Canning and Pickling

 

Canning & Pickling

An impromptu workshop in an ongoing effort to teach food preservation through 

DePaul's Urban Farming Organization

For several years students have been interested in learning ways of preserving garden harvests, particularly canning. It's a difficult activity on campus because we need a stovetop. In the meantime, it worked to have a few UFO'ers for a little workshop. 

• hot packing tomatoes for pressure canning
• spiced peaches recipe for the boiling canning
• pickling green beans

HOT PACKING TOMATOES FOR PRESSURE CANNING

Blanching Tomatoes to remove the skin:

1 boiling pot of water, to boil tomatoes in for 30-60 seconds or until the sin cracks

1 bowl of ice water, tomatoes are placed in the ice water after skin cracks in the boiling water. This helps remove the skin and cool the tomatoes for handling, but the tomatoes are still plenty hot! We could have removed the stems before boiling, but they popped off regardless.

Add 2 tablespoons and 1 tsp of salt of lemon juice to each jar. And the lemon juice is the bottled store bought stuff because we add this to lower the pH enough to reduce risk of pathogens, particularly botulism (< 4.6). The temptation is there to use whole ingredients rather than processed one, but whole lemons are not tested for pH but bottles lemon juice is regulated to be under the required canning pH.

Cut each tomato in half and watch out! The tomatoes are still really hot, especially on the inside.

Pack in tight using spacer. Fill jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace

Once jars were packed, we put on new lids sterilized and warmed along with bands and jars in the dishwasher. We used a Presto Pressure Canner and Cooker and followed the directions for pressure canning raw tomatoes (25 minutes at 11pound pressure. Each canner should come with its own processing manual and recipes from the manufacturer. Be careful to ensure you have your model's specific processing instructions before purchasing, particularly when tempted to purchase canners at resale stores.

The art of this pressure canner is to keep an eye on the gauge and continue to adjust your burner accordingly.  Remember: processing time begins once the gauge reaches the pounds of pressure indicated by the instructions. We did not begin our timer for 25 minutes until the gauge read 11 pound pressure. We began the peaches as these tomato jars processed and found our pressure to build past 11. A couple of times we had to turn the heat very low to keep the gauge needle from climbing. 

Presto Pressure Canner and Cooker pictured without the regulator on vent and with safety lock down (unengaged).

BOIL CANNING HONEY SPICED PEACHES

Removing skins of peaches (much more difficult than tomatoes). Before placing peaches in boiling water we cut an "x" into the skin. Boiling still seemed to take much longer than the 30-60 seconds suggested in the recipe, and even placing peaches in ice water, the skin was very stubborn. At one point we resorted to a hand peeler and it was still not an easy removal.


We followed this Ball recipe to create packing syrup, pack, and process: http://www.freshpreserving.com/recipes/honey-spiced-peaches



Both the tomato and peach jars were left to sit undisturbed for 24 hours to seal.

PICKLING DILLY GREEN BEANS
How easy pickling is after canning! And less hot. I should mention all of this was done on a beautifully cool and breezy September day near the coast of Lake Michigan! Otherwise I would have run the air conditioning because canning is a hot endeavor!

Making the brine. Vinegar, water, dill and pickling spices to follow any recipe such as http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/dilly-beans-366717. Just boil ingredients, clean and prepare vegetables (we washed and snapped off ends of green beans). Then pack veggies in jars and once boiled, turn off heat and add the brine. Lid and band, let sit for 2 weeks then refrigerate and enjoy. They can keep without canning for 2 weeks or you can process according to a boiling or pressure canner instructions.

Sometimes hunting around for spices can lead to cheaper, local, or less processed choices. Here the more local company was also more cheaply priced. Be sure to check around the produce section for some alternative choices. You can always consider making your own pickling spice as well: homemade pickling recipes

Admiral at the Lake 6th Floor Harbors

 Day 1 of replacing the Mow-Blow-And-Go landscaping company. Another rooftop garden. Weeding seems critically needed. Usual weed offenders even up on the 6th floor. (I've heard there is a blissful lack of squirrel trouble though, which is good because there is a bird feeder and bath up here).

ragweed

lambsquarters

pennycress

chickweed maybe?

chickweed maybe?

 

pineapple weed?

There's an interesting abundance of spiders up here. More than any other type of soil organism. Every time I stick the trowel in all these spiders emerge.

 

And I'm glad to see the usual friends show up here:

Weeding still not complete but the sun is setting! I'm learning how to get caught up without losing track of time. One challenge of a high rise is the time is takes to get from one location to another. 

