Preserving the Good Life

When a pandemic hits and I can’t find my favorite coffee creamer in the grocery store, I don’t fret, simply make my own.

Those that know me, know I LOVE coffee….that’s probably my one true addiction.  I don’t love it for the caffeine high, I love it for the rich, creamy flavor. When I mentioned canning creamer to my friends and family, the look some of them gave me was hysterical and their first words were – Why?  Mine were more like – Why Not?  Creamer is a tricky one….so much can be hidden in the “Natural Ingredients” on the labels. By making and canning my own, I’m at least one step closer to knowing what is in it.  I could never find a true “canned creamer” recipe online so I started searching for creamer recipes, canned milk instructions, combined the two and then started researching.  The results are below….I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I have because it realllly is good!

• 4 – 14oz Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 4 – 1  3/4 Cups of Milk (Whole, 2%, Skim, Almond, your choice)
• 4 – 2 teaspoons of Vanilla Extract

(I took the original recipe and multiplied it by 4).  When I can – I can BIG!

Mix these ingredients REALLY GOOD!

Begin a pot of boiling water for the lids.  Start out with dry, cold jars.  Fill with the creamer and wipe the rims with a sterile cloth.  **Leave 1 inch headspace,  you need room to shake it REALLLLY GOOD before opening!

Place the hot lids and rings.  Place in a cold pressure canner, set the lid and turn it on. Wait until pressure builds and the steam vents for 10 minutes before you put the weight on the canner.  Set a 10 lb weight on the canner.  As soon as it begins to jiggle, and the pressure is at 10 lbs, cut the heat off – immediately – and let the canner cool and depressurize.  Remove the jars, wipe them off, cover and let them continue to cool.  Once they have all sealed you’re good to remove the rings and put them away in a cool dark place for storage.  (YEAH! No more weekly trips to the grocery store for creamer!)

This recipe yielded 15 of the 8 oz jelly jars.

This recipe is not for the calorie counters – if you’re counting calories, I’d try almond milk and even a lower fat sweetened condensed milk.

Several recipes I found online used different flavors instead of vanilla.  Some extracts to try….:

• Coconut
• Peppermint
• Hazelnut
• Almond
• Cinnamon
• Pumpkin Pie Spice

Enjoy!

***DISCLAIMER*** Let me start by saying – No book will tell you to can sausage this way, but an 80 yr old Grandma in Southern VA will gladly show you “how her Mama done it”….  And if you post a picture on social media (in certain groups) be prepared for the backlash of – you can’t do that!!!  All I can say, is my family has done this for generations and no one has gotten sick or anything else from canning sausage.  I’m well aware of  the health cautions/concerns and that this may not be a USDA approved method….but….This is how we do it, it works, if done as instructed it’s safe and if I had one ounce of doubt, I wouldn’t dare do it….

There is no secret – but there is a key – you MUST cook your sausage completely done before canning.

Turn the oven on 200 degrees and place the jars in the oven for heating.

Roll out the raw sausage into patties and “do the math”.   Ask yourself – How many patties will my crowd eat at one sitting?  That’s how many you want to put in one jar.  And that’s the number you want to use while cooking to make sure you cook enough each time to evenly fill your jars.  At my house, the magic number is 5 and 5 fits nicely in a pint jar.  I prefer pints, I don’t see any reason why you can’t use quarts.  You’ll notice in the picture below we have 15 patties cooking which means I have a minimum of 3 jars in the oven and 3 lids boiling.  I boil my lids as I go since all of the patties don’t get done at the same time.

One pound of sausage will average 1-2 pint jars, depending on how many patties you add per jar and how big you make the patties, etc.

Fry the sausage thoroughly like you’re going to eat it – right then.  Pack your magic number (serving size) into a HOT, wide-mouth, pint jar and pour the grease over the sausage.  Usually an inch or so of grease will do, there’s no magic measurement, we just use the grease from the pan and it always seems to be enough.

Wipe the rim of the jars really good!  Place a hot lid and ring on top, tighten down the lid and carefully flip it over.  Be sure to use an oven mitt, because these babies are hot!

Now – cover with a towel and let them sit.  This is known as “Upside Down Sealing” and is often used with cured meats, jams and jellies.   The grease from the sausage will harden and help the jar seal.  The below picture is the morning after.  I store mine upside down, rings on them just like pictured.  When I’m ready to heat and serve, I pop the seal, toss the lid and heat the glass jar in the microwave for 1 minute to dissolve the grease.  Then we heat the sausage up in a cast iron pan for just a few minutes.  This makes breakfast a snap! Add the hubby’s homemade biscuits and I think I’ve taken a trip down memory lane! YUM!

