Let the Canning Games Begin!!!

[pushbutton]

Anyone else getting started? Try to freeze as much as possible, but the chest freezer is getting full and had to start canning. It's kind of a love hate thing.......hate doing it now but love it come winter Today, made up a condiment "fourfecta".......some pickles, salsa, ketchup, and apple jelly. First time hitting up the apple jelly and have to say it is off the charts yummy. Have no clue what the tree is, it is an old standard that never produces good eaters.....they are small, tart, wormy/buggy. but perfect for pies ......and apparently preserves. The ketchup is probably a waste of time .....and tomatoes .....but also a first and having fun experimenting. Made some traditional last week....today added some roasted jalapeños.

[CANOPY SAM]

Oh gracious yes. Wife and I are nearly out of pint jars. Have also fresh frozen pounds and pounds of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and peaches.

Still have ample tomatoes, salsa, and onions canned and pickled from last year, and it's a good thing too. Our tomato crop is really weak this year, and over half our onions didn't even grow.

Our green and yellow pepper crop is off the charts. Not sure what we're going to do with all those?

Sweet corn is just coming in now. We'll have several thousand ears this year, and hope to try canning corn again. I have yet, after 25+ years of gardening and canning, to find a really good way to store corn and keep it fresh and tasty.

[eyeguy 54]

just salsa here. 40 pints so far.

[pushbutton]

You might need some more chips.......

[Walleyehooker]

One of the better ways to do corn is blanch it and remove the kernals from the cob and freeze in bags.

[harvey lee]

Corn and peas are done-strawberry-rhubarb jam done and starting the salsa this aft.

Then the canned tomatoes and maybe some apples. Sure we will be doing tomatoes for 3-4 weeks yet. Hoping for 50 plus quarts of maters.

[harvey lee]

One of the better ways to do corn is blanch it and remove the kernals from the cob and freeze in bags.

Yep, been doing it this way for years and it always tastes just like it came off the cob even after being frozen for 6-8 months. Nothing better than a fresh meal of frozen peaches and cream corn in mid winter. I do not remember the last time we purchased a can of corn.

[CANOPY SAM]

Yeah, we've tried the blanched corn frozen in z-lock bags, but it still never turns out tasting fresh and crisp. Also tried blanching whole cobs with kernels still attached, then quick freezing in freezer z-lock bags with all air removed from bag. Still turns out kinda flat and mushy tasting.

There's got to be a way to can corn at home, like one buys in the store, and still have it taste reasonably fresh and crisp?

[Big-Al]

Sam-

Could it be a variety thing? I could never describe my corn as flat and mushy. I grow "gotta have it" (and have grown several others over the years, but this is my favorite). I blanch in a large turkey fryer and do small batches (dozen or so) so I never lose the boil. 2 1/2 minutes and directly into ice cold water and cut off and into the freezer quickly in freezer baggies with twist tie. These make it very easy to get all the air out. Mine seems to always turn out "fresh and crisp".

[CANOPY SAM]

Big Al.

I appreciate the suggestion. We too have grown a lot of the varieties available out there, and have finally settled on Gotta Have It. I put it $80.00 worth of this seed this year. This cultivar has always far out-performed the competition, and is, without question, the best super-sweet, crisp variety available.

For almost 25 years my wife has insisted on adding a little sugar to our bagged and frozen corn, and I've been thinking for a number of years now that THIS may be our problem. I'm thinking the sugar may just ever so slightly be fermenting the mixture, and as such, our corn is mushy and a little flat after cooking for the table.

We're going to run with the process you list above, and this year I am NOT going to allow her to add anything to the mixture. Just corn. I'm really, REALLY hoping this will do the trick.

Can anyone else weigh in on this topic?

Last night we celebrated our 25th Anniversary! We had sweet corn with Cajun spiced butter, steaks on the grill, cucs and onions in sour cream sauce, bread and butter pickles, fresh green beans in garlic butter, fresh sliced cucumbers, fresh sliced garden tomatoes, and oven roasted tendersweet carrots with a dash of sea salt and rosemary. I can't even put to words how much I love having a grocery store in my back yard!

[Walleyehooker]

Make sure you cool the corn after blanching in ice water. Seems to firm up the corn. Also using a good tool for removing the kernals that doesn't smash them helps or cutting them off with an electric knife can also work well. I don't add anything to mine just freeze it. Either vac pack or try to get all the air out of zip locs before freezing.

[CANOPY SAM]

Yep. We've always done that, WH. It's quite the process! Quart size z-lock bags floating in a bathtub of ice water, corn oil covering everything in site, and flies and hornets buzzing around everywhere!

We're definitely going to leave out the sugar. I'm pretty sure this is what's been screwing up our preps.

We started doing this back in college when we lived in married student housing with our kids. We'd pull a picnic table up to our back door, drag a burlap sack filled with sweet corn up to the table, and just start cranking thru blanched cobs stripping them of the kernels. What a mess!

All the neighbor kids would gather around and watch in fascination!

Cooling everything back down quickly really is key to keeping your corn reasonably crunchy. One has to keep close tabs on the ice water bath. Bags of hot sweet corn kernels can warm up that bath pretty fast!

