# Canning Those Garden Goodies



## FoteeFy (Jan 27, 2021)

My brother is an old TN mountain farmer and he has my 24' x 18' kitchen looking like a canning factory. We bought a 19 pint jar pressure cooker and 30 cases of Ball jars, pints and quarts and other misc. canning utensils. Three small gardens produce a lot of produce. 38 pint jars of snap beans. 38 pint jars of pink eyes. Next project, sweet lime pickles in the pickling pot (granddad's recipe), then on to 38 jars of speckled butter beans. What y'all got going?


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## huntnflorida (May 24, 2008)

We do a lot of canning each year. So far canned a dozen jars of jalapeños. 8 jars of salsa, 8 jars of spaghetti sauce, 18 pints of pickles….we’re just getting started…I jar mullet, and pickled eggs year round


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## lastcast (Oct 12, 2007)

We used to love to can. Now we don't do any. Looking at those makes me hungry! Good job.


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## 69Viking (Oct 30, 2008)

So what exactly does canning do? Do things like beans, peppers and other vegetables come out tasting the same?


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## huntnflorida (May 24, 2008)

69Viking said:


> So what exactly does canning do? Do things like beans, peppers and other vegetables come out tasting the same?


Preserves them and makes them shelf stable. Fresh garden vegetables typically can’t be entirely consumed before going bad. This way you can eat your vegetables all year.


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## FoteeFy (Jan 27, 2021)

69Viking said:


> So what exactly does canning do? Do things like beans, peppers and other vegetables come out tasting the same?


Lots of good recipes for canning. Pool Room Slaw, fruit preserves, peppers and pepper sauce... the list is long. I'm just a spectator watching it happen. My brother is old hat at this stuff and the way things are going in the world, we decided to do it and that I would watch.


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## jim t (Sep 30, 2007)

Does it also more or less cook the veggies all the way through? Are they pretty soggy when you pull them out 6 months later and boil them to heat them up?


Some Green Giant canned veggies are still pretty crisp. Others not so much.

I understand this was typical before freezers were available. Would vacuum packing then freezing fresh veggies last as long and taste better?

But I understand the lure of doing it the way your great grandparents did it.



Jim


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## KPTN (May 21, 2009)

That All American Canner will last several lifetimes. Are drying those speckled butter beans or canning them?


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## FoteeFy (Jan 27, 2021)

KPTN said:


> That All American Canner will last several lifetimes. Are drying those speckled butter beans or canning them?


Canning the butter beans.


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## Bodupp (Oct 3, 2007)

jim t said:


> I understand this was typical before freezers were available. Would vacuum packing then freezing fresh veggies last as long and taste better?
> Jim


Ideally, your veggies need to be blanched before freezing, meaning they get cooked or almost cooked for a specific amount of time and the time varies with each different vegetable. This kills the enzyme that promotes rot. Your county extension service should have canning guides for you.


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## FoteeFy (Jan 27, 2021)

jim t said:


> Does it also more or less cook the veggies all the way through? Are they pretty soggy when you pull them out 6 months later and boil them to heat them up?
> 
> 
> Some Green Giant canned veggies are still pretty crisp. Others not so much.
> ...


The canned goods aren't cooked. They are just heated and pressurized to kill any bacteria. Freezing is great... until there is no electricity. Canned goods last a few years. Not sure how many. The only reason we're/he's doing this is we have a government promising us winters of death, worldwide food shortages, etc. Otherwise I was happy being ignorant of the intricacies of canning.


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## Play'N Hooky Too (Sep 29, 2007)

jim t said:


> ....
> I understand this was typical before freezers were available. Would vacuum packing then freezing fresh veggies last as long and taste better?...


The problem with home freezing vegetable, or anything for that matter, is the length of time it takes them to completely freeze once you put them into your residential grade freezer. The reason that Bird's Eye frozen veggies come out so crisp is that they flash freeze them in something like liquid nitrogen that drops them to a temperature well below freezing (like -300 F) in a matter of seconds whereas your home freezer might take several days to get the internal temperature down to the point where the fluids within your green beans are completely frozen.

