I am so happy that canning is making a comeback. My grandma taught my mom to can, my mom taught me, and now I’m passing that tradition along to my kids, Alexis and Paul.
Preserving doesn’t just save you money, it makes you feel smart about being thrifty. I guarantee that when you open up a jar of mixed-berry jam in February, you’ll be thinking more about its amazing flavor than about the pocketful of change you saved making it. From salsas to pickles, relishes, jams, chutneys, and fruit butters, canning food is a great way to preserve peak flavor.
Finding a recipe you like and want to stick with is sometimes an edible game of trial and error. Make a small batch of a new recipe at first, open a jar (after the required curing time, as in the case of pickles), and taste it, and then make notes to the recipe to suit your tastes for the next batch. (Note: There are all kinds of products available for making freezer and refrigerator jams, too. These jams don’t require processing like traditional “canned” jams do.)
While the ingredients change from recipe to recipe, the method for canning—other than the length of time required to process a jar—doesn’t. Here are the essentials.
1. Buy a canner. This is a large, deep pot that can hold many jars—sometimes in two layers—with ample room for water around the jars. Sure, you can use a stock pot or large soup pot, but most hardware stores sell canning sets for $30 or less, and they come with all kinds of handy bonuses, such as magnetic lid lifters (to help pull lids from boiling water), rubber tongs (for pulling jars out of boiling water), a canning rack, a recipe book, and a funnel for getting the jam or salsa into the sterilized jar.
2. Sterilize the jars and lids. Boil the jars in a pot of water (keep the water at a bare simmer until you’re ready to fill the jars so they don’t crack when you fill them with hot fruit or vegetables) and the lids in barely simmering water in a saucepan (boiling lids can cause the seals to fail). Or, you can sterilize both on the top shelf of your dishwasher if yours has a sterilize setting. After washing the bands in hot, soapy water, leave them at room temperature for easy handling. (Note that while you can reuse jars and bands, you should always use new lids to ensure that they seal properly.)
3. Fill the jars with whatever you’re canning, leaving 1⁄2″ of room (called headspace) at the top. Stir to eliminate any air bubbles, and then wipe the jar rims with a clean cloth. Place the lid on and twist on the band to seal. Don’t twist them on too tightly.
4. Process the jars by setting them in the rack in the canner; they should be entirely submerged in boiling water. Boil them according to your recipe. Once the time is up, turn off the heat and let the jars sit in hot water for 5 minutes before removing them from the canner. Let the jars stand at room temperature for at least 1 day before opening.
For more information about canning, see the Ball Web site at www.freshpreserving.com, or check out Preserving the Summer’s Bounty by the Staff of the Rodale Food Center (Rodale Press, 1995).
