What are You Eating from the Garden?

[SPedigrees]

I chopped up the lone last fresh tomato into a salad last night. Ah, it's grocery store tomatoes from now on, until next summer's harvest. A sad thought.

I plan to use my little indoor grow kit to provide me with salad greens this winter.

Soon I will get inspired to turn the many bags of frozen tomatoes, and leftover ground bison, into a vat of spaghetti sauce. I need the freezer space!

 

[ducks4you]

@SPedigrees, you need to learn how to hot water bath can your tomatoes. I will open a jar in the winter and eat them right out of it, and they taste like I canned them yesterday.
It is Worth the time and trouble.

 

[SPedigrees]

@SPedigrees, you need to learn how to hot water bath can your tomatoes. I will open a jar in the winter and eat them right out of it, and they taste like I canned them yesterday.
It is Worth the time and trouble.

I'm too scared to try canning for fear of poisoning myself and/or someone else. Just call me chicken! Even back when I made jam and sealed the jars with wax, I didn't trust it enough to store in the cupboard, but kept the jars in the fridge. Anyways these frozen tomatoes are already earmarked for spaghetti sauce. If it makes enough, I'll freeze the excess sauce. Since there are few things I love as much as spaghetti, this works for me! I have been given a jar or two of home canned tomatoes over the years, and you're right, they are nearly as good as fresh from the garden.

My grandma canned a lot of things, but was winding down canning operations when I came along, so I never had the opportunity to learn from her. She taught me a lot of other kitchen skills, but not that one.

Here's my overstuffed kitchen freezer, but I have at least another bag of tomatoes in the upstairs freezer:

 

[flowerbug]

if you have the right variety of tomatoes (avoid those noted as low-acid types) and don't water them down during prep they will be safe canned in a BWB.

food poisoning is often caused by cross-contamination from meats or vegetables that weren't washed or cooked fully before combining with other ingredients or got contaminated some other way.

acids tend to kill off most of the harmful bacteria and the worst of the bacteria that causes botulism won't grow in an acidic enough environment.

the few times a jar of tomatoes goes off is because somehow we missed a bit of spoiled inclusion which doesn't ruin the whole batch. it's been very rare (we've done thousands of quarts of tomatoes in my life that i remember starting helping out at about age 6 and i don't remember that many having issues).

 

[flowerbug]

yesterday's salvage from the pepper garden were some longer tapered green peppers that did not get damaged by frosts (hiding under the leaves). cleaned them up and cut them up and enjoyed some bites while i was prepping them and then used some in with the stuffed pepper caserole that i thawed out from the freezer.

there's three meals for me in a quart yogurt container and i like to have some of the fresher chunks of peppers put in while nuking to heat them through but they still have most of their firmness and flavor.

 

[ducks4you]

I'm too scared to try canning for fear of poisoning myself and/or someone else. Just call me chicken! Even back when I made jam and sealed the jars with wax, I didn't trust it enough to store in the cupboard, but kept the jars in the fridge. Anyways these frozen tomatoes are already earmarked for spaghetti sauce. If it makes enough, I'll freeze the excess sauce. Since there are few things I love as much as spaghetti, this works for me! I have been given a jar or two of home canned tomatoes over the years, and you're right, they are nearly as good as fresh from the garden.

My grandma canned a lot of things, but was winding down canning operations when I came along, so I never had the opportunity to learn from her. She taught me a lot of other kitchen skills, but not that one.

Here's my overstuffed kitchen freezer, but I have at least another bag of tomatoes in the upstairs freezer:
View attachment 69817

Well, you didn't SAY that you froze them!!!
I can tell you after hot water bathing pumpkin, then seeing it go bad after 5 months, it takes a LOT to poison yourself by canning tomatoes.
If they go bad, you can SMELL it across the room!!
The only time I ever saw anybody use wax was canning grape jelly.
I have plastic solid screw top lids that I use on my grape jelly jars after opening, but some folks just put the canning lid and screw top and use that to store in the fridge.

 

[ducks4you]

Still eating tomatoes, which are still ripening on the kitchen table since I brought them in before the frosts last week.
We WILL be eating 2yo frozen okra that will be fried up to go with the Thanksgiving turkey aGAIN this year.
And, we are eating on the pickles I made from the cucumbers I grew this year.

 

[SPedigrees]

Well, you didn't SAY that you froze them!!!

Um, yes I did!

"Soon I will get inspired to turn the many bags of frozen tomatoes, and leftover ground bison, into a vat of spaghetti sauce. I need the freezer space!"
~and~
"Anyways these frozen tomatoes are already earmarked for spaghetti sauce....."

The unfrozen ones have all been eaten as salad ingredients.

There was a news story long ago, when I was an impressionable 20 year old, of a husband and wife who fell victim to botulism or some other bacterium in home canned tomatoes. She died and he survived if I recall. He reported that the tomatoes didn't taste quite right, but he thought nothing of it. There were no obvious signs of contamination. Then there were reported stats about the number (admittedly not large) of people who died or sickened every year from tainted home canned goods. That story was enough for me. Not having the benefit of a teacher/mentor when it came canning, I've always erred on the side of caution.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Many moons ago when canning foods from the garden the way to tell if canned food is bad is if the metal lid is bulging or dented. Or any food that when opening spurts out liquid or has a foul smell.

Anyone make refrigerator pickles? Refrigerator pickles don’t need a hot water bath. They are preserved by boiling vinegar and water , add pepper corns , garlic, herbs, salt to flavor . Let the brine cool before adding to canning jar then pop in the frig. Can store in frig up to 4-5 weeks.

recipe for bread and butter pickles.

Bread and Butter Pickles

Homemade bread and butter pickles are a great way to end summer! Cucumber, onion, peppers, and garlic are pickled in a spicy cider vinegar mixture.

www.allrecipes.com

Now I use my canning jars for vases.

 

[SPedigrees]

Many moons ago when canning foods from the garden the way to tell if canned food is bad is if the metal lid is bulging or dented. Or any food that when opening spurts out liquid or has a foul smell.

Anyone make refrigerator pickles? Refrigerator pickles don’t need a hot water bath. They are preserved by boiling vinegar and water , add pepper corns , garlic, herbs, salt to flavor . Let the brine cool before adding to canning jar then pop in the frig. Can store in frig up to 4-5 weeks.

Dented or bulging cans are a sure sign, but this news story centered on cans/jars that appeared normal and tasted nearly normal. It was enough to scare off chicken-hearted me.

On edit, I wonder if following the money trail from that news story would have led to Del Monte et al. It was right at the start of the back-to-the-land movement and perhaps the commercial food industry regarded home canning as a rising competitor.

I made bread and butter pickles long ago according to a recipe, so technically they were canned in their jars, but, as with the blackberry jam I made in that same era, I refrigerated them as soon as they cooled. I think of them as "refrigerator" preserves and pickles, even though technically they weren't.

Only in this past decade did I learn about actual refrigerator pickles and jellies/jams. Easier to make, and more sensible, since ultimately I'm depending on refrigeration to preserve them. Now I usually keep a jar of pickled cut up bell peppers and sliced onions in the fridge because they last so long that way.