Preserving the Good Life

When the local grocery store had pork loin on sale for $1.88 per pound, I snatched up four huge loins.  I used this as an opportunity to stock pile some pork in my basement grocery store.

Canning pork loin can be done one of two ways.  My sister uses the “Cold Pack Method” and I use the “Parboil Method”.  They both work, they both produce a nice product.  The biggest difference between the two is the Parboil Method takes a little longer to boil the meat before you pack it into the jars.  To me it’s worth the extra 10-15 minutes to keep the proteins in the meat and not stuck to the inside of the jars.  Canning meat can leave a messy jar clean up later down the road, but parboiling helps with that a little bit.  I still prefer to use wide mouth jars just for easier clean up.

The jar on the left was Parboiled, the one on the right Cold Packed. See the difference in the jars??

Trim as much fat as possible off of the meat and cut up the pork into chunks.

Put the pork in a large stock pot with boiling water and parboil it until the scum floats to the top.  Skim the scum off.

Once boiling, boil for 10 minutes.  Ladle the hot meat into hot, sterile jars using a slotted spoon.  Approximately, 1 pound will fit in a pint jar, 2 pounds per quart, so can it according to your family size.  I have growing boys, so we use a lot of quarts.  Add 1 teaspoon of canning salt to each quart jar. Pour hot stock from parboiling or boiling water over the meat leaving 1 inch of head space.

Remove all the air bubbles using a plastic knife to keep from damaging the jars.

Pressure can pints 75 minutes and quarts 90 minutes on 10 lbs of pressure.  (Adjust the pounds of pressure to your elevation.)

Now it’s time to enjoy!  Pork tenderloin for dinner anyone?  How about carnitas….or better yet – pulled pork barbecue!  The options are endless…..

My grandmother used to make these and I’ve hunted and hunted for a recipe to come close to what she made.  I found several similar recipes on Pinterest and in the Ball canning book.  We will give it a try and doctor as needed the next go around.  This is a 2 day process and a lot of work for a little yield; but the smell of it cooking….wow!

The rinds will need to be cut and let soak over night with the salt and water the day before you process them.  The thicker the rinds, the better.

• 4 qts of 1 inch cubed watermelon rinds, mostly green, some pink
• 1 cup Canning Salt
• 2 gallons of water, divided
• 3 sticks of cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon of whole cloves
• 1 tablespoon of whole allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon of mustard seed
• 7 cups of sugar
• 1 thinly sliced medium lemon
• 2 cups vinegar

Cover watermelon rinds with salt and 1 gallon of water, stirring to dissolve the salt and let soak 12 hrs or over night.   Drain; rinse.

Cover rind with 1 gallon of water in a large stockpot.  Cook until tender.   Drain; set aside. Tie spices in a spice bag.  When you can’t find a spice bag – make your own – coffee filters and a string work nicely.

Combine spice bag, sugar, lemon slices and vinegar in a large pot, bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.

Combine sugar syrup mixture and rind, simmer until rind is transparent.  Don’t over cook, you’ll end up with a lot of liquid and a little bit of rinds, more of a preserve consistency than pickles.  Remove spice bag.  Pack hot rinds and liquid into hot jars leaving 1/2 in head space.  Remove air bubbles.  Adjust 2 piece ring and lid.  Water bath for 10 minutes.

The watermelons that I used yielded 6 quarts of watermelon rinds so I adjusted my recipe to accommodate and it yielded 7 pints.  .

It never fails, this is one of those things that I never have on hand when I need it.  Not to mention, I’m always a little leery of what’s in processed store bought chili so I thought we’d try our hand at canning our own.  Needless to say, my boys loved it and wanted to help jar this up – so they could scrap the pot!  This is great on a hotdog, by itself or you can add some beans and have chili beans!

Here’s the ingredients per 1 pound of ground beef.

• 1 lb of ground beef
• 3 1/2 cups of water
• 2 – 10 oz cans of tomato paste
• 1 lg onion finely chopped
• 2 T chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of cumin
• 1 teaspoon of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of pepper

Do not brown the meat, if you do you’ll end up with clumpy, thick chili.  The trick to the smooth chili texture is to mix the thawed burger with hot water until it’s broken down and fine. We sauteed the onions, added the spices to the onions and then added that to the meat and water.

Mix well and then add the tomato paste, 1 can at a time, mixing well after each can.

Simmer 4-6 hours, stirring frequently or you can cook it on low over night.  After it’s cooked thoroughly, you may sample and adjust the spices as needed.

This roaster held 5 times this recipe and yielded 23 pints and LOTS of sampling.  So if you do 1 pound it will fit in a large crockpot and you’ll average 5 pints.  Scoop the chili sauce into hot, sterile jars, wipe the rims very well and remove air bubbles.  Adjust the 2 piece lid/ring and tighten.  Pressure can at 10 pounds of pressure for 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts.  Processing will thicken the chili, so once opened add water if desired.

I know, “canning” and “cole slaw” don’t go together.  But anything that saves me time and money in the long run is worth a shot!  One thing about it – I’m not afraid to experiment when it comes to canning, especially if I have most of the ingredients on hand or it’s cheap to make.  It never fails my boys will grab a pack of hotdogs and out the door we go to the cabin.  I wanted to add something to our shelf stable pantry at the cabin for those occasions; that’s what sparked the interest in canning cole slaw and hot dog chili.  You’ll read about the chili in another post.  This recipe is simple.  Chop, shred, boil, mix and jar up, pretty much it’s that easy.

