My Canning Guide

Here is a copy of my canning guide.  All amounts won't be totally accurate. What I do is print out one of these sheets at the beginning of the canning season and as I can stuff I write it in, but sometimes food is given to my parents or friends without amounts taken away.  There are also times when someone gives me extra things out of their garden and I can those..forget to write it down.  But for the most part it is accurate.  I use this so I can see what we eat, what we do not, what I need to increase because we are out of it early, etc.  You should really make one.  I used an excel sheet but because I cannot upload the actual copy if you ever need one you can post a comment and I will send you it via email. Sorry the top columns are a little off. There are also other things I grow in my garden but they are eaten fresh or dehydrated. 

Canning Guide	2009	2010	left over 2010	Canned 2011	ON hand as of 1/2012
Greens	10 pt	12 Jj	10jj	dehydrated instead	10jj
Carrots	9 Pt	17 Pt	2pt	25pt	18pt
Peas	8 Pt		1pt	12pt,1jj + 4pt,1jj to mom	7 pt
Green Beans	23 Qt	25 qt & 1 pt	4qt	32qt,23pt + 6pt to mom	27qt,16pt
Corn		12 qt & 8 pt	1qt, 2pt	7qt	6qt
Turnips	2 Qt & 4 P	0	2qt, 2pt	5pt to dad	2qt,2pt
Tomatoes	?	11 pt	2qt,12pt	12qt, 23 pt	9qt,24pt
Pears	6 pt	0	7pt	26 pt	25pt
Cabbage in tomato soup	0	8 qt	2qt	7qt,1pt	5qt
Tomato Juice		3 qt	3qt	0	3qt
Other Stuff
Pickles- Sweet	4 Qt	5 qt	6qt	0	5qt
-Dill	9 Qt	2 pj& 2 hg	dumped	0	0
-Bread and Butter	6 Qt	4 qts 1 pt	7qt,1pt	0	7qt,1pt
Relish-Sweet	6 Jj	0	0	0	0
Relish- Zucchini		12 jj	11jj	0	9jj
Grape Juice	3 Qt	0	0	0	0
Spagetti Sauce	8 qt	9 qt	13qt,1pt	0	5qt,1pt
Blackberry Jelly	6 Pt & 1 Jj	21 pt	11pt	0	8pt
Strawberry Jelly	2 Pt	4 pt	0	10pt	7pt
Rhubarb	0	4 jj	0	3pt,4jj	3pt,3jj
Rhubarb w/ Strawberry jello	0	3 pt	0	9jj,1pt	0
Rhubarb w/ Raspberry jello	0	4 pt	2pt	0	2pt
Rhubarb Strawberry jam(real)	0	6 Jj	0	4pt	3pt
orange marmalade				10jj	5jj
pear sauce				4pt	4pt
Mock Pinapple	6 Pt	0	0	0
Broth- Chicken	5 Qt	6 qt	6 qt	0	4qt
Chicken	12 pt	12 qt	1qt	0	0
Deer Broth	?	0	2qt	0	2qt
Deer	?	0	1qt	0	1qt
Turkey Broth	?	0	2 qt	0	2qt
Turkey	?	0	0	0
pt=pint    qt=quart  jj=jelly jar
pj= pickle jar    hg= half gallon jar

My pantry

Well today I moved my food.  Those of you who know, we have been redoing our breezeway so that it is a utility, laundry, canning kitchen, and pantry.  Well we've expanded more than planned and I am very impatient.  I asked my husband to buy some shelves. I just need all my food together. I can't stand not knowing how much I have! 

We went to Menards and bought $24 shelving units.  My husband will get them for the garage after I get my pantry built.  Let's hope that is in the near future...I have a feeling it is in the distant future lol.  Oh well eventually i will have it.  Right now all my food is in one location ..mostly. 

Here is the shelving unit and all my canned food.

Top shelf has Jams, broth, and corn.  Middle shelf has peas, carrots, and green beans.  Third shelf has cabbage in tomato soup, some store bought canned tomatoes, spagetti sauce, and then just plain tomatoes.  The bottom shelf has bread and butter pickles, sweet pickles, turnips, greens, and pears.

My pantry will be the span of about three of these shelving units wide..a tad bigger.  I am so excited that I will be able to store more things.  This would typically be full at the start of winter for our family of 4. It will last most of the winter and carry over will be added to the next years canning.  There is not much left by April when I start canning my greens again.

