Autumn Garden Relish

 I believe our incredible warm weather streak has finally ended as of yesterday. It's not a moment too soon that we got that canopy up over the fifth wheel, either. I find it satisfying to walk outside and not get wet when it's raining out. Bob was so kind as to go out and gleen all the tomatoes off of the plants and pick all the beans. We're going to see if we can get our remaining zucchini to get a bit bigger before picking it. I will plant garlic this coming week and, after that freak hot weather streak through October wiped out all of my fall seedlings, I'm opting to not do much of a fall garden. I'll tackle it again next season.

I have a ton of unripe tomatoes. I've put up 5 pints of  Picalilli. I'm going to be canning up sliced green unripe tomatoes this afternoon so that we can enjoy fried green tomatoes this winter. Yesterday, I put up 6 pints of Autumn Garden Relish. I used this recipe from Healthy Canning as inspiration. Click here to view it.

Without further ado, let's dive right into this recipe.

This recipe starts out with a lot of finely chopped vegetables. I used cabbage (leftover from when I made Picalilli), cauliflower, unripe green tomatoes, onion, green pepper, red pepper and celery. This gets tossed in a bit of pickling salt and I left it to sit overnight in the fridge.

The next day, I drained this veg mixture. I prepped 6 wide-mouth canning jars by washing them in hot, soapy water and then I boiled them for 10 minutes. I left them to sit in the hot water until I was ready for them. In the meantime, I prepped the brine for this relish.

I started out by adding in the spices I would be using: mustard powder, turmeric and celery seed.

Then I added in sugar and white vinegar. This gets mixed up and brought up to a boil before you add the veg.

Once you add the veg, bring the mixture to a full rolling boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Everything will get a golden hue from the turmeric.

My stove only has 3 burners, so I wind up shuffling pots around so that everything has a place. I've finally got a system down that works for me.

These get processed in a water bath canner for 15 minutes.

Once these jars come out of the canner, I set them in a towel covered baking sheet (so that they can be moved easily) and I cover them in a couple of layers of towels. I want them to cool down slowly, over a 12-hour period. I don't want them to cool too quickly because that can actually weaken the jars.

After the jars are thoroughly cooled down and all the lids have sealed, I write what they are on the lid, date them, put them back into the box and we are storing these under our bed because it lifts up, it's very cool under there, it's dark and it seems like as good as place as any to put them. It's my canning pantry, so to speak.

Autumn Garden Relish

Yield: 6 pints

4 cups chopped cabbage
3 cups finely chopped cauliflower
2 cups chopped unripe green tomatoes
2 cups diced onions
1 cup diced green bell pepper
1 cup diced red bell pepper
1 cup diced celery
3 tablespoons pickling/canning salt
3-3/4 cup white vinegar
3 teaspoons celery seed
1-3/4 teaspoons turmeric
3 teaspoons mustard powder
2-3/4 cups white cane sugar

Mix all veg together with pickling salt. Put in fridge overnight.

While you are prepping the brine, let the veg drain thoroughly in a colander.
Mix all spices with sugar in a large pot. Add vinegar. Bring to a boil, lower heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Add drained veg. Bring back to a full boil, lower heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Put into prepped jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Process in boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes. Turn off heat, let jars sit in hot water for 5 minutes then remove to cool completely for 12-24 hours.

Enjoy!

Making Peach Jam #EveryBitCountsChallenge

 It's that time of year that I start preserving different things for wintertime use. This is the first thing I've canned this year. I tend to follow the insert that comes in the box of Sure Jell pectin when it comes to canning. Those recipes are tried, true and they never fail. They are tested for safety. They take the guesswork out of it.

I will tweak things slightly, like seasonings, herbs, etc., but I leave the main components alone.

I digress.

I'm getting in on the Every Bit Counts Challenge. I'm a bit late to the party, but better late than never. This challenge is that every day in August, you make something to put up for the winter. It doesn't matter if it is canned, dehydrated, freeze-dried, frozen or you are simply making seed starter pots out of toilet paper rolls. It all counts. The past few days, I was working my way through 20 pounds of fresh peaches. The majority went into the freezer except the one that I ate and the ones I used to make this batch of jam.

