Interesting Canning Videos

[Kathy in FL]

Canning Boneless Skinless Chicken

[Kathy in FL]

How to Can Butter

I know it isn't recommended but there are enough questions that some people might find this interesting.

[Kathy in FL]

Pros and Cons of canning butter

[Kathy in FL]

Canning milk of all things. As always, use sense as not everything that is done by folks is "recommended."

[Kathy in FL]

Canning fresh pineapple. Yum. Time to get to the produce markets around here.

[Kathy in FL]

Canned meatloaf ... yes I said canned meatloaf. Interesting.

[Kathy in FL]

Pressure canning bacon.

[Kathy in FL]

Pressure canning fajita

[Kathy in FL]

Home canned stew meat

[Kathy in FL]

Canning dark chicken meat ... chicken thighs

[Kathy in FL]

Canning dried beans. Makes some good points on how convenient it is.

[Kathy in FL]

Home canned sausage and bean soup. Two versions ... a vegetarian variety and a regular variety.

[Kathy in FL]

Canning chicken and rice soup

[Kathy in FL]

Believe it or not this is canning rice. Again, not recommended but it makes an interesting point of reference to consider it and/or discuss it. Parts one and two.

[Kathy in FL]

Canning group beer and cubed beef

[Kathy in FL]

Canning apple pie filling for the novice

[Kathy in FL]

Canning cheese ... again not recommended but she goes over that part of it.

[kyrsyan]

I've run across these ideas before.

Only thing I noticed right off the bat was that if you are going to do something like meatloaf - use wide mouth jars. You'd have to shred it to get it out of a regular mouth jar. Not something I've tried or am interested in trying though. I did one same batch of canned ground meat. It came out with the texture of dog food. Really, really gross. Not willing to try again.

Oh, and canned beans are a blessing around here. I keep several types and mixes for different recipes. So much easier to plan a last minute meal without having to worry about the beans.

[Kathy in FL]

I've run across these ideas before.

Only thing I noticed right off the bat was that if you are going to do something like meatloaf - use wide mouth jars. You'd have to shred it to get it out of a regular mouth jar. Not something I've tried or am interested in trying though. I did one same batch of canned ground meat. It came out with the texture of dog food. Really, really gross. Not willing to try again.

Oh, and canned beans are a blessing around here. I keep several types and mixes for different recipes. So much easier to plan a last minute meal without having to worry about the beans.

LOL! Dog food? LOL! Geez I can hear my family now. ROFL!

I brown my ground beef and then soak the grease off of it before canning it. For me it makes a much better produce (Use a strong beef stock as the broth rather than plain water as some will do) and less trouble with seals ... at least in my experience.

[kyrsyan]

We can't use beef. I used ground turkey and added the taco spices we use. The turkey was a gross texture and the spices came out wrong. No seal problems at all.

I may gamble again one day and at least try just the turkey, but brown it first. I just hate waste and gross or not throwing away those jars hurt. At least it was only 3 jars.

Oh, I forgot. Statements from those who've done it say that canned bacon tastes really really yummy. The only problem is that for some people, when the jars were opened it was more like bacon bits. It would get eaten either way here, but thought I would share the info. And no, I don't know if there is a difference in the methods used (such as raw pack or hot pack). But this is one of those that seems to have seal problems sometimes probably due to the level of fat, which is one of the reasons for using parchment paper I think.

[gunnersmom]

Thanks for posting these, Kathy. I'm going to try the beans/bean soup. That sounds like fun. I canned chicken and rice soup a couple years ago and was not happy with the rice texture. I used long grain, but it just was like mush. I usually keep a bag of cooked rice in the fridge, so it's just as easy for me to use the canned chicken and add rice as I wish.

I highly recommend Summerthymes Tomato soup. It's quite yummy.

[peekaboo]

We use beans here for so many things that I keep 6 varieties canned at all times. It so much easier and cost effective.

When canning bacon I had much better results with raw packed thick sliced bacon. It does have lots of grease in the jar. Once its canned the shelf life on the grease is extended and part of my madness is to have that grease for cooking later.

I thought long and hard about canning meat loafs. I was concerned about the density of the meat reaching the needed temps. I did can some but eventually I heated it and feed it to the dogs. I now can meat balls with a meat loaf recipe, same taste without the worry. I use a thinned tomatoes sauce as liquid. Once they are browned the meat balls come out of the jars looking like meat not a large grayish kinda clump.

I now pressure can my butter. When I first started I used the water bath method. I was concerned about the fat content so better safe then sorry. The end product is still the same. If your going to try this make use you get all the foam off of it when melting it. If not your going to have brown chunks in your butter. They don't change the taste but it looks less appetizing.

I wasn't thrilled with the texture of canned rice. So now I cook it then dehydrate it and keep it in vacuum sealed jars. We use it just like instant rice add to soups by the hand full or just add hot water to re-hydrate like instant rice.

[moldy]

I 've canned butter and cheese. The butter was fine, but the cheese was just... too greasy and the texture was all wrong. I haven't done any kind of ground meat with the exception of chicken sandwich spread ( I need to do some more of that). We love canned stew meat and canned beans. I have such a hard time getting beans done at our altitude.

[Shooting Star]

Adding my thanks -

[CountryKate]

Thanks - I'm going to try the meatloaf!

[gunnersmom]

Country kate, I would recommend that you use a better quality of beef than the gal in the video used. I haven't cooked with hamburger for years, but it sure was greasy back in the day. I switched to ground chuck for a long period of time, but since it's just the two of us now, I use ground round for and ground pork in most of my recipes.

The funny thing is, ground chuck at my local grocery store is now 3.69/lb, but a good tasting ground round can be had at another store with a butcher area for 3.19/lb.

[minnie mouse]

Thank you for posting these! They'll be extremely helpful!

My great grandmother canned numerous items from her garden every year, but I didn't live close enough to be able to learn from her. I do remember the canned items lined up on the shelves in her basement and the items in her root cellar.

It is a way of life that my family needs to get back to -- although we don't have the basement or root cellar!

[TXKajun]

It seems that anything I can with ground meat (spaghetti sauce, gumbo with sausage, etc) tastes way "overdone" (for lack of a better word). The raw pack beef chunks, chicken chunks, pork chunks, any beans, etc, all taste great. The chicken in the gumbo tastes fine, too.....only the ground meat part tastes a bit overdone. I figure meat loaf will do the same. Soooooooo, I think I may try doing the sauces and gumbo without any ground products and then add the ground ingredients after reheating the sauces. Anyone else notice this?

Kathy, it never ceases to amaze me at your wealth of knowledge. Thanks tons for sharing!

Kajun