canning shelves 2014_opt_opt
Posts Archives
All posts with pickling tag.
In , on September 19, 2015 with No Comments

Canning 101: Pickled Marinated Mushrooms

One of my goals with this blog is to keep track of recipes I’ve already tried or that I want to try but haven’t gotten around to yet. This marinated mushroom recipe is one I haven’t tried yet, but I love pickled mushrooms. I have so many different canning and preserving books and recipes, and I don’t want to try to remember where I put the recipe when I’m ready to make it.

This recipe comes from The Home Preserving Bible by Carole Cancler. This book contains multiple terrific-sounding preserving recipes that I’m itching to try, but this marinated mushroom recipe caught my eye first. The book is available on Amazon (both the print and Kindle versions), and it’s one I highly recommend to both newbie canners and seasoned canners alike, as it has a wealth of preserving information, not just canning but other various methods such as how to cure meats, fermentation, salt curing and more.

ETA: I made the recipe today, and while the recipe says it makes 7 half-pints, I ended up with 14 half-pints. I followed the recipe exactly, but perhaps the mushrooms I used were larger than the recipe author’s. Just wanted you to know you may end up with more than 7 half-pints.

 

 

 

Pickled Marinated Mushrooms (raw pack only)

5 1/2 pounds small, whole button mushrooms
6 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
2 quarts water (or as needed)
1 1/2 cups olive or salad oil
2 cups white vinegar (5%)
6 tablespoons finely chopped onions
3 tablespoons diced red bell pepper or hot chilies
2 3/4 teaspoons oregano leaves
2 3/4 teaspoons dried basil leaves
2 3/4 teaspoons pickling salt
21 black peppercorns
2 garlic cloves, cut in quarters

Select fresh, unopened mushroom caps less than 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Wash in several changes of water until no more grit remains. Trim stems, leaving 1/4 inch attached to the cap.

In a saucepan, combine mushrooms, bottled lemon juice and water to cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Drain mushrooms.

In another saucepan, combine mushrooms, olive oil, white vinegar, onions, red bell pepper or chilies, oregano, basil and pickling salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and keep mixture hot while filling jars.

 

 

Before filling a hot jar with mushrooms, add 3 black peppercorns and 1 piece of garlic to each jar. Evenly distribute mushrooms and oil-vinegar brine between the jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace.

Process mushrooms in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes.

Makes 7 half-pints

Continue Reading
In , on August 8, 2014 with No Comments

Canning 101: Spiced Pickled Cabbage

We planted 12 heads of cabbage this year, and, of course, after the fact I discovered we didn’t need to make sauerkraut as we had plenty left from last year. So, what’s a person to do with 12 large heads of cabbage? I made a batch of canned coleslaw already (see previous blog post for recipe), and we fried some up a few times for supper. We did ask a daughter if she and her girls wanted some sauerkraut, so some of the heads went for that, but I still had a couple of cabbage with no obvious purpose.

Then I found a recipe for Spiced Pickled Cabbage in Favorite Pickles & Relishes:  Storey’s Country Wisdom Bulletin A-91 by Andrea Chesman.  I found this on my Scribd subscription, and they have so many different bulletins available. If you want to figure out how to do anything, they’ve probably got a bulletin for it!

It’s an easy recipe to do, and I can’t wait to taste it!

 

Spiced Pickled Cabbage

4 quarts shredded red or green cabbage
1/2 cup pickling salt
1 quart white vinegar
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
4 teaspoons grated horseradish
1 teaspoon whole cloves
4 cinnamon sticks

Layer cabbage and salt in a large kettle or crock. Let stand overnight.

The next day, drain the cabbage, pressing out all juice. Rinse thoroughly and drain again.

In a saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds, and horseradish. Bring to a boil. Tie cloves and cinnamon in a cheesecloth spice bag and add to the saucepan. Simmer 15 minutes.

Pack cabbage into clean, hot pint jars and fill with vinegar mixture, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles by running a nonmetallic spatula down sides of the jars. Seal and process in a boiling-water bath canner for 20 minutes.

Yield:  4 pints

Continue Reading
In , on July 25, 2014 with No Comments

Canning 101: Dill Pickles and Carrots

What a day it was today!  I knew I had cucumbers to deal with, as we’d picked a bunch last night and I had lots leftover after I made mustard pickles last night, but I definitely had my hands full today! While I was busy making another round of mustard pickles and dill pickles, Kevin dug the rest of our carrots, so that was the next item on the agenda for the day.

I really hope these mustard pickles turn out.  It’s a new recipe for us this year, but I’ve tasted the liquid going on the cucumbers, and it’s definitely a tasty one…..so hurry up time so I can taste these pickles! I did another 9 pints of them today.  Seven of them went in the water bath canner, and the remaining two pints are in the fridge just waiting for time to pass so I can sample 🙂 (ETA: These pickles turned out great – I have a new favorite!)