The longer it takes for something to freeze, the longer the water within it has to nucleate into larger and larger ice crystals. If it takes several hours or days for your veggies to completely freeze, you wind up with ice crystals that are larger than the cells within the veggie. Those crystals break through and destroy the cellular structure of the veggie. So, when you go to thaw them out later, they aren't as crisp as they were when they were fresh.

Same thing with fish or meat.


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## SH27GameFish (Jul 4, 2014)

i have always canned green beans, pinkeyes and tomatoes , they are cooked after 20-25 minutes in a pressure cooker at 10 psi . Blanch and vac bag is never as good . But all my canning equipment is in storage until this house or shop are complete.


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## 69Viking (Oct 30, 2008)

Play'N Hooky Too said:


> The problem with home freezing vegetable, or anything for that matter, is the length of time it takes them to completely freeze once you put them into your residential grade freezer. The reason that Bird's Eye frozen veggies come out so crisp is that they flash freeze them in something like liquid nitrogen that drops them to a temperature well below freezing (like -300 F) in a matter of seconds whereas your home freezer might take several days to get the internal temperature down to the point where the fluids within your green beans are completely frozen.
> 
> The longer it takes for something to freeze, the longer the water within it has to nucleate into larger and larger ice crystals. If it takes several hours or days for your veggies to completely freeze, you wind up with ice crystals that are larger than the cells within the veggie. Those crystals break through and destroy the cellular structure of the veggie. So, when you go to thaw them out later, they aren't as crisp as they were when they were fresh.
> 
> Same thing with fish or meat.


I've been doing some research online and what I've read states you want the freezer to have a temp of no more than 0 and to freeze the vegetables on a flat cookie like pan so as to completely freeze them as fast as you can. Once frozen then transfer them into zip lock bags or vacuum seal. I think I'll experiment with a few vegetables from the garden this year and see how they turn out.


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## Bodupp (Oct 3, 2007)

An OWT (old wives tale) from out at the farm is to take your shelled peas and put them in a pillow case without blanching. Take out what you need. Lasts a long time. Anyone ever heard of that?


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## jim t (Sep 30, 2007)

SH27GameFish said:


> i have always canned green beans, pinkeyes and tomatoes , they are cooked after 20-25 minutes in a pressure cooker at 10 psi . Blanch and vac bag is never as good . But all my canning equipment is in storage until this house or shop are complete.


Best tomatoes for making a spaghetti sauce are San Marzano Tomatoes. Harvested from a very specific region in Italy.

I like these...










Jim


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## FoteeFy (Jan 27, 2021)

There needs to be a pinkeye pea shelling contest. I'm gettin good at this. Shelled a half bushel last night in record time. Reminds me of when my grandmother would round us kids up 60 years ago and set us in front of the TV with peas for shelling. That's how I became a General Hospital and The Guiding Light critic and a critic of forced child labor. lol


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## LY-zer (Jan 16, 2019)

lol, mine was "Another World" and butter beans, purple hulls, and string beans. I was probably around 5 yo or so. Mom made a lot of veggie soup back then.


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## specktackler57 (May 15, 2011)

Yep, spent many a time shelling peas and listening to my grandparents story’s. I miss those times.


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## FoteeFy (Jan 27, 2021)

Brother just got through with 9 pounds of cucumbers and produced 6 quarts of sweet lime pickles.


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## jwilson1978 (Mar 23, 2021)

FoteeFy said:


> There needs to be a pinkeye pea shelling contest. I'm gettin good at this. Shelled a half bushel last night in record time. Reminds me of when my grandmother would round us kids up 60 years ago and set us in front of the TV with peas for shelling. That's how I became a General Hospital and The Guiding Light critic and a critic of forced child labor. lol


My time was not quiet as far back but same damn shows and it was snap beans and purple hulls. Picked at day light and no play until they were done. Miss my Maw Maw and Paw Paw and my purple finger tips all summer. Good memories now(not then) lol. Hell I remember going to my(Rich lol) Aunt and Uncles in Opelika. Al. that had a 25 acre purple hull pea field that they grew to sell on the side. Maybe I was 10 or 11 and saw a pea sheller for the first time and people that owned there own tractor new cars and a brand damn new double wide. I think that was the month(child labor) I knew the World had things to offer that I wanted. Lmao! Thanks for bringing back Memories FoteeFy


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