The Mister and I had such a large crop this year that we decided to do some canning. We went to Callahans (my favorite store) and got some wide mouth Ball jars and some spices and directions for pickling and canning our very own tomatoes and cucumbers. We also decided to throw some green beans in there... why not right? Read the directions on your spice packet carefully because depending on the amount that you want to can the ratio of spice to vinegar will vary. Seems simple enough but trust me... accidents happen. These are the basic steps for canning, the time and steps like I said will very.
We grew a ton of tomatoes this year so we thought it would be awesome to make salsa. A word of advice.... I will never use a spice packet again for making my own salsa. It tastes really artificial. Next time we can salsa we are going to keep it simple and dice the tomatoes and onions and just use salt and a little pepper and cilantro.
Here's The Mister mixing the tomatoes, onions and the spice packet together and bringing it to a boil for 5 minutes.
We decided to do a spicy batch (for Matt) and a mild batch (for me). These are the jalapenos that Matt added to the hot batch.
We let it come to a boil and turned down the heat a little and let it simmer for about 5-10 minutes.
After everything came together we got our wide mouth cans prepped and ready to go. We filled the cans up leaving about a half an inch at the top. Then we caped them leaving them a little loose.
(Make sure you wash the Ball jars before you do this)
The directions called for us to put the cans in a boiling bath of water for about 30-40 minutes. This not only boils the mixture inside the can but it makes it possible for the cans to seal themselves... going from hot to cold once they are removed. The spicy batch was marked with a rubber band. Also you can get a little kit that comes with all the tools you need for canning. We got ours at Callahans.
We also decided to pickle green beans and got a special spice packet just for them. Honestly I've never had pickled beans before but they are the best thing we have made so far! We are still learning....
For beans we steamed them for 15-20 minutes. I like my beans a little crunchy so I think we may have done it for only 10 minutes. Boil the vinegar and spices separate. Shove the beans into the cans and then add the pickle juice in last. We added our own dill in there.
Isn't it pretty.
Lastly we did a mixture of cucumbers (pickles) and zucchini. We have done both of these before with success.
It's actually a lot of fun for us to spend time in the kitchen together laughing and sharing stories. The canning was great and we have well over 20 cans saved up in case of a zombie apocalypse. I guess we will live off of pickles and salsa. I hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any questions feel free to
e-mail me.
Happy canning!
