Canning Pickled Onions

When we were almost done with the canning of the Apple Ginger Chutney, Gretchen dropped in with a bag of  home grown onions for canning. The onions are huge, jumbo size.

According to Karen DW, onions are low in acidity and they need to be pickled.

So, we did a quick Pickled Onions canning for Gretchen. Pickled onions can be tossed with salad or added to sandwiches, especially cheese sandwiches.

Ingredients

• 3 large onions
• 4 cups apple cider vinegar
• sea salt for flavouring

Source: Karen DW

Makes about 9 x 250ml jars

Canning Apple Ginger Chutney

I was able to find time for the canning drop-in again last week. For the month of September, the canning drop-in is conducted at the Minoru Seniors Center, in the kitchen of the cafeteria. The canning drop-in runs on Tuesday, from 5PM to 7PM for the month of August and September.

For last week’s canning drop-in, Karen DW of Your Secret Chef prepared Apple Ginger Chutney for sale at the Applepalooza event which will take place on Oct 2nd in the Apple Orchard at the south end of Gilbert Road, from 10AM to 2PM. It’s a celebration about apple. This is the second annual festival and it includes tasting and sales of apples, baked goods with apples and apple ginger chutney. The price of a jar of 250ml homemade organic apple ginger chutney is only $5 which is a bargain. There is also a lunch by chef Ian Lai ($5), face painting and crafts and wonderful music in the orchard.

This delicious condiment can be made with in-season apples now, or with non-seasonal ingredients any time of the year. It is delicious served with meats like chicken and grilled fish or combined with sour cream or cream cheese in appetizer toppings or sauces.

The apples are home grown and it’s perfectly alright to use the imperfect apples for canning.

Ingredients

• 3 cups (750 ml) prepared Granny Smith apples, about 5 large or 1 lb (500 g)
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped (we substituted this with a cup of apple as we did not have the red bell pepper)
• 2 cups (500 ml) chopped onion
• 2 cups (500 ml) dark brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1- 1/2 cups (375 ml) cider vinegar
• 1 cup (250 ml) golden raisins
• 1/4 cup (50 ml) peeled and minced ginger root
• 3/4 teaspoon (4 ml) ground mustard
• 3/4 teaspoon (4 ml) salt
• 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) red pepper flakes

Source: Bernadin via Karen DW

Makes about 7 x 250ml jars.

Canning Herb Jelly

It’s summer and it’s time for canning all the bountiful fruits and vegetables. The Richmond Food Security Society once again is hosting a number of Canning Drop-in.

The Canning Drop-in started on Aug 2nd and for the month of August, it will be held at Garratt Wellness Center. The Canning Drop-in is scheduled every Tuesday from 5PM to around 8PM. You can bring your own produce to can and use the equipment and jars there or you can help to preserve produce from the Sharing Farm for the food bank.

Some of the participants did take advantage of the facilities and brought their own fruits for canning.

The above are apricot jam and raspberry jam made by some of the participants.

For the first Canning Drop-in, chef Karen DW showed us how to can herb jelly and made some garlic herb pesto. Here is the link to the recipe of making easy herb pestos that Karen DW did last year.

We made two types herb jellies, i.e. basil jelly and mint jelly. The herbs are harvested from the Richmond Sharing Farm that morning.

Karen brought some of the jelly that she made earlier for us to taste. The green color is mint jelly (with food coloring) while the amber color is basil jelly. They were delicious. Anyone has any idea of how to use these herb jelly other than enjoying them with bread?

Ingredients

• 2 cups (500 ml) coarsely chopped fresh herbs, loosely packed
• 1  1/2 cups (375 ml) unsweetened apple juice or dry white wine
• 1 cup (250 ml) water
• 1 cup (250 ml) white wine vinegar
• 5 1/4 cups (1300 ml) granulated sugar
• 1 pkg (57 g) powdered Fruit Pectin

Source: Karen DW; Bernadin

Yield: 6 x 250ml jars

Chef Karen DW will demonstrate how to can Tomatillo Salsa in the next Canning Drop-In.

Making Sauerkraut

In the last food preservation workshop organised by the Food Security Society at Garratt Wellness Center, Karen DW demonstrated how to make Sauerkraut.

This is a simple home fermentation technique. You can use greens like cabbage, chard, etc to make Sauerkraut. The final product of the Sauerkraut is sour due to the acid lactic released by the bacteria during fermentation.

Ingredients

• greens, like chards, cabbage, etc
• salt

For the best sauerkraut, use firm heads of fresh cabbage. Shred cabbage and start kraut between 24 and 48 hours after harvest.

Here is an excerpt supply by Karen DW  regarding preparing and canning fermented foods extracted from the Complete guide to Home Canning.

A 1-gallon container is needed for each 5 pounds of fresh vegetables. Therefore, a 5-gallon stone crock is of ideal size for fermenting about 25 pounds of fresh cabbage or cucumbers. Food-grade plastic and glass containers are excellent substitutes for stone crocks. Other 1- to 3-gallon non-food-grade plastic containers may be used if lined inside with a clean food-grade plastic bag. Caution: Be certain that foods contact only food-grade plastics. Do not use garbage bags or trash liners. Fermenting sauerkraut in quart and half gallon Mason jars is an acceptable practice, but may result in more spoilage losses.

