# What to can. Everything!!



## popcorn590 (Aug 29, 2010)

Thought I would pass on material from the last 65 years of memory. When I was a kid I remember Mom canning food. What she canned, I really do not remember. So on into the 50's, 60's 70's 80's, 90's 2001-07 and boom, there goes the neighborhood. So now I am canning and believe it or not loving it. When I decided to can I got the general equipment, waterbath canner and the dreaded pressure cooker/canner, with visions of exploding food and windows blowing out in my mind. My first thought, what I needed was reference books. Not the books of today, but books from pre-1950's. After all, why would I want to learn from those that NEVER had to provide for a household of people with only canned goods that you can/jar can. So I went on e-bay and found every book or booklet I could from before the 1950's about canning. Kerr, Blue Book, Jane, National Pressure Cooker Co., etc. Like a little kid at Christmas I waited and soon was rewarded with the most valuable items for surviving and food storage, I ever got. The OLD and ORIGINAL canning books from days gone by. The first thing I noticed that differed from the Blue Book of today and the old canning books was that People really canned for a year or more and what they canned back then was sometimes not in the new Blue Book. I read and started canning everything I could. Made some mistakes, but learned. Naturally first out of the gates were pickled beets, pickles, jelly's, and then vegetables, from beans, to carrots, to turnips, to zuchinni, to potatoes, and whatever. When you have some canned vegetables that you do not want you can open them, put them in a blender, puree them, rolling boil them for 30 mins. and use them for a base for a vegetable stock. Next I ventured into the meats, chickens, ham, ribs, commercial made sausages, turkey, corned beef, and whatever was unfortunate enough not to move. Then on to meals, chili, hungarian goulash, sloppy joes, spoon burgers, bruswick stew, chicken soup, bean soup, baked beans, gravies, and on and on. The most important item I learned to can was stock. If you can one item make sure you can lots, and I mean lots of stock. Any meats you get and trim, save all the cuttings, bones, catilage, gristle, and freeze them, do the same for ham, chicken, turkey corned beef, beef, venison, everything that crosses your path. (A side note. A friend gave me 20 lbs of vension meat meant for hamburger, all the silver on it, tendons, etc. After razor bladeing the meat off the silver and tendons got 15 lbs and made venison stew, I took all the other sliver and tendons, put it through our fine grinder, mixed mircle whip and salt and pepper in it, then spread it between two pieces of bread. It was great. So another use for that stuff, KID FILLERS.) At the diner table I make sure that nothing goes into the trash from bones, to cartilage, to joints, to skins, and it all goes into a plastic bag in the freezer. So part of the freezer is full of weird looking sacks full of items from pork bones to chicken bones, pieces of this and pieces of that. Then the day of reconing comes along and it is stock canning day, or two, or three. I always use one onion and 1/5 of a celery bunch in the water, along with whatever seasoning we want. In goes the frozen skins, bones, etc. Once the stock warms up, out come the bones and crunch them in the jaws of pliers to open up access to the marrow in the bones while boiling. I use 2 - 15 quart stainless steel pots, and boil the stuff for about 1 hour, then simmer all day. At about 5pm or so, I take the stock pots off and let them cool. At that time I have another large empty stock pot. I get a strainer and a 4 qt pyrex measurer dipping into the stock and the pouring into the strainer to catch all but the broth. Once done I get rid of the strained items. Next put the lid on and put it in the fridg for three days. After three days you take it out, and depending on what you put in the stock pot, either lift out the disk of fat, or skim off about 1/8 to 1/4 in of fat. I dispose