So, without further ado, here's how I make Peach Jam.

I love looking at these golden jars of peach perfection!

This recipe starts out with 4 cups of chopped/smashed peaches. Make sure to measure carefully. 

 
In a separate bowl, measure out 5-1/2 cups of granulated sugar. When I'm canning, I make sure that I buy pure cane sugar. I don't want to use sugar that is made from beets. I'm going to attempt to grow out sugar beets next year and make my own sugar, so stay tuned for that...but for this recipe, it's pure cane sugar all the way!

I had Bob get out my big pot. Unless I'm canning quart jars, I like to use this pot to can in. It's just easier to handle for me.

I mixed the chopped peaches with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and a box of Sure Jell pectin. This is a case where I deviate from the recipe. I don't use fresh lemons. I use bottled lemon juice. Every single time that I've ever bought fresh lemons to use, something has come up and they turn on me. I find that if I just buy bottles of lime and lemon juice, they can last in the fridge almost indefinitely. I may go through a bottle of each per year.

This gets combined in a large pan. I used my enameled cast iron Dutch oven. It is the perfect size to make a batch of jam in.

You cook the peaches, pectin and lemon juice with a scant 1/2 teaspoon of butter until it comes to a full, rolling boil. What that means is when you stir it hard, you can't stir the bubbles down.

After the mixture comes to a full, rolling boil, you add in all the sugar at once. Just dump it in. The sugar actually becomes a liquid. That's why you measure out the sugar before you start and put it in a bowl. That way, it's just ready to go.

You bring that mixture back up to a full, rolling boil and boil it for exactly one minute. I have a clock that has a second hand on it so I can be uber precise with the timing.

Before I got started cooking, I got out what I would need. I put some white vinegar into a dish. I got a couple of paper towels. I use the paper towels dipped into the vinegar to clean the rims of the jars.

I filled the jars leaving 1/4 inch of headspace. You can eyeball it. You don't have to measure. They do sell a gadget that will measure for you, if you're more comfortable doing it that way.

This is the homemade rack that Bob made for me. He used floral wire to connect the lids together. It works perfectly.
If you don't have this stuff, you can put a kitchen towel in the bottom. You just need something to keep the bottoms of the jars off of the bottom of the pan.

I put my lids into a pan of simmering water. Some people don't do this. I do this.
I don't see how it will hurt anything, to be honest.

I put the lids and rings on each jar and screwed them on until they are just finger-tight. You don't want to crank them down super tight. Just barely finger-tight is enough. I put these into the pot so that they weren't touching.

I put the lid on, turned the heat on and brought it up to a boil. Once it came to a full boil, I set a timer for 10 minutes. Once that was done, I turned off the flame and set another timer for 5 minutes. That's when I removed the jars to set on a towel lined baking tray. I put my jars on baking trays because it's easier for us to move them around that way. I covered them with another towel and within 30 minutes, I heard that sound that is music to a canner's ears...the ping of a lid sealing...6 times, one for each jar of peach jam.

I don't really use peach jam on toast or sandwiches. I use peach jam as a base for other things, like BBQ sauce, Asian sauces, etc. I'll make an odd piece of toast here and there, but I made this for other things.

Here you have these peachy jars of perfection!

If you want to view the full recipe, look at the insert that comes in a box of Sure Jell pectin.

#EveryBitCountsChallenge

What's Up With The Cost Of Canning Lids?

 
I've been canning my own food for well over a decade now. I've always been able to waltz into a number of stores and pick up a dozen wide-mouth Ball lids for around $1.99. Since 2020, the cost of canning lids has skyrocketed. Why is this?
I'll attempt to explain it to you.

Since the start of the pandemic, we've had shortages on various things. This country has been in short supply of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, disinfectants (Lysol), paper towels...even certain varieties of Girl Scout cookies. One thing that has also been in short supply are Ball canning lids.

A canning lid shortage is to be expected because there are more people growing backyard gardens and canning stuff at home is the general consensus. Is this right? Well, not really.