Many have asked what’s the shelf life for sausage – good question.  We try to can enough sausage for one year.  I have growing boys so this takes 50-60 lbs and we average running out right before “hog season”.  My grandma kept it a couple of years.  This is where you need to use your own judgment.  Enjoy and happy canning!

‘Tis the season for greens, collards, kale, turnips.

This is a whole lot of work for a little yield…BUT it’s hard to beat home grown greens in the off season!  And these turned out SOOOOO good that I decided I needed to go back and pick more!   They seem to wilt down to nothing so don’t be surprised when it takes 4 grocery bags to yield 12 pints.

Here’s how we worked these up for canning:

Cook the greens down.  We put ours in a stock pot, filled 1/4 full with chicken broth and water, 1/2 broth, 1/2 water.  Let them simmer down until all the liquid was gone and the greens were tender.

Put jars in the oven for 200 degrees to get them hot while the greens are cooking.  And put on a pot of water to boil for topping off the jars.

Once the greens are ready to can, put 1 chunk of meat per jar as pictured.  We used ham chunks, you can use “fatback”, whichever meat you prefer for seasoning.

Put the greens in the hot jars, topping with 1/2 tsp of canning salt per pint.

Fill with water, leaving 1/2 inch head space.

Use a knife to get out any air bubbles.

Wipe the rims with a sterile cloth, place hot lids and rings, seal and pressure can on 10 lbs of pressure:

Pints:  1 hour 10 minutes

Quarts:  1 hour 30 minutes

We opened our first jar for New Years, that’s what prompted me to go pick more!  They’re  THAT GOOD!

Grandma’s have done this for years yet you won’t find this in any canning books.  Based on friends who have done this for years and the canning grannies out there, this can be stored for up to one year. (But let’s be real – how long do you really think these will stick around?)  Besides, they make great gifts!

Preheat the oven on 350°.  Grease 12 wide mouth pint jars (or 6 quarts) and set them aside.  I used Crisco to grease mine and if that’s not handy, you can use Baker’s Joy Spray.

I whipped up my mother’s “top secret” pound cake recipe and then spooned each jar 1/2 full, be careful not to get any on the edges of the jar.  This takes a little time and a steady hand.

For a more even bake, put the jars directly on the rack and bake until golden brown, in my oven, approximately 45 minutes.  The 1st batch I made, I put them on the cookie sheet, and you’ll be able to see the difference in the pictures below.

While baking, I laid out 12 new rings and lids – no need to boil, the heat from the jars will seal these babies in no time!  Once done, remove and quickly wipe the rims clean, place a lid and ring on them and tighten down, they will seal within 5 to 7 minutes.

Here’s the 1st batch I cooked on the cookie sheet.

Check out the difference on the second batch, it cooked much more evenly when you place them directly on the oven rack.  Yes, these are quarts ~ I’m thinking Sunday dinners…..

And you can’t have Vanilla without Chocolate……

Ok, so here’s my Mama’s “Top Secret” Pound Cake recipe.  (Mama, don’t shoot me, but I can’t share something this cool without the recipe to go along with it):

• 3 cups sugar
• 1 stick Crisco (1 cup)
• 2 sticks butter (Mama says “margarine”, I prefer real butter)

Blend together sugar, Crisco, butter until smooth.

• 6 medium eggs

Slowly add in one egg at a time, blending as you go.

• 4 cup plain flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt, added to flour
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, added to milk

Alternate adding milk then flour to the mixture, mixing as you go until mixed very well.  If you prefer Chocolate, add 1/2 cup of Cocoa Powder and 3/4 cup of mini chocolate chips.  Options are endless!

**We popped one open to sample, when my boys beg for more and say it’s PERFECT, I take that as a compliment….

H~A~P~P~Y   B~A~K~I~N~G!!!!

I love banana pepper rings in a salad or on a sandwich so when I was given a bunch of peppers last week I was excited to be able to can some for the winter. Everything that I can put into a jar is one less thing I have to buy processed!

Put your jars in the oven on 200° and start a water bath canner with boiling water before you start slicing the peppers.

Slice the peppers, then begin your brine. Slicing the peppers will take longer than you think and it won’t take the brine long to boil.  Once the peppers are sliced I put the lids on to boil and start the brine.

Brine:

• 5 cups white vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 4 teaspoons pickling salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 garlic cloves

After the brine has boiled 2 minutes remove the garlic cloves.