of the fat but some might keep it for adding to your home made dog food in the Upper Northern areas. If you have done it right you have a large stock pot with a really nice jell that wiggles when shaken. I boil the stock and taste, adding what I want in seasoning. Sometimes I put spicy spaghetti seasoning in the stock for soups. In the beginning I mentioned can all the stock you can. #1. Stock is the basis for almost all meals, #2. Stock can be used when you can your meats, then you have gravy fixing along with the meat, #3. Stock makes a great soup when you're sick, #4. Stock is really great when canning some vegetable. Now to the resaon for talking about stock. In the newer Blue Book it says nothing about canning cabbage, except making kraut out of it. So in an older book we found how to can cabbage and we did it a year ago, and when Patties day came along, we had our canned corned beef and seperately canned cabbage. The corned beef was great the the cabbage turned out to be a real treat. By the way canning of meats breaks the cells down to a point where people that usually have trouble eating meats, find canned meats much easier to digest. My wife being one of them, hardly ever ate red meat, but now will eat canned meats in a minute. Plus you know what is in it. So this year we planted about 14 heads of cabbage, and ended up with 60 quarts of canned cabbage. The canning of the cabbage ended up taking all of my pre-canned 35 quarts of chicken stock and ten quarts of ham stock (can not wait to taste that one). I am going to do vegetable stock my way this year too. That is why you need to can as much stock as possible, the uses are so varied. There is never enough canned stock on your shelves. 
I hope you enjoyed this little story of my learning curve getting into canning. 
Two items FYI: #1. A university found canned goods kept in the basement of a home that was being demolished. They took those canned good to the university, and under the right conditions opened them, tested them, and although the items inside had degrade, it was all safe to eat. Storage condition is important. Basement was number one, because of the year round temperature. Also this basement had very few windows. Canned goods do best with very little light. 
#2. A Grandmother was making a fruitcake for Christmas in about 1898 or so. She got it done and treated properly, there is a special way to treat that stuff for keeping long times. Unfortunately she then passed away soon after. The family, knowing that was the last thing she made for the family took it and kept on the mantle for years and years. One day a new person came to visit, and was told the story. It had been just over 100 years since that fruit cake was made. Again, it ended up at a university, and believe it or not, it was deemed edible. Not to me, there was no white hard sauce available. Only way I would ever eat fruitcake, lots of hard sauce.
#3. Only food item good forever, as long as it is not contaminated, HONEY. #4. Twinkies unopened are good for about 100 years. (Scares the heck out me wondering what is really in it.) #5. The normal main stream grocery store that services any area, only has 3 days supply of food if their was a run on that store. #6. Most families are just about nine (9) meals away from the start of starvation. #7. Lentil were found in the pyramids that were four thousand years old and still good to eat. #8. During WWII wheat farmers were asked by the dept of defence to stop growing wheat in some areas and grow lentils and peas because of the food value. #9. Bone in meats are only good for about three days in the meat section. That is why, I was told, stores like Cash-in-Carry do not carry any bone in meats except spare ribs, because they sell out fast for rib type party holidays. #10. No bone in meats are good for about, I believe 5 - 7 days in the meat section. Might be wrong on that last one. 
Hope I was not to boreing, but believe it or not the TV lost it's bulb, and I am lost right now waiting for our warrenty replacement bulb. So here I am.
Popcorn590


