I KNOW, ALL I TALK ABOUT IS VEGETABLES AND OTHER HOMEGROWN FOOD LATELY. It’s that time of the garden year. To sweeten the pot (and pay you back for your patience with my vegetable-garden monotone of late): two more copies of “Stocking Up,” Carol Hupping and the Rodale Food Center’s classic guide to preserving whatever you’ve got a taste for–or a glut of–are up for grabs. Want to win one?
Just jump in (down below in the comments) and tell me a tip, trick or insight you have to share about saving some kind of food for later use (or simply say hello; I’ll count your entry anyhow). Here’s mine:
I’m using Mason or Ball jars for freezing this year, gradually phasing out most of my plastic food-storage containers. That’s a frozen test jar up top of my first 2010-vintage tomato sauce (popped out of the freezer for a moment for its portrait).
Why this change?
I keep reading more all the time about food and their reactions to contact with various plastics. Apparently “plastics” is not exactly as exciting as it sounded at the graduation party for the character Dustin Hoffman played in “The Graduate” in 1967. Remember? A refresher:
Though none of my food containers bears a number 3 or 7 on the bottom, inside that familiar triangle of recycling arrows (3 being PVC, and 7 being the grab-bag category that often includes polycarbonate–both known problems), I figure glass feels better to me right now, anyhow.
We’ll see how I feel after trying to find room to store all the (um, non-stackable or nestable) glass jars when they’re empty, or whether I can really maximize my freezer space using them, the way I could with the box-like plastic bins. The glass jars’ rim shape also prevents that last-minute, “I forgot to defrost dinner” panic mode routine, when you can pop the frozen brick out of the plastic container with perhaps just a quick dunk in warm water.
Interested in the topic of safe food storage? There’s so much on the internet, but here’s a start: A thorough primer on kitchen plastics from Care2. Side note: The subject of canned food (as in, storebought in metal cans) and the presence of Bisphenol A (BPA) in those foods was raised in a flurry of perhaps not-so-new “news” about it this spring. Side note 2: I will still be using my recycled quart yogurt containers for soups and other volume items, at least for now.
The best news: I get to recycle, or at least reuse. My favorite brand of jarred organic salsa comes in Mason jars, so I’ve been saving them for this, and I have quite a lot of jars from years of pickling and jam-making, too. When you freeze in jars, just leave ample headroom for expansion of the liquid, and also so the food doesn’t touch the lid lining, which is coated with–yes–plastic. (I put a little–I know, here comes that word yet again–plastic wrap on top and closed the jar only loosely with this test run to see how much my sauce expanded when frozen, but out that will now come.) Wide-mouth jars (and especially straight-sided ones) are less apt to break than the ones with “shoulders” and narrow mouths; I’m experimenting.
How to Enter to Win ‘Stocking Up’
POST A COMMENT (preferably a tip or an “aha” about the subject of putting food up–or container and plastics for that matter, but a plain old hello will do, too) by midnight Sunday, August 22.
I’ll announce the two winners on Monday the 23d, drawn at random from among all your comments using the lovely free application at random dot org, the way I always do on book giveaways. Good luck–and now get out and pick those green beans and tomatoes and cucumbers and all the rest of it! Out I go myself…
My little attempt at a vegetable garden only yielded enough to eat..not enough to can or freeze. Turkey Fig tree (about 3 years old) finally had figs this year but not enough to make fig preserves…hopefully next year. Remember my Mamma and Grandmother canning the bounty from our gardens when I was a youngster – so canning and equipment, especially Mason jars, are a wonderful childhood memory. Glad others are continuing on with this method.
i freeze in mason jars all the time. i find the wide mouth pints and half-pints work best, since they go straight up on the sides (i’ve never had one of those crack, whereas i have had regular ones crack). quarter-pints have straight sides also, and i use those for pesto. all summer long i make mexican beans with my surplus of tomatoes, garlic, and cilantro, freezing them in pints. then, we eat them throughout the fall/winter/spring, until it’s time to start putting it up again! plus, with the wide-mouths, you can thaw part way and then slide the partially frozen stuff out if needed.
on sunday, however, i am taking a food preservation class where i hope to learn pressure canning. we had some pretty bad flooding here in milwaukee, and our basement flooded twice. first time wasn’t so bad (maybe an inch or two), but the second time a week later was worse, and it killed my standing freezer. so i had to really scramble to find space in my regular freezer for all the beans, hummus, stock, and pesto i had already put up!
i also put up lots of jam each summer, not frozen, canned (boiling water bath).