Pack the sliced peppers into hot jars leaving 1/2 inch head space.

At this point you can add 1/4 teaspoon of BALL “crisper granulates” to keep them from getting soggy.  I don’t, simply because it defeats the whole “no preservatives” concept.  Do we really know what that stuff is?  If I don’t know what it is, my body won’t either!

Pour the boiling brine over the sliced peppers,  leaving 1/2 inch head space. Wipe the rims good with a clean, damp cloth.   Place the hot lids and rings on the jars and tighten.  Don’t tighten too much or they will “buckle”, I’ve had that to happen.  Carefully place the jars in the water bath canner, making sure the jars are covered with water and water bath for 10 mins.

Wait one week before opening.  These will remind you of the peppers you can have added to your favorite sandwich at Subway.

Sweet, spicy, hot pepper jelly + cream cheese + Ritz crackers = YUM!  This quick and easy, addictive appetizer is ready in minutes!

I had an abundance of peppers on hand so I doubled the following recipe and ended up with 11 jelly jars of jelly.

• 1 1/2 lb red bell peppers, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 2 teaspoons dried hot red-pepper flakes
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 cup white-wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

Cut peppers into 1 inch pieces.

Add peppers and pepper flakes in a food processor or blender.

Pulse until finely chopped.  Depending on if you prefer a chunky jam or a not so chunky jelly will determine how much you chop your peppers.

Stir together pepper mixture, sugar, vinegar, butter and salt in a heavy pot.  Bring to a vigorous boil and boil for 20+ minutes, stirring frequently, until it begins to thicken.  The longer it cooks, the thicker it will be.  Once I start the cooking process, I put my jars in the oven on 200°, I start my water bath canner with water for water bathing and another pot of water for my lids.

Once the desired thickness is achieved, you are ready to begin filling jars.

Fill the jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Using a plastic spatula to get the air bubbles out by running the spatula down the inside edges of the jars.   Wipe the rims with a sterile cloth. Place the lid and ring in place and tighten.

Place the hot jars into the boiling water in the canner.  Make sure the jars are covered with water.  Water bath for 15 minutes.  Once done, place the jars on a towel and cover to let cool.

When produce shows up, I put it in a jar. So when Okra showed up at my house, it meant I had to find a way my boys would eat it……when in doubt, I pickle.  My boys devoured the 1st jar we opened!   It’s best to let the pickles sit 2 weeks before opening, I managed to hold my boys off 1 week and the pickles were delicious! We used the Ball Canning Recipe as a guide and tweaked it..  This recipe yields 4 pints.

• 3 1/2 lbs of small okra pods
• 1/3 cup picking salt
• 2 teaspoons dill seed
• 3 cups water
• 3 cups vinegar
• 4 cloves garlic (1 per jar)
• 2 small hot red peppers cut in half (or 1 per jar)

Was the okra really good, cut the stems off but don’t cut into the top of the pod.

I did stick the knife in the side of the pod to pierce it.  This allows the brine to soak into the okra and you don’t loose as much fluid over time as the jars sit and it slowly soaks.  Peel the garlic cloves, wash the peppers and sit aside.

Combine the salt, dill seed, water and vinegar in a large stock pot.  I added some dill weed to mine also.  Bring the brine to a boil.

Pack the okra into hot jars leaving 1/2-inch head space.  Add 1 clove of garlic and 1 pepper per jar.  Ladle hot liquid over the okra, leaving 1/2-in head space. Remove air bubbles.  Place lid and ring, tighten.

Water bath 15 minutes.

Let sit for 2 weeks before opening for the best pickling results.

When I discovered that I could jar up and preserve my favorite salsa recipe, you would have thought that I won the lottery!  By far this is my favorite salsa, it reminds you of that salsa most Mexican restaurants serve with the chip appetizer.  I love the Pioneer Woman and alot of her recipes, if you haven’t checked out her website, take a minute to do so.  www.thepioneerwoman.com

Since it’s tomato season I decided to use fresh tomatoes instead of the 28 oz can of tomatoes and two 10 oz cans of Rotel with chiles.  I did pick up some green chiles in the Mexican section of the grocery store to add to my recipe to replace the chiles in the Rotel. This recipe took some math. When I can, I can BIG.  For example, if I’m making salsa, I want to do it one time and move on to the next project.  So when I made this, I made 6 times the original recipe.  And since I was substituting fresh tomatoes for the canned tomatoes I had to calculate ounces into pounds.

