Canning Recipes
1/19/09 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kateSo here are four recipes that we Mollens do (well, other Mollen folk do) in the fall. I grew up on this stuff! We canned... I think in September/October and then we had soup and pickles until the next May. These are family recipes, so they're... um. Not particularly precise or well-documented. But they are tasty! And if you've canned before, making these recipes work shouldn't be too tough.
Gramma Maertz's Tomato Soup Base
We pull out a jar or two of this at least once a week in the winter, throw it in a big pot, add some frozen veggies or pasta or meatballs or whatever else is handy (Mom throws in leftovers... not always a good idea (the chicken Alfredo was a disaster)) and voila! A hearty soup for dinner that night and lunches the rest of the week. Gramma was hard put to write this down; her recipe was basically to grind and boil whatever leftover vegetables she had at the end of the fall, add some barley, butter, red pepper and salt, boil it some more, and can it. This recipe is about 20 years of refinement by Mom and my sisters. The vegetables are still completely up for grabs (except the tomatoes), so use whatever you have handy.
1/2 bushel tomatoes, peeled
2 bunches celery
24 small onions
10 carrots
Grind these ingredients coarsely and boil 1 hour.
Add:
3 c. pearl barley
3 T. salt
1/2 t. red pepper
3 T. butter
Boil 2 hours.
Pack jars and hot water bath 30 minutes.
Mary's Salsa
I lived with my sister when I did my student teaching ages ago. We did the usual canning of Gramma's tomato soup base that fall, and then did several batches of salsa too. It's darn tasty and pretty mild - for her crazy hot batches she'd add habanero pepper.
10 c. tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 large onions, chopped 1/4 c. tomato paste
1/4 c. vinegar
2 t. crushed red pepper
1 t. salt
1/2 t. garlic powder
1 t. sugar
Combine and cook 1-2 hours until thick. (There are no more instructions on the recipe card, but I just asked, and Mary said she gives them a hot water bath, so... um. Good luck with that.)
Bread and Butter Pickles
This is a little vague - you may have to google canning techniques to actually manage it - but it's so worth it. These are my favorite pickles - I can still sit down and eat a jar in one sitting. My mom pickled dill spears too, but those were always kind of soft, and not too good, and one year she forgot the dill, and we threw the whole batch.
4 quarts sliced cucumbers
onion
peppers
celery
1/3 c. pickling salt
ice cube
5 c. sugar
3 c. cider vinegar
2 T. mustard seed
1 1/2 t. tumeric
1 1/2 t. celery seed
Combine vegetables and salt and ice - mix and let stand 3 hours. Drain. Add the rest of the ingredients and boil. pack - heat pack 5 minutes.
Cherry Bounce
Door County is a big cherry area (not as big as Michigan, but big for Wisconsin), and you can go and pick your own. We always spent a day each summer and came back with buckets and buckets of cherries. And then we would spend hours pitting them (no fun at all!) so Mom could make these. The longer you let them sit, the more alcoholic they get; Mom said she and a friend found a jar a couple of years after canning and got totally wasted. Oh, Mom. <3
8 c. fresh unpitted cherries
2 c. sugar
1 1/2 t. whole allspice
1 1/2 t. whole cloves
2 sticks cinnamon
4 c bourbon
Wash and stem cherries, place half of cherries in 2 1-qt. jars, mixing and put in jars. 2 c. bourbon in each jar, stir daily until sugar is dissolved and seal. Store in dark place for 2 months.
Gramma Maertz's Tomato Soup Base
We pull out a jar or two of this at least once a week in the winter, throw it in a big pot, add some frozen veggies or pasta or meatballs or whatever else is handy (Mom throws in leftovers... not always a good idea (the chicken Alfredo was a disaster)) and voila! A hearty soup for dinner that night and lunches the rest of the week. Gramma was hard put to write this down; her recipe was basically to grind and boil whatever leftover vegetables she had at the end of the fall, add some barley, butter, red pepper and salt, boil it some more, and can it. This recipe is about 20 years of refinement by Mom and my sisters. The vegetables are still completely up for grabs (except the tomatoes), so use whatever you have handy.
1/2 bushel tomatoes, peeled
2 bunches celery
24 small onions
10 carrots
Grind these ingredients coarsely and boil 1 hour.
Add:
3 c. pearl barley
3 T. salt
1/2 t. red pepper
3 T. butter
Boil 2 hours.
Pack jars and hot water bath 30 minutes.
Mary's Salsa
I lived with my sister when I did my student teaching ages ago. We did the usual canning of Gramma's tomato soup base that fall, and then did several batches of salsa too. It's darn tasty and pretty mild - for her crazy hot batches she'd add habanero pepper.
10 c. tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 large onions, chopped 1/4 c. tomato paste
1/4 c. vinegar
2 t. crushed red pepper
1 t. salt
1/2 t. garlic powder
1 t. sugar
Combine and cook 1-2 hours until thick. (There are no more instructions on the recipe card, but I just asked, and Mary said she gives them a hot water bath, so... um. Good luck with that.)
Bread and Butter Pickles
This is a little vague - you may have to google canning techniques to actually manage it - but it's so worth it. These are my favorite pickles - I can still sit down and eat a jar in one sitting. My mom pickled dill spears too, but those were always kind of soft, and not too good, and one year she forgot the dill, and we threw the whole batch.
4 quarts sliced cucumbers
onion
peppers
celery
1/3 c. pickling salt
ice cube
5 c. sugar
3 c. cider vinegar
2 T. mustard seed
1 1/2 t. tumeric
1 1/2 t. celery seed
Combine vegetables and salt and ice - mix and let stand 3 hours. Drain. Add the rest of the ingredients and boil. pack - heat pack 5 minutes.
Cherry Bounce
Door County is a big cherry area (not as big as Michigan, but big for Wisconsin), and you can go and pick your own. We always spent a day each summer and came back with buckets and buckets of cherries. And then we would spend hours pitting them (no fun at all!) so Mom could make these. The longer you let them sit, the more alcoholic they get; Mom said she and a friend found a jar a couple of years after canning and got totally wasted. Oh, Mom. <3
8 c. fresh unpitted cherries
2 c. sugar
1 1/2 t. whole allspice
1 1/2 t. whole cloves
2 sticks cinnamon
4 c bourbon
Wash and stem cherries, place half of cherries in 2 1-qt. jars, mixing and put in jars. 2 c. bourbon in each jar, stir daily until sugar is dissolved and seal. Store in dark place for 2 months.
no subject
on 12/19/09 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
on 12/26/09 04:05 am (UTC)Re: salsa: for safety, pints need processed 30 minutes; quarts need 40. I'm big on salsa-canning.
Love!