Stephanie Petersen - Canning Cents

contents

foreword

Welcome to eating healthy whole foods on a shoestring. As a chef and a mom, I have been ever conscious of the changes in the food industry over the last few decades. As a friend to farmers and home gardeners, I know what it takes to bring fresh produce to the table. I have seen the rising cost of fresh foods. I understand how hard it is to feed a busy family. I have struggled with a tight food budget for many years and heard on many different fronts that it was almost impossible to eat healthy whole foods on a low budget. When I left the traditional restaurant scene and became a full-time mother, a large part of my new life was saving money on our familys food budget so that I could be home. This meant that I made everything from scratch and watched every penny. I know I am not the first mother who ever had to watch the budget closely. I did what needed to be done. I trust you are doing the best you can as well. I found, for the most part, that many of my friends and family were spending a great deal more on their food than I wasand we were eating whole foods. Now, as a full-time working mother, we still do it. Though a few things have changed with teenage boys, and though my food budget has gone up a lot over the last couple of years, one thing that hasnt changed is my passion for saving money and eating well. One of the best ways to do this is to home preserve.

introduction

my beginnings

I grew up in a home with a kitchen pantry that was always well stocked with home-canned products. My father is a Master Gardener, and we always had a large garden that filled the entire yard. My dad is still known for his remarkable green thumb. There was always bounty from the glorious garden to be put in jars and processed for feeding the family all year long. My mother is a masterful home chef with a degree in home economics education and food science. Imagine growing up in a home with parents like that, and you can understand what makes me so passionate about real food. Know too that we were not at all what most people would call wealthy. It was a humble life. When I close my eyes and think about those years, there are two things that carried us through: love and hard work.

beginnings for you

If you are new to home canning and preserving, I am writing this book for you. I hope to share some of my keys for success in not only saving money but preserving food, keys that can make a big impact on your health and the health of those you love. In this book, I will be sharing my most cherished recipes from years of canning with my family. I will be sharing my insights and my struggles. I will be cheering you onward to success. I will be sharing my heart. It is my sincere hope that this book will empower you to take a firm hold on your familys food budget and move forward confidently. Working together elbow to elbow and heart to heart is powerful. Consider me your new best friend in the kitchen. Grab your mason jars and embrace your pioneering spirit. Were going on a canning adventure! Onward and upward!

chapter one

home canning basics

canning principles

Home canning is taking your food one step beyond just cooking. It is preventing food from spoiling or naturally deteriorating. It is important to do this safely, and there are some basic principles that will empower you to do so. I am not going to introduce any new canning techniques in this book. I am a chef, not a food scientist. What I am going to be sharing with you are the methods that are scientifically proven (and from reputable sources) to prevent the growth of potentially lethal organisms in your food. I dont want to scare anyone. On the contrary, I want to make you aware of what you need to know when home canning to protect your family. The principles of canning are designed to create an ideal condition for optimum freshness, with the least possible opportunity for the growth of molds, yeasts, spores, and bacteria. These are the principles you need to master.

conditions for success

Everything in life needs the right condition for success. If you want a garden to grow, you give your soil the proper treatments. If you dont want weeds to flourish, you take necessary precautions. If you want children to be successful, you give them all the right conditions at home and school to do their best. By the same token, if you want germs, molds, and yeast to grow, give them something warm, moist, and full of food. The environment in a canning jar has the potential to be the best condition ever for the growth of horrible stuff. When you control the conditions in your home-canned products so that they are the least appealing place for microorganisms to grow, you will have your best success.

heat processing

Canning interrupts the natural decay and spoilage of food products by heating the food in a home canning jar, tightly closed, in a vacuum environment. Heat applied and held for the proper amount of time ensures that potential microorganisms are killed. That same heat that destroys the organisms helps create a vacuum seal, preventing other organisms from having access to food in the jar. This seal is created during cooling when the lid seals to the jar. This practice is called processing. It is a method of proper temperature processing that must be employed, along with the proper amount of time exposed to the heat, to destroy normal levels of heat-resistant microorganisms. I will refer often to processing times in this book. This is the most pivotal step in canning.

some frequently asked questions about home canning

What are the requirements for safe home canning?

Heat and acid level are the two keys to canning safety. High-acid foods such as plums and rhubarb are quite resistant to bacteria and only require the boiling water-bath method of canning. Low-acid foodsincluding most vegetables, meats, and seafoodmust be canned at higher temperatures, temperatures that only a pressure canner can attain. We will be exploring both of these canning methods in this book.

What jars are best for canning?

Manufacturers make heavy-duty jars specifically for home canning. Do not use, say, empty peanut butter jars, because commercial jars are not strong enough to be safely used for repeated home canning. Mason jarswhich screw shut with a threaded neckare the most common choice.

Is it okay to reuse the lids?

After a lid has been pried off a jar once, a perfect fit can no longer be guaranteed. The jars themselves can be used many times, as long as the sealing rims are perfectly smooth and there are no scratches or cracks. Yes, this book is about saving money on home canning, but the metal lid is one area where you dont want to cut corners. Invest in new lids every time you home can.

What is botulism?

Botulism is a serious, often fatal form of food poisoning. The poison is produced by Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium that is found everywherein soil, on raw fruits and vegetables, and on meat and fish. Over the years, a number of people have died from botulism as a direct result of improper home canning. It is not something to take lightly.

What causes botulism?

Botulism spores are resistant to heateven from boiling waterand thrive in a moist, oxygen-free environment. They are most commonly found in low-acid foods like vegetables and meat. They can only be killed at temperatures over 240 degrees. Water boils at a much lower temperature, and you will need to pressure can these low-acid foods in order for them to be safe. As botulism spores reproduce, they generate one of the most extraordinarily powerful poisons on earth: one teaspoon worth of the spore is sufficient to kill 100,000 people. Improper home canning creates the perfect environment in which to grow the botulism toxin. Because food contaminated by botulism may very well look and smell normal, there is often no warning. That is why home canning must be done properly with extreme careany shortcuts you take could be deadly. Now do you understand why canning safety is important?