At first, a canning lid shortage was understandable. As I stated, more people were staying home, growing gardens and canning stuff at home. With that new influx of home canners, the canning lid suppliers needed to be able to catch up with this unprecedented public demand. However, the scarcity of canning lids hasn't changed at all.

We saw a shortage of toilet paper. It rectified itself eventually. Hand sanitizer eventually got squared away. Disinfectants did the same. Everything that had an initial shortage got straightened out except for canning lids. Why? The suppliers have had ample opportunity to catch up, yet we, as consumers, are left wondering why there are so few Ball canning lids available and why they are so expensive?

What the average home canner may not know  is that canning lids, which have been around since 1884, and canning jars, which have been around since 1858, are no longer being made by Ball and Kerr (the two big manufacturers of American canning supplies). The fact is that these two companies were under their parent company, Jarden Corp. Jarden Corp, with it's diverse global portfolio of well-known brands like Ball, Yankee Candle, Calphalon, etc., was acquired by a mega-corporation called Newell Brands. At the time it acquired Jarden Corp, it was known as Newell Rubbermaid. This transaction closed in April 2016 and, at that time, they moved their headquarters from Atlanta, GA to Hoboken, NJ. Since Ball and Kerr were just two of a long list of brands they have, consumer demands for any one product is just not a priority for this mega-corporation. Ball and Kerr are just one of a long list of brands under this parent company.

When the 2020 pandemic hit and created a huge demand for home canning supplies, Newell Brands did what any other major corporation would do. They decided to capitalize on this demand. Newel Brands decided that it wouldn't try to sell Ball brand products at every store handling canning supplies as it did in the past, but, rather, they would concentrate their sales through the online giant Amazon and a few select major chains like Walmart and Ace Hardware.

Long story short, they are a monopoly supplier.

Coinciding with this, in 2019, Newell Brands announced that they would close the Ball manufacturing plant in Muncie, Indiana. It has been located there for decades prior. They moved manufacturing to Columbus, Ohio and packing/distribution was moved to Fishers, Indiana.

None of this information has really gotten out to us who can at home. Instead, we've gotten a plethora of ridiculous excuses, with really only one of those being remotely plausible. We were told that there was a shortage of workers at the manufacturing plants. This could, very well, be true enough, just to be fair.

Then, we were told that there was a labor shortage in shipping and at port docks. Could someone explain why a labor shortage at port docks would effect the distribution of a product that is manufactured wholly in the United States? I'll wait...

We have heard that there was an aluminum shortage. Okay. That's fine. Canning lids are made of stainless steel and they have a silicon gasket. So, I'm not sure what apples have to do with oranges, but that was an excuse that was dished out to the public as being a reason why canning lids are in short supply.

We were even told that a wood shortage, in early 2021, caused a pallet shortage and they couldn't pack the canning lid boxes on pallets and it caused canning lids to be in short supply.  Yeah. I'm not gonna touch that one but something stinks like a load of bull.......(sitting on my hands right here).

The truth of the matter is that Newell Brands is limiting its product to certain markets and they are charging whatever they want because, well, they can. If we, the home canning public, want to have quality canning lids, we have no choice other than pay what they want for their product.

Canning lids, sold by themselves, are scarce. When you buy a dozen canning jars, they are sold with lids and rings but anyone who cans at home already has a supply of jars and rings, since those can be used over and over again. We simply don't need those things.  If you pay attention to what stores have in stock, the only retailers that are being currently stocked with Ball/Kerr products are Walmart and Ace Hardware and that doesn't mean that they are available at every location, either.

If you decide to order them from Amazon, you're going to pay dearly for them. I was checking out prices on Amazon this morning and the cheapest price I could find for just one dozen of wide-mouth lids, Ball brand,  was $9.50. Talk about a slap of reality! I used to pay a mere $1.99 for those and that was not very long ago! This explains why I haven't been able to score at Lowe's when they have their clearance sale, in late fall, of their canning supplies. I guess those events are in the past now.