Cabbage and cucumbers must be kept 1 to 2 inches under brine while fermenting. After adding prepared vegetables and brine, insert a suitably sized dinner plate or glass pie plate inside the fermentation container. The plate must be slightly smaller than the container opening, yet large enough to cover most of the shredded cabbage or cucumbers. To keep the plate under the brine, weight it down with 2 to 3 sealed quart jars filled with water. Covering the container opening with a clean, heavy bath towel helps to prevent contamination from insects and molds while the vegetables are fermenting. Fine quality fermented vegetables are also obtained when the plate is weighted down with a very large clean, plastic bag filled with 3 quarts of water containing 4 1/2 tablespoons of salt. Be sure to seal the plastic bag. Freezer bags sold for packaging turkeys are suitable for use with 5-gallon containers.

The fermentation container, plate, and jars must be washed in hot sudsy water, and rinsed well with very hot water before use.

Source: Complete guide to Home Canning via Karen DW

Canning Apple Pie Filling

In the Food Preservation workshop at Garratt Wellness Center, Karen DW shared an Apple Pie Filling recipe for canning. She has quite a bit of apples on hand.

You will need 2 x 500ml jars (approximately 1 liter or 4 cups) of filling for a 9-inch or 24 cm pie.

Ingredients

• 12 cups sliced peeled cored apples, treated to prevent browning and drained (about 12 medium size apples)
• water
• 2 3/4 cups granulated sugar (or same amount of brown sugar, not pack)
• 3/4 cup corn starch
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 1/2 cups unsweetened apple juice
• 1 1/4 cups cold water
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 7 (16 ounce or 500ml) pint glass preserving jars with lids and bands.

P/S: Apple juice missing from the picture above.

Source: @2010 Hearthmark, LLC dba Jarden Home Brands via Karen DW

Canning Salmon

During the huge salmon run this year, Lorna bought some for canning. She was worried about canning salmon using a pressure canner on her glass top stove which may crack. She lost her user manual and was unable to check if her glass top stove can accommodate pressure canner. So, she brought her salmon to the Food Preservation workshop organised by Richmond Food Security Society at Garratt Wellness Center for canning.

Use properly eviscerated fish. Chill cleaned fish on ice or refrigerate until ready to can.

Ingredients

• fresh salmon
• 1/2 teaspoon pickling salt  or sea salt for 250 ml jar, optional
• freshly ground black pepper, optional
• water, optional

Source: http://www.bernadin.ca via Karen DW

Fennel Seeds Pesto

This is the last workshop to be conducted by Ian Lai for the Food Preservation workshops organised by the Richmond Food Security Society. Ian, thank you for your time and sharing your expertise with us.

For this workshop, Ian decided to make a Fennel Seeds Pesto from the abundance of harvest from the Richmond Sharing Farm. The Fennel Seeds Pesto is very strong in flavour. It is good for marinate with fish. It is too strong to be eaten as a dip.

Fennel is a perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves. It is very aromatic and strong in flavour especially the seeds. Fennel seeds has a anise flavour to it and often confused with anise. The leaves has a more delicate flavour and feathery like dill. The bulb is a crisp, root vegetable and often used like onion.

Ingredients

• Fennel Seeds
• Tahini
• Lime or lemon juice
• Olive oil or water

Source: Ian Lai

Canning Prune Plum Jam

This is another canning initiated by an attendee. This time its canning Prune Plum Jam. The attendee tried some of this jam from her friend and she liked it and decided to try to make some herself. She bought the prune plums for about 99 cents a pound.

This Prune Plum Jam does not require any pectin at all. Plum is rich in pectin itself.

Ingredients

• 4 pounds of prune plum
• sugar to taste

Yields 4 x 500ml jar

Canning Stone Fruit in Simple Syrup

The attendees of the food preservation workshops are encouraged to bring their own fruit for canning. This allows people with limited resources like canner, rack, etc to have a hands on in canning.

At one of the workshop, an attendee brought some plums to can. The plums are simply canned in simple syrup.

In another workshop. another attendee canned some peaches in simple syrup. The process to can stoned fruit in simple syrup is pretty easy.

Ingredients

• stoned fruit
• sugar
• water

Canning Raspberry Jam

Cara brought some frozen raspberry that she bought direct (or pick?) from a local farm when it’s in season for canning at the Food Preservation workshop held at the Garratt Wellness Center organised by the Richmond Food Security Society.

The raspberry jam tasted wonderful. It is tangy and sweet. These raspberry jam will be great on toast or scones.

Ingredients

• frozen or fresh raspberry
• sugar to taste
• lemon juice
• pectin

Cara bought the liquid pectin for her jam making. Check out this link for some concern using liquid pectin.

At the end, Karen DW (the host of this food preservation workshop) suggested that Cara try different pectin for her raspberry jam, one using liquid pectin and another no sugar pectin which so happen Karen had with her.