You Can Can Can
Some people have a certain fear of canning. Or it seems like a fussy process. My favorite reference on the subject is “Putting Food By.” Even this book could make one reticent to start canning — with all of its cautions and cautionary tales. Yet canning is quite simple and reliable. Like many things, you have to do enough of it to really get comfortable with it.
I’ve been canning lots of tomato sauce this fall. I use a food mill to process the tomatoes and then I cook down the sauce for four or five hours. I started filling a 12 qt. with tomato sauce pan and when I was finished cooking it, I canned 5 quarts total (in ten pint jars.) That’s reducing it by more than half. I can tell that the sauce has been reduced enough when the surface has texture instead of being smooth and glassy, as it is when it’s watery.
I also made another batch of tomatoes into a chili sauce, which is more like ketchup. I include cider vinegar and red peppers. This has a snappy taste but it is also smooth.
Finally, I made chutney on the weekend, combining apples and tomatoes as the main ingredients. It also requires cider vinegar plus some brown sugar and raisins. It’s quite pungent. I packed the chutney into a dozen 1/2 pint jars and still had enough left to fill four pint jars. (BTW, there are a few tools that are useful in canning: one is a wide-mouth funnel, good for ladling the sauce into the jars; the other is special grip for moving the hot jars into and out of the water bath.)
All of these were cooked in a boiling water bath and all of the jars sealed perfectly. I have a pressure canner and will use it on quart jars of tomato sauce.
Now to find room in the pantry for all these jars.