I used mason jars in the freezer last season, and will do it again this year. We finished the last jar of last season’s tomato juice just as this year’s tomatoes started to ripen. I blanch and freeze peppers and beans, and dry and freeze herbs. I use Food Saver bags and the vacuum machine for the beans and peppers, and same thing – just used the last batches in the freezer as the new ones were ripening. I make herb slurries and freeze them in ice cube trays, then bag them. I do the same with leftover broths – freeze in ice cube trays. For some recipes a cube, or two or three is perfect. A pressure canner and dehydrator are on my wish list.
I bought a dehydrator for my “little” tomatoes. Dry them, and then freeze them on cookie sheets. Then place them in containers-glass jars will work-in the freezer!Fabulous on pizza!
I’ve made Damson plum preserves — without pectin — for years now, almost every year. I give jars to friends and family at Christmas-time. The flavor is so much better than commercial jams – pectin requires a lot more sugar, and dilutes the flavor of the plums. My aha is two-fold. I learned to use a thermometer this winter and no longer have to foodle around with cold saucers in the freezer. Even better, the jam is not sitting in a hot pan while I wait to see if the jam sets up on the cold plate. The instructions say 220 degrees is the magic number, but mine turned out to be 219. I got the most consistent results, and rave reviews from the recipients! “Best ever!” and “Five stars” were typical. Almost as good was the lack of fretting about whether the jam would overcook and set up a little too firm. The second aha is reading the fine print in the front of my tattered Joy of Cooking – I happened to use first-of-the-season plums this year, and the Joy says that it will set up better. The Joy knows!
I’m totally new to freezing and canning of vegetables and fruits as it is uncommon in my country Malaysia. The free giveaways will definitely help me get started ! Thank you.
I am using an very old fashioned way to preserve corn – I use an outdoor oven to make chicos. Build a fire in the oven, put unshucked sweet corn after the oven is very hot – several hours required – you can bake bread first, for instance. Place the corn in the oven, throw in a bucket of water and close the oven – the steam stops the maturation of the corn. When cool enough to handle, peel back the shucks and tie them together so the corn can be strung up on a line to air dry. When dry, remove the kernals from the cob, store in a water and vermin proof container. The chicos will keep a very long time. Rehydrate them in boiling water or use in stews, beans, soups, etc.
A recent revelation in preserving for me has been hot pepper marmalade; peppers sliced and cooked in syrup for about half an hour until the peppers get glassy and the syrup’s nice and thick. A restaurant here serves it with fish tacos instead of pico de gallo.
Also, I think I’ve seen rectangular glass storage containers from several brands, some even ovenproof. They seem like kind of an investment, though.
Hi,
I don’t have a tip, but a story. When I was younger my mother, aunts, and grandmother would be in the kitchen at the end of the season. I can remember endless days of canning that went on during that time. Beans, pickles, corn, pears, peaches, tomato sauce you get the picture. There was conversation, catch up, and a lot of hard work that went on. In all the activity that was going on even the youngest of us had a job. After the last bath the jars were placed on towels that were spread on the floor of the kitchen. Jars came out of the bath and were placed on the towels. We were the “pingers” our job was to listen for each jar to make a ping which meant that the jar was sealed. We were given a hand full of pennies at the being of the process that we would then use to put on the top of the lid when it pinged. If a jar didn’t make a sound that meant that the jar didn’t seal and had to be used right away. This is a very fond childhood memory for me hope it will be enjoyed by someone.
If you’re lucky enough to live where you have a supply of figs, this is my favorite way to preserve them. Weigh your figs and place in saucepan. Slice a lemon into very thin slices and put on top. (700 grams figs and half a lemon, for example). Cover with their weight in sugar and let cook over a low flame. The sugar turns to liquid and the figs poach, soaking up the lemon infused syrup. Cook for about 45 minutes. Place in a clean glass jar and pour Brandy over the top! Cover and keep for the winter (serve on toast , slathered first with masrcapone cheese or cream cheese, with a fig on top). Recipe thanks to the Divina Cucina website (I think).
I am just learning to can. A friend of mine grew up farming and canning was standard for his family. I grew up in the city and never learned. He has taught me to do field peas so far using a pressure canner. We are going to NC next week just to spend the weekend canning tomatoes. I would love to win the book so I can expand my canning horizons and learn to do more things on my own.
