Pressure Canning

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Thank you to everyone who made it out to my pressure canning workshop today at the Compost Education Centre!

We pressure canned this Zesty Tomato Soup recipe, which is from Bernardin but accessible on the Healthy Canning blog.

We used Golden Harvest brand small mouth pint jars (2 cups/500 mL) and my 23-quart Presto brand pressure canner.

While my pressure canner has a dial to tell us what the pressure is inside the canner, we also used a 3-piece weight at the 10 lb setting, instead of the default 15 lb weight that came with the canner. This alternate weight “rocks” when the pressure inside the canner is at 10 lbs, giving us an audible cue that all is right! I bought this 3-piece weight separately from my pressure canner.

My favourite pressure canning resources are the following:

All of these resources focus on safety, science, and step by step instructions.

Pressure canning is fun because you can use this technique to can almost anything, including low acid foods such as beans, meat, and fish!

However, there are few rules that must be followed:

  • No grains, pastas, or starches (including rice and flour)
  • No dairy (including butter)
  • No purees (unless using a TESTED recipe from a reputable source)
  • For soups/meats: Fill jars only 2⁄3 full with solids, using slotted spoon; then top with liquid to required headspace (usually 1”)

STEPS FOR SAFE & EFFICIENT PRESSURE CANNING

  1. Prepare cooking space (tidy, wipe down with cleaning solution, wash & organize tools)
  2. Prepare food (wash, chop, measure)
  3. Prepare jars, lids and rings (wash)
  4. Cook your food if required
  5. Fill jars to recommended headspace
  6. Wipe jar rims and apply lids, and secure with rings (fingertip tight)
  7. Fill pressure canner with water according to manufacturer’s instructions
  8. Place jars in canner on rack
  9. Place lid on canner
  10. Turn on heat and vent canner for 10 minutes
  11. Place pressure regulator weight on vent pipe
  12. Once desired pressure (usually 10lbs at sea level) is reached, begin timing, and adjust heat as needed for processing time specified in recipe (Note: If the pressure drops below the required pressure, you MUST restart the processing time)
  13. Remove pot from heat and let pressure drop
  14. Once pressure is at zero, remove weight from vent pipe
  15. Let sit for 5 minutes, then open lid, tilting it away from you
  16. Remove jars from water onto a rack or towel and let cool completely
  17. Remove rings from jars, and test seals by lifting jars from edges of lids (if lid comes off, refrigerate and eat contents soon, or freeze, or re-process)
  18. Wipe sealed jars and lids with warm wet cloth, label with date and contents
  19. Store in a cool, dark place until ready to enjoy

I bought my pressure canner on sale at Capital Iron. You can also find them at Canadian Tire. If you only need a pressure canner occasionally, you can sign one out from the Victoria Tool Library, a fantastic local resource that also lends out other food preservation tools such as dehydrators.

My apologies for the text-heavy post! I will come back and add photos when I can.

If you have questions, please email me: Lindsay at jarstar dot ca

Sweet miso revisited

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Sweet miso revisited

This is the sweet miso made in our workshop a year ago… I probably should have eaten by now, as it’s not meant to be aged so long!

And features a gross bit of mold on the surface.

But of course, after removing that top layer, we have deliciousness underneath… So amazing.

This year’s salted garlic scapes

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It’s the end of June, which means my birthday will be soon! And our biweekly CSA box gave us a bundle of garlic scapes, which reminded me to go check my own small bed of garlic. We had a new baby this spring, and the garden has been neglected in favour of laundry and newborn cuddles.

But there they were, a couple dozen green spirals. I picked them and made a batch of fleurs d’ail salees. It’s a nice annual ritual, among all the changes that life brings.

Salmonberry Season

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Salmonberry Season

Where I am farm-sitting for my friend out in the wilds of southern Vancouver Island, there is another of the rose family everywhere, full of fruit: Salmonberries!

I managed to get a bowlful away from my child, and put it through a sieve to separate the seeds.

Only got about 1 cup of pulp, though lots of foam. I froze it for making jam later. Maybe a mixed wild berry, once the salal is ripe?

I took the seeds and made shrub in my usual way, throwing them into a 1 litre jar with vinegar, letting that brew for a few days, then straining and mixing with sugar to taste. It is beautiful, though maybe too sour!

Shirley Rose Varenye

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Shirley Rose Varenye

I had the honour of farm-sitting for a friend, out in a tiny bit of paradise along the West Coast Road… Where June means ROSES.

