Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

After I canned all that soup, I had two pint jars left over. I had some extra time on my hands today and some extra apples laying around so I decided to make apple butter. Really, it was just an excuse for me to make my house smell awesome! Here's the recipe I used:

8 apples, peeled, cored, and grated
2 T ground cinnimon
1 t vanilla
1 t apple cider vinegar
1 c sugar in the raw

Combine ingredients in a small crock pot. Cook on high about 6 hours stirring about once an hour with a fork. Vent the lid to allow steam to boil out.

Since this was a smaller batch, I was able to use my small crock pot. I sterilized my jars and lids the same as I did with the chicken vegetable soup canning project. I probably cooked this a little longer than necessary, but that doesn't really matter. It just smelled amazing and I didn't want it to stop! I ended up only getting about 1 1/4 pints. I filled up one jar and put the rest in the refrigerator.

After researching how to can apple butter, I saw that it needed a water bath for 5 minutes instead of an hour in a pressure cooker :). As I prepared the jar, I put a deep pot of water on to boil and put a cooling rack on the bottom so that the jar wouldn't get jostled around by all the bubbles. The water had to cover at least an inch above the lid of the jar. Once the jar of apple butter went in the water, I put the lid on the pot and let it roll boil for 5 minutes. Then I took it out and it's sitting on a wooden cutting board right now cooling off and finishing the sealing process. I'll go tomorrow and make sure the button on the lid was popped in. 

I didn't take any pictures of the apple butter, but I'll try to take some of the finished jar and post it later.

But a Canner Can't Can a Can, Can He?

Autumn is my favorite time of year. While I do welcome that first warm day of spring after a cold winter, there are many more days in autumn that I enjoy. I've been investigating home canning for a few weeks and I decided to try my hand at it. As a teacher of first graders, I don't have the energy to put into making supper at the end of the day (even if I am single with no kids). I also grew up with a good, quality supper at least 5 nights out of 7 nights a week. I enjoy and appreciate a home cooked meal as opposed to eating out or slapping something on a piece of bread and re-hydrating some ramen noodles. I really enjoy cooking and I often find that while I have the energy when I first start, that energy dwindles by the time the meal is ready to eat.

With that said, I've got a low-fat chicken and vegetable soup recipe my dad made up that I've been thinking about now that the days are cooler. It's quick and easy to make, but even just one batch is more than enough for me to eat. I wanted to try my hand at canning instead of freezing so that I'd be able to just come home from school, open a jar of soup, heat it up, and enjoy a home cooked meal in no time at all. Here is the recipe:

2 (15 oz) cans low-fat chicken broth
2 (8 oz) cans tomato sauce
2 cans Veg-All
1 can yellow corn
1 can white corn
2 (12 oz) cans chunk white meat chicken
1 Tbsp. mustard


Mix chicken broth and tomato sauce together in a pot. Drain Veg-All, corn and chicken, and add to pot. Add mustard. Heat and eat.


For my first adventure in canning, I doubled this recipe.


To can the soup, I gathered the following ingredients:

• 1 pressure cooker
• 1 large pot
• 1 small pot
• soup ladle
• tongs
• canning funnel
• paper towels
• wooden cutting board
• pot holder
• dish towel
• 10 pint jars with lids and bands

As the soup was heating on the stove, I washed my jars with hot soapy water and put them in a large pot of hot water on the stove to sterilize. I put the lids in a small pot of water on the stove to sterilize them, but I did not let the water come to a boil as that might make the sealant on them defective. I didn't sterilize the bands in a pot of water, but I did wash them with hot soapy water and dried them well. While I was doing all of this, I put about 2-3 inches of water in my pressure cooker and turned the water on to simmer.

In the top left is the large pot that is sanitizing the jars. In the top right is the small pot sanitizing the lids. On the right is the pressure cooker that is set to simmer, and in front is a pot that contains a little less than half the soup. (I took this picture on my day 2 of canning, that's why the soup pot is smaller.)

This is just another shot of the stove so you can see that the water in the pot with the lids is not boiling, just simmering.

After letting the large pot of jars came to a simmer, I fished out a jar with the tongs pouring the water back into the pot to keep the water level where it was before removing the jar. Then I started filling up the jars.

The canning funnel makes this part so much easier and less messy!

I filled the jars up leaving about a 1/2 inch of headroom before putting on the lids.

 Half an inch is all you need!

Before putting the lid on, be sure to wipe off the threads and the top part where the lid rests with a paper towel.

Just fish the lid out of the small pot of water with the tongs and center it on the jar.

After I put the lid on, I put the band on  and just tightened it down with my fingers (but not too tight). Then, I put it in the pressure cooker.

 My pressure cooker only holds 5 pint jars.

Once all the jars were in, I put the lid on and started cooking those jars in a steam bath! This was my first time EVER using a pressure cooker. I'd always heard those urban legends of someone loosing an eye after the lid popped off their pressure cooker. After doing some research, I learned that the ones made today are much safer. 

After I put the lid on the pressure cooker, I let the steam spout out for about 10 minutes to make sure all the air was out, then I put the weight on and started timing. All the timing charts I came across on the internet said I needed to leave them in for 60 minutes. I left mine in about 10 minutes longer just to be on the safe side. The really neat thing with pressure cookers is that the pressure allows them to get hotter than your average pot of boiling water. That higher temperature is needed in order to kill the harmful bacteria (botulism) that your normal boiling temperature can't kill. I didn't add any additional water to the pot after I put the jars in. There just has to be enough water produce and maintain steam for 60 minutes. Another great energy saving thing about the pressure cooker was that once it is fully pressurized, you can lower the temperature of the eye on the stove and the pressure and steam is maintained.

Once the time was up in the pressure cooker, I let the thing equalize on its own before I even touched it. I opened the lid and carefully took out each jar and placed them on a wooden cutting board to cool. The bands were loose, but that was ok since the lids were on tight. Don't worry about tightening the bands at this stage. The soup inside the jars were bubbling still as the jars cooled down. I left the jars alone for 24 hours. All of the info I read said that at this stage it's important that the jars don't get knocked around. I guess so that a lid doesn't come unsealed.

The next day, I checked each jar to be sure the button in the center of the lid was down (they all were thank goodness!), and then I took all the bands off, wiped down the threads and lid of each jar, and let them dry. Finally, I put the bands back on, wrote a "Use By" date on the lids, and put them up in my pantry! Some of the literature I read said that jars keep up to 12 months, but that after 6-8 months, the contents becomes a little runny but still edible.

The finished product!

Some of the literature I found online said that in the top of the jar where there was space between the soup and the lid that the color may change due to oxidation. A gentle shake of the jar should fix that.

I'm looking forward to sampling my first jar of home made, home canned soup. I really hope that canning worked and that it will taste as good as it looks! I've got at least ten nights that I don't have to worry about cooking supper and one pint jar is just the right size for a hearty and healthy supper.

 

What For?

The purpose of this blog is to bring simple directions to home made projects. I'm sure it will morph into more as time progresses, but this is my starting purpose. All comments and constructive criticism are welcome as well as helpful hints you may have on the same subject that may simplify a project.

Enjoy!