My garden overflows with tomatoes most years, and when it doesn’t we go to the local pick-your-own for a bushel or two, The trick we found was a two day process – first run all the ‘maters through the grinder into (clean food-grade) 5 gallon plastic buckets (we get ours from a local ice cream shop). Then we leave them with a weighted plate, and cheesecloth over the top (to keep the flies out) overnight in a cool place (garage usually). The next day the solids have settled and the excess clear liquid is easily drawn off (I use it to water the garden). This drastically cuts down on the cooking time when we prepare our homemade sauce for canning so the sauce tastes fresher ;-)
All of you regulars know that I normally say a personal “hello” to each new (first-time) commenter, or at least try my best to keep track. When there are so many all at once on posts like this, it gets hard — plus if I jumped in with a “hello” for every single one at a time, I’d win the drawing for the books, since I’d have so many comments. So this group hello will have to suffice.
Welcome to: John, Lynn, Margi, Gardenbee, Molly, Ryan, Noelle, Sandy, Emily, Peggy, Jdjs, Suzanne, Virginia, Kristal, Rachael, Pat, Margaret Mary, Juliet, Melissa, Carlo, Kim, Chelsea, Chris, Robin, Rachell, Theresa, Amanda, Tara, Heather, Karen, Barbi, Gelfling, Laura, Dawn, The Redhead, Clare, Daisy Driver, Jami, Susan, Brandi, Jonquil, Joyce, Rose, Judy, Z. Briedis, Alison, Dawn, Joyce, Pamela, Kathi, Cindy, Minibaker, Mamafitz, Jim Moore, Anne Pounds, The Prickly Pinecone, Carol and Cari.
If you are not a first-time commenter, sorry — the dashboard here tells me it thinks you’rer new based on the username and so on that you use. Just consider it a double welcome if I’ve given you one before. Extra hospitality cannot hurt, right? :)
I hope to see (and “hear”) you all again soon. These tips, tales and tricks of yours are amazing, thank you.
I just want to second the mention of the wide mouth jars for freezing. They allow for the last minute defrost slide out of the jar for dinner. And they stack better. Thank you for this site and sharing all of your knowledge. My first garden benefits almost daily. Oh, and something I’m trying this year- since it’s hard to get the poundage required for canning sauces, I am freezing the fresh tomatoes until there is enough to cook down into sauce. I hope it works. Thanks again.
I’ve had exactly the same thoughts about plastic vs. glass as I made my yearly strawberry freezer jam. I’ve always used glass, but have been a bit wary of the glass becoming brittle and breaking more easily because of the freezing. This is the first year that I’ve used plastic and the jury is still out. I really appreciated your thoughts on the matter. Thanks!!!
Here is my hard-learned tip: when making ketchup, do not even think of wearing slip-on shoes. The stickiness factor of the stuff that inevitably hits the floor will rip any shoe not all but glued onto your feet right off — is it just me, or does the spatter factor of cooking tomatoes totally surpass the normal laws of physics??????
My hint for keeping glass jars safely in the freezer is to place them into cardboard wine carriers from my local store. I trim the handle/tops off. This keeps jars from sliding around and I can tip the carrier on its side a bit to find just the jar I want (I label the lids with tape for easy ID).
Since it’s Stone Fruit week, dried frut is also great. My new “preserving” toy is a dehydrator—I found an inexpensive, energy-efficient model on amazon. How nice it will be to have those cherries, summer blueberries, peaches, etc. on my cereal and in baked goods over the cold weather months. I am looking forward to fall apples too- will have to experiment with which types are best dehydrated, and how to use them in recipes. Mad scientiests, unite!
Canning is something, along with knitting and gardening, that skipped a generation in my family — my Oma did it, but my mom didn’t. But I am intrigued, like a lot of people these days, by the “home arts.” Finally learning to grow my own vegetables (still can’t believe what forms from a tiny seed!) — maybe canning is next?!
I enjoy this lovely blog!
I’m just beginning to get into the canning process. My grandmother was an avid canner but passed away when I was younger before I could spend time with her learning the ‘tricks of the trade’. This book would be a great learning resource!
Not truly an “aha”, but I love the fact that my kids are so adventurous with food. We try a new fruit/vegetable and a new cheese everytime we go to the farmer’s market. My kids are the only one’s pulling hummus and babaganoush out of their lunchboxes (or eating roast beef and brie sandwiches). We are all over the peaches right now- picture my 7yo singing “really love some peaches, want to shake you tree”.
What great tips. I’ve never canned, but grew up watching my mom, grandma, and aunt can. I plan to learn next year. We’re just settling into our new house so I didn’t plant large enough of a garden this year for the type of produce I would need. I’m hopeful for next year though and will bookmark this post.
