name stuff on sale, very disappointing and I refuse to even go to their store no matter how good the deal is. I was hoping Krogers would run Super Triples again this week but they didn't. Their coupons are good till December I think so I'll keep watching. My husband and I eat alot of Morning Star and Boca brand vegetarian food and our Meijers store has been running Super Doubles for about 6 weeks, they have Morning Star on sale $1.50 each this week and I have coupons $1.00 off, doubled it is free and they would actually owe me .50 cents but they now just double to amount of item, but free is still a good thing

So I will be buying alot of those with the coupons I have and stocking them into our freezer. Till next time.

Anna

rosebud · #27 (**permalink**) 11-01-2002, 02:56 PM

I've thought about making jelly from fruit juice. has anyone tried this and if so how does it come out price wise? I 've been buying 32 ounce jars of smuckers and bama apple and grape jelly on sale for 99 cents. I'm thinking I couldn't make it cheaper than that.

uismother · #28 (**permalink**) 11-01-2002, 05:54 PM

I'm not real sure about price wise. I grow my own grapes and apples so I'm throwing money away if I don't do something with them. But with no preservatives and a taste out of this world it's sooooo worth it. There's no comparison between that gummy stuff from the store and homemade grape jelly. No gommy clumps; it spreads evenly every time. The aroma!!! The taste!!!
Sorry, but I have to go have a PBJ right now. LOL Give it a try. You'll never go back.

AnnaInOhio · #29 (**permalink**) 11-04-2002, 06:23 AM

Rosebud-

I believe in the Ball Canning Book it talks about using juice, I don't know why it wouldn't work. I've often thought of trying it myself, everytime I've tried the do it with fruit I went end with a gloppy mess

Jam is much easier, I think. but with juice already made, it would probably be at least half as easy as jam since you don't have to cut up fruit, let it drip throught the cheesecloth, etc.
Noelle, I am so envious that you have your own grapevine and apples. I planted an apple tree a couple of years ago, cherry tree too, last year I got 1 cherry and 2 baby apples, this year nothing-they bloomed but I guess it was just too hot and dry here to grow or the birds got to them before they matured? Oh well, hopefully next year will be better.

Anna

sweet pea · #30 (**permalink**) 02-13-2007, 11:45 AM

Yes, I do a lot of canning in summer. I do a lot of jelly, green beans,beets, corn..I even do mason jar cake you can frezze for 6 month . But my house it dont last that long...LOL