On Amazon, there's an assortment of generic lids available. They are cheap. They are not manufactured in the United States. If you read the reviews, they are very poor quality. The consensus is that they are simply junk. Lots of times, they don't even fit your jars correctly and good luck finding wide-mouth.

I'm also reading where people are reusing their Ball/Kerr canning lids because of how much they cost. There are canning lids that are meant to be reused. Tattler is one of the brands. With the cost of Ball/Kerr, this may just be the way to go in the future. I think that the one-time use lids are very comparable in price to Tattlers. But, I do not recommend reusing one-time use lids. That's a recipe for disaster. It's just not safe to do.

Click here to get further information on Newell Products.
Click here for a 2021 news clip from CBS Minnesota explaining about canning lid shortages.
Click here to read about another person's odyssey trying to find canning lids.

So, I'm here to tell you that there really isn't a canning lid shortage in this country. There never was. This is simply one corporation being able to set the market. Welcome to the world of corporate greed.

Giardiniera

 I love giardiniera mix. I've been wanting to make some for a long time now, so I figured that it was as good of a day as any to do it since I had taken advantage of a local farmers market for some awesome produce.

At first, I thought I was going to make that chunky mix that I like to buy occasionally from the supermarket. I read up about it and found out that there were two different types. There is the original Italian version, which I do love, and there is a Chicago-Style, which is more of a condiment.
If you know me, you know I love condiments. I usually have no less than 15 in my fridge at one time. I have an entire shelf dedicated to my condiments and, all I can say is that it's a good thing that we have a spare fridge in our outdoor kitchen! This is supposed to be spectacular on a hot dog. In a month or so, I'm going to get some really good hot dogs and I'm going to try it.

I found a recipe for a small batch. I didn't want half of a leftover head of cauliflower, because I'd be the only one eating it and, while I do like cauliflower, I don't like cauliflower enough to eat half a head of it by myself. I chopped up the whole thing. It was tedious, but I think it will be worth it in the end.
The beauty of this recipe is that it will utilize most all of your garden produce harvest! Celery, onions, carrots, eggplant, cauliflower, red peppers, hot peppers...it's all in there! Since I decided to use the whole head of cauliflower, I used 1/2 cup of kosher salt and just over 5 cups of water to brine. You want the veggies to be covered by salt water. I left to soak, refrigerated, overnight.

While my jars were getting sterilized in boiling water, I drained and rinsed the veggies off. I split them in half into my two bigger sized pots and I used vinegar, sugar and spice in each pot and boiled for about 15-20 minutes. 

I made exactly 3 quarts. Ideally, this can be canned up in pints, but I'm saving those for other things that need to be consumed quickly after opening. This stuff can last in the jar for months, so this was just the way that was logical for me. 

I processed these quarts for 20 minutes to be on the safe side. I don't think I'll use that particular pot to can quarts in anymore. It's great for pints and half pints but not for quarts. That's why I processed for 20 minutes...better safe than sorry.

Viola! Enough giardiniera to use for the whole year!

Giardiniera
*makes 3 quarts or 6 pints

Ingredients

Day 1-cut all vegetables into small-dice sized pieces, enough to make 3 quarts. There are no measurements because these ingredients are all to an individual's preference.

• Cauliflower
  
• Red bell pepper
  
• Sweet onion
  
• Celery
  
• Carrot
• Hot peppers (optional)
  
• Eggplant

Other veggies can be used, too: zucchini, green olives, banana peppers, etc. 

 

Day 2-cook vegetables in brine. I split between 2 pans and split the brine in half, as well.

• 8 c white vinegar
• 2 Tbsp sugar
  
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 1 tsp each celery seed and fennel seed
  
• 
  
  On the first day, chop all vegetables and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle salt over veggies and stir to combine, then add water until veggies are submerged. Let set for 12 hours or overnight.
  
  On day two, rinse the veggies well under cold running water. Combine all the Day 2 ingredients in a large pot with the veggies and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Place into sterilized, hot jars. Seal. (Please look at the safe canning guidelines. Click here for link.) Process 15 minutes for quarts, 10 minutes for pints. Let cool thoroughly.