Dehydration

So if you have read any of my other blog posts you should know I have an Excalibur Dehydrator.  I love that thing.  It really does save a lot of space for things you dont want to can.  I have dehydrated lots of mushrooms, and a ton of onions from my garden.  I also opted to dehydrate my greens this year from my garden.  My garden is planted for my convienence.  I plant super early with greens, peas, and carrots.  And my early I mean by the end of Indiana March my garden has been planted with snow peas, regular pod peas, two types of lettuce, two types of chard, carrots, brussel sprouts, cabbage, radishes, beets, and potatoes.  Now for a normal person they start that months after I do but by then I have so much needing to be canned I dont have time to plant.  Anyway, dehydration is a great way to take what you have and reduce it down to nothing with no waste and plenty of shelf life.  Here is an example of what dehydration can do for you and your garden. 

Here is a tray of lettuce.  Now my planting of lettuce made 5 heaping trays to fill my dehydrator and I mean I heaped and had to skip trays or it would shove it off.  I layered a lot.  This picture is of some leaf and swiss chard. I tried not to leave any tray showing underneath. Here below is a picture of swiss chard after it is dried.

Yes that try was heaping.  Now I planted 4 - 6foot rows of greens( 2 types of lettuce and 2 types of chard) and one 8 foot row of kale.  I cut it all once when it was bit and bushy.  Each row would have made a huge salad for 6 people.  When I dehydrated all of it, I got two quarts of crushed greens.  That is a big space saver.  At the moment I have 3 quarts because the second cutting wasnt as good and I only did the 4 rows.  I have tilled them under now to allow my tomatoes to spread out and that area is now my tomato picking walkway.  I still have my kale and I am slowly pulling it up and giving it to the chickens to eat.  I have enough greens to last for a few years because I still have last years canning that I am using also.  It really does pay to get a dehydrator.  I also have winter onions.  My row is around 16 feet long and after I picked the small bulbs and chopped/dehydrated that I was able to get a 2 qt jar full of those also.  I still have the bulbs they produced on the top to replant this fall.  I think in a future blog I will give you a chart of when I plant and what I am harvesting/canning/dehydrating during that month.  It will be beneficial if you live around indiana or have a simular climate.

Pantry underway!!

Well this year we have a lot of projects.  I have three pantries.  I have three because we dont have room for one single big pantry.  We have now or rather are now making room.  I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!  We have a breezeway and its about 9x15.  It is less than that a little and its oddly done so we are trying to revamp it.  Our house has slowly over the past 11 years had projects done to basically redo the entire house.  It was not done correctly and was built in 1920.  It keeps us dry but has not been much to look at.  Our goal honestly is to have it done by the time we retire. It will be paid off before then and with us pretty much rebuilding it little by little we will have a "new" house by then.  This year is the breezeway project before we re-roof the entire house next spring.  The breezeway will soon be a utility/laundry/canning kitchen/pantry.  Then our now laundry room/water heater room will become a bedroom for our second boy.  They really need their own space and although in an odd spot and with no door it will serve its purpose.  The oldest would already like to have it which was odd to me because seriously the room they have now is like twice the size!  Anyway, we have poored concrete on part of our floor already and put in a new east wall.  The east wall is what is shown here. I've already painted because the water heater will be moved today as well.

The water heater is going behind the bladder tank and then both will be closed in.  Water heater with plank board and a shelf on top.  The bladder tank with have a cabinet built around it with a countertop for canning jars to sit and cool.  That stove my dad found for me a few years back in the paper for $25.  Cant beat that!!  Once the water heater is boxed in it will fit right up next to that and then off to the right and around that corner is going to be pantry shelving.  My canning jars will go next to the stove and then I think I will place dry food products next to them on the open shelves.  I already told my husband we are needing a window on the west side to place an air conditioner in to keep my dehydrated and dry products dry and moisture free during summer.  Its a very slow work in progress but we are hoping to get it done by September.  We are also going to carpet the entire thing with indoor/outdoor brown carpet.  We also went to habitat restore and found a vent hood for $12 that is stainless steel.  That way we can vent the canning moisture outside.  Hopefully we can make this look as nice as I already see it in my head lol. 

How I make Rhubarb Jam

Lets face it, there are a lot of recipes out there on how to make Rhubarb jam.  This is the wing it method I developed two years ago.  First go pick you some Rhubarb, dont worry about how much you are doing or how many cups it will cut into, just pick as much as you can.  The problem with recipes is that I would go pick mine at a friends get home and not have enough.  Or just too much and didnt know what to do with.  So just go pick a good big batch.  Once you get it home cut it into sections kinda like you would celery.  Well make sure you have cut leaves and root/stem bottoms off..then cut into sections.  (sorry I dont have the pretty red rhubarb like my friend..I have green)

 Put them in a food processor and chop them into tiny pieces.  Many take the time to cut them into little pieces but hello I have stuff to do..just chop them up.

Once they are chopped place them in a bowl and kinda determine how much you got.  My hands if I grab a large chunk are about 2 cups.  So here is 3-2cup piles approximately.