The main pickle of the day, though, were dill pickles. I’ve always used Kevin’s grandmother’s recipe to make dill pickles. It’s definitely an old-timey recipe – complete with a grape leaf in each quart jar, but they are so worth it. It really is a kosher dill pickle recipe, and the boys (and Kevin) just won’t be happy if I don’t make a bunch of these every summer. Depending on the size of your cucumbers, you can do them whole, sliced up into spears, or even make slices, which are really good on a hamburger.

 

Gram Worrell’s Dill Pickles

4 quarts pickles, dill sized
3 quarts water
1 pint cider vinegar
3/4 cup canning salt
1/2 teaspoon alum

Put a washed grape leaf in the bottom of each quart jar. Add a head of dill, a clove of peeled garlic, a piece of hot pepper (optional), and a small onion (or piece of onion) into each quart jar.

Pack pickles in jars.

Mix all ingredients, except the cucumbers, and heat until just boiling. Pour into jars over cucumbers and seal.

Process in a water bath canner for approximately 10-15 minutes. Keep the temperature just below boiling, or your pickles will shrivel up.

Yield:  Approximately 6 to 7 quarts

 

 

As I had a huge tub of freshly dug carrots at my disposal today, what better way to preserve them but to can them? It’s been years since we’ve had a decent crop of carrots. Usually the moles or shrews get to them before we dig them in the fall, so we got the jump on the critters this year, and I had a beautiful crop of carrots to can today.

How to Can Carrots

Trim and scrape carrots.  Slice or cut as desired.

Paw raw into sterilized jars (pint or quart jars per your preference). Cover with boiling water. Add salt (1 teaspoon per quart or 1/2 teaspoon per pint jar). Seal.

 

 

Process carrots in a pressure canner for 30 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure (for quarts) or 25 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure (for pints).

 

 

Continue Reading
In , on July 24, 2014 with 1 Comment

Canning 101: Coleslaw and Mustard Pickles

I love coleslaw. Any recipe, any variety. Whether it’s a mayo-based slaw or freezer slaw, if it’s on the menu, I’m in.

We planted 12 cabbage plants this spring with the idea that we needed to make sauerkraut this year. Unfortunately after taking an inventory of all the jars on the canning shelves, we did NOT need to make any. So, what to do with 12 cabbage heads??  Why make coleslaw, of course!

I’ve done freezer coleslaw in the past, but freezer space is a bit tight right now, so I was on the hunt for what to do with cabbage that can be processed by canning. I came across a recipe for canned coleslaw, and that got me thinking. What exactly is coleslaw anyway? Really, in a canning sense, it’s pickled cabbage. You add cabbage and any other vegetables and mix with a vinegar brine/syrup/solution, and so the idea for canned coleslaw was born.

While I was quite liberal with the amounts of veggies used in my slaw, I didn’t mess with the proportions of vinegar in the syrup portion of the recipe. That’s what preserves the veggies and is necessary to make sure things don’t spoil. Feel free to double/triple the syrup solution (I did) to make sure you have enough to cover all the veggies you put into jars.

 

Canned Coleslaw

1 medium head cabbage
1 large carrot
1 red bell pepper
1 small onion
1 teaspoon salt

Syrup:
1 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds

Shred together the vegetables. Add the salt. Mix well. Let stand 1 hour.

Drain water from the vegetables. If preferred, can rinse and drain veggies.

Boil syrup ingredients together for 1 minute. Keep warm.

Pack veggies into hot pint jars and fill jars with hot syrup liquid. Add lids and seal.

 

 

 

Process jars in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Remove from canner and let stand for 12 hours before moving.

Yield:  Approximately 7 pints

We’ve been checking the cucumber patch daily and have picked a few here and there to make salads, but there just haven’t been enough to do anything with. Until day that is. So, while I didn’t have my usual dill and grape leaves ready to go for my traditional dill pickles, I did come across a recipe for mustard pickles that I’d been dying to try.

 

Seeing as we had a few (sarcasm here!) cucumbers that were larger than I like to use in my dill pickle recipe, I thought I’d chunk up a few and try them in the mustard pickle recipe.  I found the recipe on Scribd. They have a ton of booklets from A Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin, and this recipe is from their Favorite Pickles and Relishes booklet.