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## partdeux (Aug 3, 2011)

holy run on sentences and paragraphs batman.


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## ladyhk13 (Nov 5, 2011)

This was very informative, thank you so much for taking the time to write this. I actually spent the last 2 days canning chicken breasts...I started to throw the bones away and thought "what would my mom do with them?" and promptly pulled them out of the bag and boiled them up and made chicken broth. First time I have tried either thing. I didn't add anything to it, just the chicken bones...figured I would add the spices when I got ready to use it (don't know what I'm going to make with it yet).


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## Dixie (Sep 20, 2010)

What a wonderful post, thank you Popcorn. It may have given me a jump start to tackle meats now.


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## popcorn590 (Aug 29, 2010)

*Canning everything from popcorn590*

Great start on the chicken bones. Next time save the skins, you get a lot out of the skins. Also remember to crack the chicken bone legs, wings etc. for the marrow to be boiled out and into the stock. What you have saved now is a good start for chicken soup. At times you might have to add some chicken base to get more of the taste chicken you want. To really get the chicken stock for a soup you want, you almost have to have the entire carcus and all the skin, but only boiled in one 15 qts pot.

Other person --- Don't wait to start on the meats. I find them easier than the veggies. The canning of meats and meals with meats is easy. I tend to not season as much when canning meats or meals, because you can then let the people eating the meal season it the way they want.

The one thing I remember as a kid camping at Mt. Rainier, was the canned (in tins) chicken we used to take with us. If you canned your chicken right, that is the texture and juice you will get. I remember the chicken legs as we opened them. The juice around them was like a thick jell, and the smell and taste was wonderful.

The greatest joy will be when you tear, well cut, apart a raw chicken or turkey and de-bone it. That is when you really do not care if you leave a bit of meat on the bones. That bone and meat then go into stock, then when you take the bones out and get the meat off of them, you can eat it or make chicken salad sandwiches the next day, or put it in the jars. I take a big turkey, get the skin off, section it out, then cut the breast first. There is almost a guide you can follow when getting the breast off with your thumb. Once done you refrigerate the turkey or chicken pieces in a plastic bag. Next you get the stock going, all the skin bones,e tc. along with onion and celery, and salt and pepper, getting it cooked all day, straining it, putting the stock in the fridg for two to three days, then skim the fat or take it our in chunks. Once that is done boil the juice and season it the way you want, because that can be used for gravy or soup base. Once boiling and you like the taste, you have your pressure cooker ready, your jars ready, your tops ready, and get the turkey out. Then cut and size the raw turkey (or whatever meat you are canning), and push it into wide mouth jars. After you are within an inch from the top, pour the stock into the jar. let it reach the one inch mark, and put aside. The stock will settle a bit, and the meats will absord some of the stock. You also need to use the plastic jabber and get the air bubble out. After that is done file with stock to the one inch mark. Get the lids out of the hot water, after you clean the rim of the jar, put the lid on. Screw the ring on next. I usually screw it until it stops, then a small wrench of my hand for a bit more tightening. What you have done with the turkey and the stock is gotten rid of most of the fat. I have never had a bad seal doing it this way. I like to raw pack this way with hot stock. I always want the most bang for my buck and labor. This way I get the maximum output for my work.
Do the same for pork, for beef, for corned beef (side note on corned beef: I purchase the larger pieces from a place called Cash-in-Carry. there are essentially two pieces in that mass of meat. I trim as much fat off that I can. It is pretty had because there is so much marbling and streaking of the meat with the fat. That is a good thing. After getting the two pieces seperated and trimmed, and do not be really shy about trimming because you can eat that part later from the stock. (Now you know why the woman of old did not mind canning the meats. lol) Then put all the trimmings into the stock pot 15 qts, with celery and onions and the packed of herbs that came with the corned beef. Put the cut up and sized corned beef away in the fridg for two days, make the stock the same way as other meats, but this one will be a bit more greasy. After you have sieved the items from the stock, then you put the stock in the fridg for the same two days. Now you can enjoy nibbling on the pieces of fat that had some meat on them. After two days just do the same as the other meats in canning, but this time really clean the rims, and give a little extra tightening, not a lot but a little. I guarantee you will get some grease in the water after the pressure canning. Again I never had a jar not seal. That is a really neat way to do corned beef. When you take it out, you can do the glaze thing with mustard, vinegar, and brown sugar in the oven and finally in the last few minutes the broiler as you watch it very carefully, and it works great, but remember it is already cooked so adjust your time accordingly. The pressure cooker breaks down the cells on the corned beef much more than the boiling does, and it is so tender and good.
Popcorn590


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## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

Way to go.

I've been around canning all my life so it is second nature to me. My first choice of preserving food is dehydrating then comes canning but my home canned food area has about 500 jars.

The pressure cooker going boom is over rated(but still very dangerous). Years ago one of my daughters(5 or 6 years old at the time) poked a spagetti noodle into the steam vent of mine and as it started heating up the noodle expanded and clogged it up. The relief plug blew, scared the hell out of me, but no one was scalded, no windows broken, just some brown shorts on laundry day.

Keep on canning.


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## JustCliff (May 21, 2011)

Since the coprights are expired on those old canning books, think you might make e-copies in PDF and have them available?? It would be a nice addition to the library.


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