So you are going to need sugar. How much depends on how much rhubarb you have and how sweet you like your jam.  My method is start with almost the amount of sugar equal to the rhubarb. In my case I have about 6 cups of rhubarb..so I measure out 4 cups and pour it on top the rhubarb in my bowl.  Then I measure out another 2 cups and set it up on my stove. Let the rhubarb set with your sugar mixed it for a while.  Just leave it on the table or counter and start your hot water bath.  I have found with jam/jelly/preserve whatever you want to call it, its best to hot water bath just to make sure.  I've had to throw out containers that looked like they sealed then grew a lovely toxic mold.  So I use my pressure canner for my hot water bath.  I have another electric stove in my breezeway that I can on because I have a ceramic cooktop and it doesnt fair well with canning.  Fill it up so that your jars will fit under the water..mine is about halfway because I am going to do pints.  You can always add water later if needed and wait for it to boil again.

I also place my lid on without the rubber ring..just kinda sitting on top.  Helps keep the heat in.  So now your rhubarb is sitting in sugar, your hot water bath is going, and now you need to wash your jars.  Once you get canning more you can kinda tell how many jars you need.  I always wash 3 or 4 more than I think I need lol.  I seem to always under-judge how many.  Once your jars are washed fill them with hot hot water and then set them in the sink and fill that up.

I washed 6 and then one jelly jar. Its a good idea to wash a smaller size jar because your batch wont always come out even.  You can either hot water this if its a full jar or place it in the fridge to eat.  Wash your rings and seals too and set them aside.  Then take a wet wash rag. I use one of my older ones and then place it next to your pan that you will be cooking rhubarb in.  This is so when your filling your jars you dont get sticky rhubarb jelly on the stove and it dry. That stuff never comes off!  Gather your ladle, your funnel, and grab a bowl and put some hot water in the bottom.  My jars are kinda far in the sink from my stove..so I place 3 or 4 jars in the bowl and pour out the hot water into the bowl before I fill the jar.  You need your jars hot when you fill them or they will break.

Now your rhubarb should be fairly soupy.
(at this point I usually puree mine in the blender into a liquid)

Pour it into your stock pan and start it boiling.   Make sure you stir it because it will boil fairly quickly.  Once it boils turn the heat down to a nice slow boil because as this thickens it will spit at you and it hurts!  Continue to stir and boil until it is a globby gross soft mess.  Once it is this nasty mess you can do one of two things.  You can add gelatin, pectin or any other thickening agent and hope its enough ( if it doesnt thicken in the end you have ice cream topping!) or you can do what I do and use corn starch.  No one uses corn starch and I dont know why, but I havent died yet.  I do want to say that we use our jelly within a years time, so I dont know the shelf life beyond that.  I mix 2 or 3 TBS(I dont really measure that either) of corn starch with just enough COLD water to make a nice slightly runny paste.  Then I pour it in SLOWLY into the stock pot while stirring. 

I ended up using 3 of these spoons.  Make sure you only add enough water so you can stir it, otherwise it wont thicken as well in the pan.  Once you get this in and you probably will have to turn down the heat a little so you dont get spattered.  As this boils it will thicken. Because we arent using measurements its hard for me to use pectin or anything because I dont know how much I actually have.  Once it is thickened you want it to look like a very thick applesauce.  The jelly will thicken a little..and I stress just a little when its cold in the fridge..so you want the jelly to be pretty thick.
Here is a picture of mine.  You dont want to know how many pictures it took to get this one.  The corn starch lightens the color a little.  The stuff really is still green, this camera phone is odd making it look yellow but its not. Its just a lighter green.

Once everything looks good to go TASTE your jelly.  Now because we are using corn starch it might have a slight starchy taste, this goes away for me..or at least I personally dont taste it later.  This is where you can add more sugar to make it sweet.  Rhubarb sours as it cans so make it sweet.  Not so sweet you puke or anything but make it to where you say..man that has just a bit too much sugar.  Continue tasting it to make sure its slightly sweet then pour it into your jars.  I actually didnt need any more sugar so I was thankful for that.   When you fill your jar, leave the space where the ring screws on.

Wipe the tops of the jars, place your lids on, and hot water bath for 20 minutes.  When 20 min is done you want to take them out of the water bath and place them on a towel in a non draft area and then cover them with a towel and let them sit to cool.  For clean up of your stock pan you can use the hot water from the sink, left over jars, or your bowl on the stove.  I place everything sticky into my pan and use the hot water I have sitting around.  If you use cold that stuff is like glue.

            The batch I made this time did 3 pint jars and 1 jelly jar exactly.  Had I used jelly jars it probably would have made 6 or 7.  We just eat a lot of jelly so jelly jars are pointless really for us.

Time from start to finish for me was 1 hour.   Other recipes you boil for hours and hours.  Who has that kind of time?? I can handle 1 hour!