I didn’t know you can freeze mason jars. What a great tip. I’ve been drying a lot of things, that’s a great way to use food in the future.
Thanks for the reminder. I’ve frozen in glass a few times without trouble, but always worried about — now that the green beans are coming on like crazy, I’ll give them a try!
Having a garden (and an apricot tree) has turned me on to preserving big time! Last year, my husband & I made 3 batches of apricot jam. This year, we didn’t have enough apricots to make jam due to late rains, but I already have 2 different kinds of pickles.
Fanny Farmer is my most helpful book for canning and preserving, but I’m always on the lookout for more recipes!
Thanks for reinforcing my belief that we need to ease up on the use of plastics – even in the freezer. Have a smoke house full of jars and a new dishwasher this year which will make getting them clean and ready a lot easier, so I’m back to glass – just need a trip to buy new rings and lids. They should last longer this way.
I would think that not only could you freeze in mason jars, but that would also be a great use for used flat lids, instead of using new flat lids (and having to buy more to actually can something later.)
I’ve been trying to move from plastic containers to all mason jars, but my husband gets mad at me for buying case after case of mason jars… I’ve been doing a lot of canning this summer. Hopefully he will see how good it is to have home-canned tomatoes and jams during the dead of winter!
@michelle I would wonder if you even have to freeze the dehydrated tomatoes… I think that’s the reason you dehydrate them, so that they are shelf stable, right?
Hi Margaret—–one of the things I love about living on Cape Cod—is making Beach Plum Jelly……the beach plums are wild and are a gift from Nature. This year they ripened 2 weeks early…The air is heavy with the scent of these very ripe plums. My 4 year old grandson helped me pick this year, and after making 15 jars of jelly , he couldn’t wait to taste it. His special “recipe ” is to spread a cracker with peanut butter—then spread a good amount of beach plum jelly on top—-then he tops it with a slice of cheese. I love to see children try new, “old” things. I have just passed down the special time of making jelly…….makes me happy!!
In the past i have frozen in plastic containers and bags. The only downside is defrosting a block of tomato or apple sauce. This year I’m venturing into canning. So far I have canned some jam and peaches. I am not completely comfortable about freezing in glass. Next year if I am brave enough, I’ll try pressure canning. I’m looking into just trying to pressure cook first.
This has been a productive summer so far – my pantry has cherry, apricot, mulberry, strawberry and peach jam so far. My freezer has sweet corn, marinara sauce, salsa and whole tomatoes, green beans; cherries, peaches, blueberries, raspberry pies, and peach pies. I’ll soon be freezing endamame, pickling beets and drying winter squash and dry beans.
I’ve wondered about using glass jars in the freezer but never explored it further. This is great news especially since a friend gave me three large boxes of wide mouth jars last night!
Love your blog Margaret and also value the comments from other readers.
BTW, does anyone have a great recipe for ketchup? I’ve made several jars from a recipe from the paper but it tastes more like BBQ sauce than ketchup. I’d like something more familiar to commercial ketchup. Thanks in advance.
Since this was the first year of gardening I have more lessons than actual veggies to preserve. However, I do recall fig preserves my mother would make when we were growing up. Actually, now that I recall it was all of my aunts getting into the act. White and purple figs preserves on toast. What could be better ?
Love the idea of using Mason jars for freezing. Think I’ll try that this year.
This is our best year ever for tomatoes since moving to the Catskills area 10 years ago. (It’s good to know that heat wave was good for something.) I use a pressure cooker to can tomatoes when we have a lot. When I have just a few, I just slip them into freezer bags and pop them into the freezer, to use later in soups. Even cherry tomatoes add up this way; some years that’s the only tomatoes that get ripe here. My tip: to freeze blueberries or slices of bell pepper, spread them on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer for a little while, and then bag them. This allows you to use just a few from the bag later, as they can be separated easily.
Just found this lovely site. Considering making pickled garlic for the first time..
I hadn’t thought of using mason jars for freezing. I had bought some ceramic dishes for freezing individual portions of meals. I like the dishes but the plastic lids never worked that well so I’ll have to find an alternative.
This is the first year I have been growing most of my own food and have been doing my best to preserve as much of it as I can. I still don’t know very much about saving food and would love to learn more.
So far this summer, I’ve been drying lots and lots of herbs, making salsa, freezing soups and vegetables, pickling excess cucumbers, and hanging hot peppers to dry. This book would be helpful as the veggies are really rolling in right now!