I’ve long been intrigued by the idea of rose preserves, and was really taken by this blog post that includes an uncooked recipe for Russian sweet rose spread. It took me almost no time to harvest these petals from the old farmhouse’s venerable bushes, and the tedious work of cutting off the base of each petal was helped along by a couple podcasts.

Ingredients: Rose petals, granulated sugar, rum, and lemon juice. I didn’t have fresh lemons, so used 2 tablespoons of bottled juice instead.

It was very satisfying to run this through the food processor!

I packed the resulting paste into four 125 mL jars and one 250 mL jar, which I’d sterilized ahead of time in boiling water (along with the lids).

Now, we’ll let it rest in a cool place, and taste it in August.

Thank you for making miso with me today!

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Thank you to all who made it to today’s miso making event at the Compost Education Centre! I had so much fun, and really enjoyed spending that time with you.

Here’s the leftover miso, packed into a 2 litre jar and headed for my basement.

Some useful links for you all:

Books I recommend:

 

Almond miso is awesome miso 

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The almond miso I made a couple weeks ago tastes amazing! My critiques are that it’s a tad too salty, and I’d prefer a smoother texture, but otherwise it’s a winner. I’m looking forward to seeing how the flavour changes during the next couple weeks… Currently, I find it has a yeasty scent like baking bread, which is very compelling.

Sweet Miso, Small Batch

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Sweet Miso, Small Batch
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Sweet soybean miso, 13 months old

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Sweet soybean miso, 13 months old: Salt crust on surface, with tamari pool in the centre

I made this miso with the intention to begin eating it after just six months… Hence the almost equal ratio of beans to koji rice, as it was meant to be a quick ferment, by miso standards! But then I mostly forgot about it, and it sat in the cool darkness beneath my house for over a year. Luckily, miso is pretty forgiving. This is utterly delicious! The recipe came from the files of the always inspiring Art of Miso group on Facebook.

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Mixing the miso

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Salting the inside of the jar

2 1/2 cups dried soy beans
1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp coarse canning salt (plus more for jar)
2 1/4 cup koji rice
3/4 to 1 cup bean cooking liquid

Cover beans with several inches of water, and cook until soft. Strain and reserve cooking liquid.
Let beans cool.
Wash and dry a 2 Litre jar.
Dissolve salt in 3/4 cup bean cooking liquid.
Mash or puree beans, with immersion blender or food mill or hands, adding the salt and bean cooking liquid as needed to make a thick paste.
Mix in koji rice, and more liquid if desired.
Wet the inside of the jar with fresh water and coat lightly with salt.
Form miso into tight balls in your hands, then pack tightly into jar, pushing them down firmly intro each other to fill jar with no air holes.
Fill jar to within 3″ of top.
Add 1/2″ of salt on surface.
If desired, add a small jar on surface as a weight; this helps to create a pool of tamari to harvest later.
Put on lid, but do not fully tighten… We need air!
Store somewhere cool and dark for 6 months.

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Freshly made! See the salt crystals still clear on the surface and edges?

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After 13 months! There’s tamari visible on the surface, as well as some in the bottom of the jar

Want to come make miso with me? We’ll be doing just that on Saturday, June 17th, at the Compost Education Centre!

 

Almond Miso

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I’ll be doing a miso workshop at the Compost Education Centre in a little while, so thought I’d make something a little different to bring to it. This recipe, like many of my miso experiments, is from the Art of Miso group on Facebook… It started with a recipe for peanut miso, with this almond version posted in the comments.IMG_8261

Take a scant 1.5 cups of almonds and soak overnight, to make around 2 cups of hydrated almonds.

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Save the soaking liquid and grind the nuts, adding soaking liquid as needed to get a smooth texture.

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Mix in 2 cups of koji rice and 2 tablespoons of coarse pickling salt, and more soaking liquid if required.

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I first used a spoon, then used the immersion blender again, to break down the rice grains more thoroughly.

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Pack the miso firmly into a jar layer by layer, using a fork or such and tapping it on a hard surface in order to remove air bubbles. This is a 750mL wire-bail jar with a rubber gasket (a “Fido”), and it was just the right size!

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Because we want the miso to be able to breathe, I put a small cloth between the top of the jar and the gasket, so that it is not air tight.

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Label with the date, and wait… But not too long! As nuts tend to go rancid, this is a quicker ferment than most… We’ll leave it on the counter in my warm kitchen and taste it in a week or so, then move it to fridge and try to eat it up within a month or two.

***FOLLOW UP POST HERE: http://www.jarstar.ca/almond-miso-is-awesome-miso/***