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    How to Can Pasta Sauce for Beginners

    Pasta sauce

    A tomato-rich sauce for pasta is a variation on a theme. You know your favorite pasta sauce and when the tomato harvest comes in summer, you have the opportunity to can your favorite tomato-based sauces for the year to come and capture the flavors of summer. There are quick ways to put up pasta sauce […] More

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    Canning Peaches for Beginners

    Peaches canned

    Canning peaches is simple. You will need just ripe peaches that are not soft or mushy, and you will need about 45 minutes of preparation time and about 25 minutes of processing time. Peaches are easily prepared for canning in a hot-water bath canner. You will need about 17½ pounds of peaches for each canner […] More

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    How to Make Dill Pickles for Beginners

    Dill pickles from cucumbers and dill sprigs

    You can turn cucumbers into pickles in about 40 minutes. It’s not difficult. My favorite pickling cucumbers are County Fair, National Pickling, Pickle Bush, Regal, and Saladin. Pickling cucumbers are short–4 inches is about the right length–and compact with tender skins. Longer, larger cucumbers such as Marketmore and Bush Champion are best for fresh eating, […] More

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    Canning Sweet Pickle Relish

    Relish Pickle

    Sweet pickle relish combines cucumbers, green or red bell peppers, and onions from the summer garden. This is the classic relish to enjoy on hot dogs and hamburgers. Half-pint jars are probably the right size for canning sweet pickle relish. Once opened you’ll want to keep this relish refrigerated and use it up within two […] More

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    Beginner’s Guide to Canning Peppers

    Peppers on stems

    Can sweet bell peppers and chile peppers—which can be sweet or hot–to preserve your summer harvest? Can peppers after deciding if you want to preserve sweet or heat or a combination of the two? Sweet green, yellow, orange, or red bell peppers are large and thick fleshed. They have a sweet, crisp flavor. Chile peppers—such […] More

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    How to Home Can Tomatoes for Beginners

    Tomatoes Canned

    Canning is the best way to enjoy fresh, flavorful garden-grown tomatoes long after harvest time. Canned tomatoes are ideal for use in soups, stews, and casseroles. You will need 22 pounds of fresh tomatoes for a canner load of 7 quarts and 14 pounds of fresh tomatoes for a canner load of 9 pints. That’s […] More

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    Canning the Asparagus Harvest

    Asparagus canned

    Home grown asparagus can be cut for canning the second spring after planting. The harvest time lasts 4 to 6 weeks and begins when temperatures rise above 55°F. Then asparagus sends up stalks from its thick underground roots. Asparagus stalks grow 2 to 3 inches a day in cool weather, 7 to 8 inches a […] More

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    How to Make Orange Marmalade

    Orange marmalade on toast

    Orange marmalade is the most popular marmalade. Marmalade is a soft translucent jelly preserve quite simply made from fruit, water, and sugar. Marmalade looks like jam but it contains thin fruit slices or diced fruit suspended in the jelly. Many say the fine flavor of the Seville orange makes the best marmalade. But you can […] More

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    How to Preserve Lemons

    Lemons preserved1

    Lemon is the most common accompaniment for fish and other seafood dishes. It’s interchangeable with vinegar for many sauces and salad dressings. Here is a way to preserve lemons for use as flavoring in marinades, salad dressings, and many fish and stew recipes. You will find the flavor a bit salty, pleasantly fermented, and just […] More

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    Vegetable Home Canning Cautions

    Canned carrots1

    Vegetables—unlike fruits–are low in acid so it is important to use prescribed methods and equipment when canning the overflow of summer and fall harvest. Use a steam pressure canner for vegetables. Low acid foods must be processed in a pressure canner to be free of botulism and other bacteria, mold, and yeast growth risks. (You […] More

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    How to Make Sauerkraut

    Sauerkraut1

    Sauerkraut is pickled white cabbage. How to Make Sauerkraut in a Stone Crock Finely sliced cabbage is placed in a stone crock, a hardwood keg, or barrel and layered with salt. As the layers are built up, they are pounded down with a wooden mallet. Then the layers are covered with a clean cloth, a […] More