What’s pictured below yielded 5 quarts.

• 2 heads of Cabbage, shredded
• 2 Red Peppers, diced
• 2 large Carrots, shredded (if desired)
• 2 medium Onions, diced
• 2 teaspoons Salt

Mix the onions, peppers and cabbage together, cover with the salt and let sit for at least 1 hour.

Mix the syrup, heat until the sugar is dissolved and set it aside.

• 4 cups of Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Mustard Seed
• 2 teaspoons Celery Seed
• 2 cups of Vinegar
• 1/2 cup of Water

Once the syrup is dissolved, drain the cabbage mixture, rinse if desired and mix the syrup and cabbage together.  Put the mixture in hot, sterile jars, wipe the rims with a sterile cloth, tighten the 2 piece ring/lid.

Water bath for 10 minutes.

You can eat this straight from the jar and serve as a bbq vinegar based slaw.  Prefer a mayonnaise based slaw – no problem – drain (rinse if you prefer) and add mayonnaise! Enjoy!

When I say I’m canning ground meat, people look at me like I’m crazy….why would I want to can it when it’s “just fine” in the freezer.

Here’s a couple of my reasons:

1. To free up freezer space
2. To increase the longevity of the meat. Canned meat lasts years longer than frozen meat
3. A little work done up front saves a lot of time in the long run
4. To prevent my meat from ruining in the event of a power outage

Keep in mind, 2 lbs per quart jar, 1 lb per pint.  When I can mine, I like to do at least a canner full, 6 or 7 quarts.  As I’m browning meat, I get a roasting pan ready and store the meat in the oven on warm until it’s all browned.

When canning dry meat, I make sure all the jars are boiled thoroughly.

Fill the jars leaving 1 inch head space.  The meat will draw up during processing.  We are canning this dry, so no liquid will be added.

Pressure can for 90 mins on 10 lbs of pressure.

Now you’ve just saved yourself a lot of time in thawing and cooking ground meat for tacos, spaghetti, ground steak (it’s a Surry County thing) along with many more possibilities.

I’m all about canning things to make meal prepping quick and easy.   Oftentimes, we have last minute guests for dinner and I need to be able to throw something together quickly.   Unexpected guests used to throw me into a tail spin hunting for something to cook; not anymore, now I simply go into the basement and grab a jar.

Thanks to my husband who loves change we’re adding Swedish meatballs to that menu…

For 7 quart jars, here’s the ingredients you will need.

• Ground Beef or Venison – 5 lbs
• Garlic cloves (to taste) we like Garlic so we minced 4 cloves
• Onion – 2 medium, diced and caramelized
• Italian Bread Crumbs – 2 cups
• Cream of Mushroom Soup – 6 of the small cans mixed with water. We prefer to use water instead of milk when canning it.

Some recipes call for plain bread crumbs and lots of Italian spices, to us it made more sense to use the Italian bread crumbs and add additional spices if you’d like.  Keep in mind, when you’re canning with spices, they do tend to get stronger in flavor over time.

Cook the onions until they’re caramelized.

Mix the ground meat, garlic, onions, bread crumbs and any spices by hand. Roll out golf ball size meat balls. Precook the meatballs for 30-45 mins on 350 degrees, until they’re done.

Once all of the meatballs are cooked. Place the sterile jars in the oven to get them hot.  Start the canner with water and start the pot of boiling water for the lids.

Mix the cream of mushroom soup up per the directions.  I like to keep a few extra cans of soup on hand just in case you run out of soup.  If needed, it takes just a minute to get more going to add to extra jars.

Pack the jars full of meatballs and pour the hot soup over the meatballs.  Leave 1 inch of head space.

Wipe the rims with a sterile cloth, place the lids/rings and hand tighten.   Pressure can for 90 minutes on 10 pounds of pressure. *NOTE, based on your elevation,  your pounds of pressure may be different.  Adjust accordingly.

Enjoy!

Bye Bye Lipton’s Onion Soup mix, I think I will use French Onion Soup for my roast base from now on….besides who really knows what’s in those dehydrated dust packets?!

I love any kind of soup and this one works somewhat as a multi-purpose soup in my household.  One that I can eat straight out of the jar or one that I can use as a base for cooking.  I hate using one of those “onion soup” packets that has no telling what in it.

This took just a few minutes to throw together and it yielded 10 pints.  Before I started slicing the onions, I placed my sterile jars in the oven on 200 degrees to get them to the desired heat before canning.

• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• 7 or 8 medium onions, sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced

Peel and slice the onions.  I cooked mine in a cast iron pan with a little bit of butter, cook them until the onions are tender then mix in the minced garlic.  In a large saucepan, I mixed together the following soup base:

• 12 cups of beef broth (that I made from Better than Bouillon Beef Paste)
• 2 tablespoons of A1 Steak Sauce
• 2 teaspoons of canning salt

Spoon the onions evenly into the 10 hot sterile pint jars.

Then fill the jars with the hot broth mixture leaving 1 inch head space.

Wipe the rims with a sterile cloth.  Place a hot lid and ring on each jar and tighten.  Pressure can on 10 lbs of pressure; pints 60 minutes and quart for 75 minutes.

Enjoy!

I love knowing what I’m eating and what I’m feeding my boys.  When I started through the cabinet to see what I still had left in processed cans, it was clear that I needed to learn Bush’s secret….so here’s what we came up with for baked beans.

One step closer to ZERO processed foods…..