Keep in mind, this picture represents 6 times the recipe listed below.  That’s almost one full bucket of canning tomatoes in that box.

Here’s the original recipe:

• 28 oz can tomatoes
• 2 – 10 oz cans of Rotel with green chiles

(If using fresh tomatoes, use 3 lbs of tomatoes and 1 tablespoon of green chiles to replace the 3 cans noted above)

• 1/4 cup diced onions
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeño, chopped, seeds removed
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 cup cilantro
• Juice from 1/2 of a lime

Wash the tomatoes and blanch them to remove the peels quickly.

Simply bring that water to a boil, drop the tomatoes in, as the peelings begin to split, pull them out and drop them in ice water. The peelings will slip right off and little effort will be needed to cut the cores out.  Once peeled and cored, I add my tomatoes to a blender along with the other ingredients and pulse until I get the consistency that I prefer.

While your blanching tomatoes,  put jars in the oven on 250°, jars need to be hot for processing.  And put on a water bath canner 1/2 full of water to begin boiling so it’s ready for processing once the salsa is jared up.

***Note – when I make such a large quantity,  like I did today, I add all of the spices to the stock pot and I blend all my peppers, onions, cilantro, chiles and juices with part of the tomatoes and add it to the stock pot.  I then add the sugar, salt, cumin, etc to the stock pot.  I stir every time I add more tomatoes.  I don’t make the recipe 6 times, I lose track of what I’ve added to the blender.  This way just works better for me.

Once all of the tomatoes are added to the stock pot, stir, stir, stir….sample it and add more spices per your liking.  Once the recipe is perfected, bring it to a boil and boil for 5 minutes.

While the salsa is boiling, I put a pot of water on to boil my lids.   Once the salsa has boiled, lids are ready and jars are hot, you’re ready to put the salsa in jars and process.  Jar the salsa up in pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space.  Wipe the rims with a sterile cloth, add lids and rings, tighten and waterbath for 15 minutes.

I’m a jam lover, I prefer jam over jelly any day, and this one is the best we’ve made so far!

Wash the grapes really well and weight the grapes. For every pound of grapes you have, you will need 1 cup of sugar.   I ended up with 7.5 lbs.

Separate the grape pulps from the hulls.

Place the jars in the oven on 250 degrees, you will average needing 2 jars per 1 lb of grapes. Begin boiling water for lids.

Cook the grape pulps over medium heat for 5 minutes until it’s at a good steady boil.

Then remove from heat and using a wooden spoon press the pulp through a strainer to separate the seeds.  Discard the seeds.

Add the grape hulls to the grape pulp and cook over medium heat until the grape mixture is at steady boil.  At this point the grape hulls will begin to break down.  Slowly begin adding in the sugar a cup at a time.  Cook the jam until it’s the consistency you prefer.

You can test the consistency of the jam three different ways, temperature, spoon or refrigerator.

Refrigerator Test – My favorite. I place a plate in the freezer and remove it when I’m ready to test my jam. I pour a sample of the boiling jam on this plate and let it sit in the fridge for just a few seconds. If the jam gels, it’s done. If it’s runny and it doesn’t have any form to it, then continue to cook the jam for few more minutes until it gels after a few seconds in the fridge.

Temperature – Using a candy thermometer, place it vertically in the jam and make sure not to touch the bottom of the pot.  If the temperature reads 220ºF (or 104ºC), then the Jam is done.

Spoon Test – Dip a cool metal spoon into the boiling Jam mixture. When you lift the spoon, if the Jam runs off the spoon like a syrup, then the Jam needs more cooking time. But if it is heavier and drops like a sheet off the spoon instead of dripping then the Jam is done.

Once you test the jam and it’s ready to jar up, put the jam in hot jars leaving 1/2 in head space.  Place the hot lid and ring on, tighten.  Water bath for 10 minutes.

Some boil it, some “blanch” it, I keep it simple and use a tried and true method that I learned from my grandmother.

Shuck and silk the corn, wash it thoroughly to remove all the silks.

Place the corn in a Freezer Ziploc Bag.  I use gallon size bags and place 5-6 ears of corn in each bag because that is what my family will eat in one sitting.  I have friends that use quart size bags and only 2 ears, whichever you prefer.

Once all the ears are in bags, the fun begins!  I take a straw and literally suck all of the air out of the bags to give it a vacuum seal affect.

Once sealed, I freeze.  When I’m ready to eat, I place the ears in boiling water and boil for 20-30 minutes until done.