I’m getting ready to lacto-ferment some green beans, and I would love to win a new edition of Stockning Up. It’s a wonderful book, and mine is very old!
There is a company out there that sells reusable lids for canning with no bpa’s involved. I googled reusable lids to find it: Tattler Reusable Lids, haven’t tried them, but want to!
I don’t have any great tips as of yet. I just started hot water bath canning and steam pressure canning this year. I am hoping to learn much more from this book!
Since you are interested in glass, I have an interesting story for you. Have you discovered some lovely, old, pint-and-a-half wide-mouth Ball jars in your stash? Last year I put up some dilly beans in some of these jars. They are the perfect size. They would be great, too, for asparagus. Well, hold on to those babies because Ball is no longer making them and their supply is gone. Actually, Jarden makes their jars for them and they told me that they stopped making them a couple of years ago. I’m hoping that lots of people would love to get their hands on these jars. When I wrote to them, they told me that if there is enough interest, they might consider bringing this jar back. Write to Jarden at JHBFreshPreservingInfo@jardenhomebrands.com.
Hi Margaret!
I doubt I’m sharing anything that original but I like to store some of my fresh garden vegetables using my vacuum pack food saver. Summer squash freezes very well using this method – just wash, slice, vacuum, seal and place in the freezer. They maintain their fresh flavor and color when using this method and taste great too!!
Wow! I didn’t realize you could freeze jars. I was always afraid they would break.
Since so many stores no longer carry just the lids and/or rings for jars all year any more, buy now for later–learned the hard way when I wanted to make jelly from my frozen juice last Christmas.
I am looking for new ideas to put up my harvest, this book would be great. I am using my food saver this yeas to freeze produce. I now freeze pesto in large clumps on a cookie sheet and transfer to a zip lock when frozen. much quicker than the tray method.
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We lost our raised beds to the March floods, so no vegetable gardens this year, but next year they will be bigger and better than ever (in a different location) and I am so grateful for your site. I get the best ideas from you!
This past year we have made the choice to get rid of plastic completely and I use canning Jars to store everything (and I do mean everything lol)….luckily around where I live people sell canning jars like crazy in garage sales and at this point my porch has it’s own little corner devoted to them new and old. I just started canning about a year ago and I love everything about…even the preparation, I feel like I’m in my own little world. It allows me to have time to myself, away from the kids and my husband and to just relax and go about it. (my little ones know they can’t be bugging me while I’m canning because everything is so hot) So every time my husband takes our boys off to go do something special and when they get back I usually have some little snack made for them, they especially love when I make jam. Although I am still learning and I don’t know all the in and outs of it, canning is def something I will do for a long time and also something I will be showing my boys how to do when they get a bit older. =)
I freeze my sauce tomatoes straight from the garden, just give them a rinse and pop them in the freezer in whatever container (plastic bag -ugh!). During the Winter months I just let them thaw slightly and pop the skins right off and make my sauce. Taste fresh from the garden!
Hello Margaret ,
My daughter Mia puts up glass jars of hot Italian peppers in olive oil. So delicious with a loaf of homemade crusty bread.
I tried canning tomatoes a few times, but I was always worried about them spoiling, so I just started freezing my finished tomato sauce in the glass bell jars instead.
It’s great to open a jar of my own gravy whenever I want.
Hi Margaret!
I have no tips because I don’t know how to can. I would like to can though because there’s no such thing as my grandma’s canned pickles. I used to help her with loads of cucumbers every year, and the product was simply delicious. I have never found a pickle as good as those. So in an effort to reproduce those pickles, I’d love a reference book to figure out how its done!
Jars of watermelon rind pickles are in the water bath now. We are a watermelon eating family, but the melon I used is the first of the season with a rind thick enough to be a possible pickle–and just barely. Does anyone know the best watermelon to grow for the thick rinds (and pickles like Grandma used to make)? Next spring, I will dedicate some of my tight garden space to at least one vine to preserve :-) the ancestral southern tradition of this old time pickle for the younger generation.
Hello again!
As several people have said, I like the straight-sided wide mouths for freezing and I save the regular mouths for actual canning. I get tired of all the plastic in our lives and I find a freezer of jars charming. They layer very well if you place a piece of cardboard between. For storing, I use a shelf in my garage. Wash, store upside down (to prevent dust settling in the bottoms) and then when it is time to use again I run them through the dishwasher while I am doing all the prep. It usually times perfectly for hot clean jars ready when my food is ready to be packed. Other storage ideas for jars is to use the top shelves of closets, under beds, and shelves above the washer/dryer.