[Big-Al]

Sam-

I too think that the sugar may be part of the issue. We have had frozen corn of friends that use sugar and we never like it as much. The other thing that we do is have two water baths and I am thinking of doing a third. Both of the sinks have ice water in them and we continually add ice. I am thinking of adding a dunk in a large container of well water to take the stress off the two sinks of ice water. If your corn is still warm when you bag it I think that may be contributing to the issue. I think it needs to be cooled quickly and thoroughly before being cut off the cob.

[pushbutton]

Have read somewhere....cant remember where....but that the newer supersweet varieties do not need as long of blanching. 5 minutes? maybe....

[Big-Al]

Five minutes is twice as long as I blanch mine.

[CANOPY SAM]

So a 2-2 1/2 minute blanch in rolling boiling water on the cob. Quick pop it in cold water bath #1, then into ice water bath #2, then maybe even ice water bath #3 ( ), then strip kernels from cob, load into z-lock freezer bags, express as much air as possible, and pop into freezer.

Add NOTHING to the mix.

Baada Bing. Baada Boom!

[Early Riser]

I tired a new pasta sauce recipe by simmering in some chopped kale, chard, zucchini, onion, habanero, and fresh oregano with the tomatoes then pressure canned for 60 min at 10lbs for preservation considering the low acidity ingredients. It turned out to be really good for adding additional rich flavor to a more traditional tomato sauce for use in bolognese, spaghetti or lasagna.

Now with more ripe tomatoes coming in everyday, I am freezing a lot of them to make tomato sauce between the end of gardening and the start of my hunting season.

I used to can a lot of carrots and beans, but much prefer the flavor of them blanched with a rapid cooling in an ice water bath, then frozen.

At the end of the season I will put up about 12 quarts of pickled beets.

I cleaned out the freezer recently to make more room for the veggies, and now am going to be canning more fish, venison, duck and some rabbits this weekend. These all get 90 minutes at 10 lbs.

For a great fish salad for making sandwiches or for eating right out of the jar, I mix 2 tbsp each of olive oil, vinegar, and Ketchup and 1/2 tsp of canning salt to the cold packet fish fillets (bones in for pike).

In terms of the garden, it was not looking so good at the beginning of July after all the flooding rains in June, but now it is a jungle. Succession planting paid off with lots of small tender zucchini and beans still coming in now. Tomatoes, chard, cabbage, kale, carrots, yellow squash, winter squash, most herbs and beets are also really prolific. The only things that have not done as well as usual are the onions, brussels sprouts, basil, potatoes and peppers, but there are enough to eat through late fall. It had to do with the difference between the wet and better drained parts of the garden. For next season I am going to build raised beds for the flood prone areas which have been easy to identify after the last few wet years we have had.

[IlliniWalli]

a banner produce year down here in WC IL

about to call it quits after canning almost 100 quarts and filling a freezer with vacuum sealed veggies

made tomato juice, salsa, stews, soup and sauce; and had so many cukes, wound up doing five batches of pickles

have given away a bunch of tomatoes, cukes, zukes, ect., but tomatoes are still comin on strong.

tried one san marzano plant this year. it was a huge producer and they are fantastic for flavor and thickening sauce and soup. i can see about a dozen ripe ones out the window now, so looks like one more batch of sauce cause i cant let them go to waste

[harvey lee]

Sam-

Could it be a variety thing? I could never describe my corn as flat and mushy. I grow "gotta have it" (and have grown several others over the years, but this is my favorite). I blanch in a large turkey fryer and do small batches (dozen or so) so I never lose the boil. 2 1/2 minutes and directly into ice cold water and cut off and into the freezer quickly in freezer baggies with twist tie. These make it very easy to get all the air out. Mine seems to always turn out "fresh and crisp".

Ditto, our frozen corn is as good as fresh of the cob. Love it and we do it exactly the same as above, agree it could be the variety.

[harvey lee]

Picked the last out of the garden today.

Canned approx. 60 quarts of tomato's, froze about 20 quarts of tomatoes and also made approx. 25 pint's of salsa. Corn and peas in the freezer.

Have some pickled beet's to do and then, that's it.

The last 2 times I have picked tomato's, we have given them to a friend of my wife's as their garden did not do so well.

Glad everything is canned and in the freezer, now to just clean the garden up.

[Big-Al]

So Canopy Sam, how did your corn turn out? I have had my frozen corn a couple of times now and it is just great. I did attribute it to short blanching and quick and thorough cooling.

[leechlake]

we started doing it on the grill a few years ago. Set up the weber next to the gas grill so we have two grills going at once. Process seems to go faster and it isn't inside heating things up

[KEN W]

Are you getting your Gotta have it seed from Gurneys?

$9.00 per packet???

[Big-Al]

It is quite ridiculously priced, but I buy it by the pound (or two) and split with friends. I also make sure I buy when they have the sales, usually 50% off. Right now they have $25 off of a $50 order but they always have that same percentage off large orders later in the winter.

[Big-Al]

I have certainly done corn on the Weber but not for prepping to freeze. I may have to try that next year.