 

 

Quick Mustard Pickles

1-1/2 cups white vinegar
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup prepared mustard
2 teaspoons pickling salt
1 teaspoon prepared horseradish (I used homemade horseradish relish..recipe in a future blog!)
8 cups cucumbers, sliced or cut in 1/2-inch chunks

In a large saucepan, combine all but cucumbers and bring to a boil. Pack cucumbers into hot, sterilized pint jars. Add boiling liquid, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Seal. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Yield:  4 pints

Continue Reading
In , on July 16, 2014 with 2 Comments

Canniing 101: Sweet Onion Relish….AKA Rosemary Onion Confit

I’ve spent the winter and spring looking at all kinds of canning, pickling, and preserving cookbooks, posts on Pinterest, and various canning websites looking for new recipes to try out. I’ve pretty much got the basics down of what we like to eat, but sometimes it gets boring and predictable. I like to cook, and I love trying new recipes for just about anything. When Kevin told me the onions in the garden just weren’t going to keep as we’d like (too much water all spring), while he started pulling the onions, I went in search of a recipe to use onions in.

I came across Pickles & Relishes:  From Apples to Zucchini by Andrea Chapman on my Scribd subscription. If you don’t subscribe to Scribd, you can find her book here on Amazon  I’ve found quite a few recipes in her book that I want to try out, especially the 1-jar pickle recipes, just in case a recipe turns out to be one we don’t care for, but after trying this Rosemary Onion Confit, I have a feeling all the recipes in her book are going to be great.

I did make a few modifications to her recipe, as I usually do, but I did not change the vinegar amount. That is what will be preserving the onions, so I didn’t mess with it. I wasn’t sure as it was cooking if it would be something my family would like or not, but once everything pulled together and I was ladling it into jars, I took a taste, and man was it good! Here’s the recipe, with my modifications:

 

Sweet Onion Relish

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 pounds onions, chopped
1 cup cider vinegar, or wine vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar…5% acidity)
3/4 cup sugar
1 large sprig fresh rosemary
1/2 tablespoon soy sauce (Andrea’s recipe called for 1 tablespoon or to taste)
Freshly ground black pepper (a few turns on the grinder…to taste)

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions. Decrease the heat to low and stir to coat the onions with the oil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent and soft, about 30 minutes.

 

Stir in the cider vinegar, sugar, rosemary, soy sauce, and pepper. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

 

 

Pack the onion mixture into clean, hot half-pint jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove any air bubbles and seal.

Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Let the jars stand undisturbed for 12 hours. Do not open for at least 6 weeks to allow the flavors to develop.

Yield:  Approximately 4 half-pints

Note:  I tasted the relish after I ladled it into the jars, and what was left in the bottom of the pan was awesome. I can’t wait for 6 weeks to pass so I can have some with a grilled steak!

Continue Reading
In , on July 4, 2014 with No Comments

Canning 101: Pickled Beets

I’ve been watching the beets growing, slowly by my book, in the garden and have been waiting and waiting for them to be big enough to do something with. We’ve had a few beets here and there already, but there haven’t been enough ready at the same time to do anything with. Until today.

I picked an overflowing dishpan full of dark red beets today….finally! My family enjoys them best simply canned and then cooked with a little bit of butter. While that’s all well and good, I love pickled beets. I think Kevin will eat them, but the boys merely sniff at them. They like traditional dill pickles and will usually pass on any other kind.

So I drug out my trusty Ball Blue Canning Book and found a recipe for pickled beets. While I’ve canned beets before, I’ve never had enough extra beets to make any pickles until this year. Before I started, though, I called Mom. Mom is the queen of pickled beets. She makes them. I eat them. I never needed to make any for myself, so I figured it was about time I did. I am sure glad I called her and quizzed about the recipe before I did anything, though. Hers is not the same as what is in the Ball book. I’m sure their recipe is fine and dandy, but if I was going to go through the work, I wanted them to taste like Mom’s. Come to find out, she’s been using my Grandma Wilson’s pickled beet recipe all these years! Double treat for me today!!

Here’s my Mom’s (and Grandma’s) pickled beet recipe:

Pickled Beets

This recipe uses approximately 3 quarts fresh beets (about 24 small). Make sure you scrub the heck out of the beets (you’ll see why later in the recipe). You must leave at least 2 inches of the tops on plus leave the root on. This will help to keep the color in the beet and not so much in your water.

 

 

Place beets in a large stockpot and cover with water. Cook until the beets are tender when pierced with a fork (mine took about half an hour). Drain beets and reserve the cooking water as you’ll use a little of this in the brine.

Trim the tops and roots and peel the beets.

In another large stockpot, combine 2 cups of the beet cooking liquid, 2 cups white vinegar, 2 cups sugar, and 2 cinnamon sticks (optional). Bring to a simmer and stir until sugar is dissolved. Add the beets to this brine mixture. You can leave the beets whole if they’re small, but I usually cut them into quarters or bite-sized pieces. When everything is nice and hot, pack beets and brine into hot pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Remove any air bubbles. Adjust caps.

Process pints in boiling water bath for 30 minutes.

Yield:  Approximately 5 to 6 pints depending on the size and quantity of beets

Continue Reading