Sites & resources for canning

 

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Canning is a great way to preserve your harvest.  You can also buy organic produce that is on sale from your local grocer or from your local farmers market.  When the produce is in peak season, it is the most healthful and the least expensive of the year.

When you can, you have to follow the recipe exactly to make sure it is safe to eat.  When canning acidic foods like fruit or tomatoes or anything using vinegar or sugar, you can likely use only a water bath.  All other canning requires a pressure canner to get to high enough temperatures to kill off the bacteria that cause botulism.

Here are some web pages and resources to use:

motherearthnews.com/canning

Mother Earth News “How to Can” app

National center for home food preservation  http://nchfp.uga.edu

USDA’s Complete Guide to Home Canning http://goo.gl/pwrxd

Home Canning  www.homecanning.com 

“Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving” book

“The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving” book

I bought a 1946 canning booklet from Amazon.com “Steamliner Pressure Cooker-Instructions for Cooking and Canning”  so I could learn how to use the old fashioned canning jars.  It was fun to read, complete with recipes!

If you want to use canning supplies that do not have BPA in them, check out my blog from December:  http://victorygardenonthegolfcourse.blogspot.com/2011/12/lowest-toxic-options-for-canning-zero.html