What to can

[Alyse84]

The biggest, most important piece of knowledge is to know what can be safely water bath canned and what needs to be pressure canned.

Only high-acid food with a pH of 4.6 or less can be processed using the boiling water bath method. This is because high-acid foods prevent the growth of spores of the bacterium.

Water bath canning is a great way to preserve low-acid food such as peaches, or berries, and make fruit, jams, and pickles.
Tomatoes are a special case. They can be safely water bath canned only if they are acidified by adding bottled lemon juice. If you add herbs, onions, peppers, etc. it is best to pressure can tomatoes.

Maybe try canning pickled peppers, onions, salsa's.

So you have a pressure canner or just a boiling water bath canner?

I have a pressure canner which I haven’t used yet and a water bath canner.

 

[Alyse84]

Use tested recipes to start so you can learn what is safe and not. There are many unsafe canning recipes floating around.

Sometimes the solution is to adjust our expectations. We need to puree some foods after canning - such as pumpkin and beans. We need to add starches -such as most thickeners, or noodles for canned soup - when we reheat.

I have a pressure canner, so I like to can ground meat, beans, peppers, etc. What do you hope to can?

Well, I was hoping to pressure can Albondigas and Menudo if possible. I’ve seen beef stew pressure canned to I figured Albondigas would be similar because it has some of the same vegetables.

 

[FarmerJamie]

Just about anything is possible.

Do you have any specific food items or recipes you would like to can? Canning (mostly) complete meals is awesome.

We can a wide variety of things in our house