The Admiral at the Lake

I've inherited an interesting set of urban landscapes as the new groundskeeper hired to replace a "mow-blow-and-go" landscaping company.

DAY 1
Removing the dead ornamental mums from autumn 2014. I started on the 6th floor terrace. This took an entire afternoon and I've learned how antagonistic gardening is to housekeeping. Saving all the floral tags to keep a journal of what was planted at myfolia.

Interesting views! Lake Michigan (Foster)

Looks like some good mint is growing. Not sure yet what the dead groundcover bits are.

After mum removal

***Dishwasher Detergent UPDATE #2***

In the event citric acid is too difficult to find, "lemonade" powder has been suggested as an alternative. Citric acid is usually a main ingredient and cheaper. Although you may gain extras like food coloring and sugar or sweeteners, so you may have to prioritize your battles.

I've tried finding a lemon powder at Whole foods with more naturally derived ingredients particularly food coloring but to no avail so far.

Let me know if you find something out there.

Interestingly enough, the lemonade powder may even offer better cleaning results. Courtney Craig on houselogic reported the lemonade powder worked better than a recipe with straight citric acid!

Girl Power Found in Unclogging the Dishwasher

I woke up to standing water in the dishwasher and because my property management company is slightly less than awesome, I knew we were in for another round of phone tag and weeks of waiting to get a service visit.

Turns out there was an easy solution. And although I found out how easy it is to unmount the appliance, learn from me: the first check does not require moving the appliance at all.

(I think you still should turn off the power at the breaker on the outlet or the main breaker box before messing with issues of standing water around an electrical appliance though.)

Just under the sink and find the hose that drains the dishwasher to the main pipe.

Loosen the clamp, wiggle the hose off and see if anything is blocking the passage. I knew I had it right just by pulling off the hose because I could hear the water moving. I was able to remove the food jam with some tweezers.


While you have that hose off you can run the dishwasher (start a cycle to run the water, then cancel it to drain) and let the hose drain into a bucket to see that the blockage is clear. It's a happy moment.

Last step running those tweezers through a hot sanitizing cycle to rinse out the congealed oil and gook from the standing water incident.

Ultimate preventative first step, don't feed husbands pistachios in the shell :)

Blue Beetle Permaculture Studio: Composting and more

Blue Beetle Permaculture Studio: Composting and more: *Rain Alert* We just had a good steady rain overnight! One of my priorities this year is to work on adding organic material to the vegeta...

Extractions

Working on some good fragrances for the DePaul Urban Farming Organization soap-making workshop coming up this Wednesday! 
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=932637353413382&set=gm.751040671648729&type=1&theater

When I dismantled my gardens last autumn I stuffed a bunch of different herbs into jars, really cramming in the plant material. Then filled each jar to the top with vodka, capped, shook them and stored them in a cool, dark cupboard. I periodically shook the jars throughout the last couple of months and am now extracting the liquid to use as fragrances for soap.

Straining the plant material using a pestle to mash out all the liquid.

Also using some fruit extractions I made from peels and rinds. I'm really excited about the pineapple, it worked really well!

I also tried extracting some herbs in oil. I'm not sure I can really smell the herbs after 3 months but I'll see what others think (I'm impaired with a cold currently so my olfactory abilities are off). I used aromatics like sage and thyme. I would like to find a good extraction method alternative to alcohol for the flavors that are overwhelmed by the alcohol and to minimize the alcohol "fumes" that are always present even in really successful extractions. So far freezing has not been useful as a separation method for me to help decrease the undesired effects of the alcohol. 

Please leave me a comment if you have suggestions or have had luck with a particular extraction method.

We used the extracts for the DePaul Urban Farming Organization's Soap Making Workshop.

**UPDATE**: Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

FORMULA ADJUSTMENT:

I've altered my recipe a bit after deciding the dishes were not getting clean enough. Noticing sodium carbonate was the first ingredient in seventh generation's dishwasher detergent, I doubled the amount in mine.

2 cups Washing soda (sodium carbonate) per 1 cup Borax.

I'm still using 1/2 cup citric and 1/2 cup salt but the next test will be increasing the citric acid b/c there's still some slight residue coming out on the glassware - I'm not convinced about the vinegar handling the rinse so I would like to try and give it a boost with the acid to lower pH. 

Stay tuned... or try your own mix and let me know what works (and doesn't) for you!