Canning and Preserving

I bought ham on sale just before Easter and canned it yesterday.  This ham was a butt portion.  It was $0.88 a pound.  On my scale the ham weighed 7 pounds exactly.  After removing the wrapping, cutting off the fat and bone.  I ended up getting 4.25 pound of meat to can.  That filled 7 pint jars.  Here is a picture.  This ham is almost orange in color.  It looks a lot different than the Black Forest ham I canned 2 years ago.

The butt portion ham on the left and the Black Forest ham on the right.

 HOMEMADE YOGURT

I make my yogurt from regular powdered milk in my dehydrator. I used to make yogurt all the time with plain store bought yogurt with active culture.  Then I would same some from my homemade batch for the next batch if I remembered.  Then one day I could no longer find plain yogurt with active cultures in it.  I had heard about powdered yogurt starter, but could never find it.  Finally after about 10 or more years I am back to making my own yogurt.

Homemade Yogurt  Recipe

1 1/2 cups powdered milk  (This is double the amount used for milk to drink)
1 quart water
freeze dried yogurt starter or store bought plain yogurt with active culture and no gelatin.

Mix the powdered milk with about 1 cup of very hot water in a saucepan.  Since regular powdered milk is so hard to dissolve I find it easier to use a small amount of liquid.  I stir and press until all the lumps are dissolved.
Add the remaining water and heat.  When milk reaches 108 - 112 degrees remove from heat. It is OK to over heat.  Just cool it back down before you add the starter, so you don't kill it. Add one packet of freeze dried starter to a small amount of hot milk.  Stir until dissolved. Add dissolved starter back to pan of milk and stir well.  (If you are using plain yogurt, add 2 heaping tablespoons to a small amount of milk and mix well.)
Now pour into 1/2 pint jars with lids.  Place one tray on the dehydrator and place jars onto tray.  See pictures below.  Leave in the dehydrator for 4 - 4 1/2 hours.  Remove from dehydrator and place in the refrigerator undisturbed until completely cooled.

I used 6 jelly jars with the idea of adding fruit and sweetener on top and having room to stir it in.  I bought the lids for canning jars at Walmart, but old lids and rings work good too.



Set the dehydrator to 110 degrees.

Place the lid on top of the jars.



To hold the heat in I folded two flour sack dish towels in half and pinned them together around the dehydrator.

This is the yogurt started I bought from Whole Foods.  I contains six packets to make six quarts of yogurt.  I can't remember the price, but it seems like it was around $6.


The picture on the right is the first yogurt I made.  I used 5 half pint jars and put old lids upside down (in case the rubber stuck to the jars) on the jars and put the rings on.

This is only 3/4 cup powdered milk to 1 quart water.

I tried to make yogurt from memory of 10 or more years ago.  See all the liquid in the jar.  Here the mistake I made:  I mixed the powdered milk the same as for drinking.  That is 3/4 cup powder to 1 quart water.  I did all the rest the same as above.  The yogurt looked great until I scooped some of it out of the jar.  Then a bunch of liquid drained out.  Each time I took out a scoop more liquid separated from the yogurt.  It tastes the same as the other, but I didn't know what to do with the liquid, so I poured it down the drain.  After that experience I decided to do some research, since I lost my original mimeographed recipe.



I quit making yogurt for years, because I couldn't find plain yogurt with active culture.  Now yogurt with active culture and no gelatin added can be found again.

Save some homemade yogurt for new batches of homemade yogurt.  Save 2 heaping tablespoons of yogurt for each quart.

The tall jelly jars are too tall for a regular eating spoon.  I will go back to the short jars again and probably use 8 next time for a better serving size and room to mix the fruit in.

I chop up any bottled fruit that is open in the refrigerator and sounds good at the time.  I also add some type of sweetener.
I have also tried the Sugar Free Black Cherry Torani Syrup added to some yogurt.  I was really good.  Cash and Carry is the cheapest place in Reno/Sparks for Torani Syrup.

 SAUSAGE, BEANS, HAM, HAMBURGER, AND CHICKEN

I spent the last week of December and the first week of January canning meat and beans.  I found sausage on sale in November and bought some and kept it frozen until I had time to can it.  Hamburger was on sale the first week of January.

You need a pressure canner to can meat and beans, but it is so handy to have them ready to eat and not have to thaw meat or cook beans.

Here is same of some of the sausage I canned.  We like the different flavors, so I cooked the same ones, drained them, put them in pint jars, labeled them and then did the same with the next flavor.  I wasn't sure if the marker writing would still be there when it was done canning.  It is as you can see.  Some are smeared, but still easy to ready.

It takes about 75 minutes for each batch to pressure can.  Which in reality means about 3 1/2 to 4 hours per batch.  This includes, cooking and draining the meat, putting it in jars, waiting for the pressure canner to get hot and up to the pressure needed, pressure canning, and waiting for the pressure canner to cool.

I followed the time and pressure that is listed in the book that came with my pressure canner.

One pound of sausage fills a pint jar.  One pound of hamburger fills a pint jar also.  It  had to be packed in, but it fit with enough head space and shrank more after the canning process was done.

These meats do not have to be cooked first, but they stay pink when canned if they are not cooked first and do not look very appetizing when done.

4/15/12 Update:  I didn't realize I did not put side views of the hamburger and sausage on this post, so here they are.  Even though I tried to get as much grease out of the pan as possible I am surprised at how much is still in the sausage.  The two on the left are hamburger and the one on the right is sausage.

 Each pint jar holds one pound of hamburger and/or sausage.

Now the one on the left is hamburger and the two on the right are sausage.

Some of the white and black beans I canned.  Beans are super easy to pressure can.  Thanks goes to my friend, Linda, for teaching me how.  Put 1 1/4 cups of rinsed and cleaned dry beans in a quart jar.  Add 1 teaspoon of salt.  Fill jars with water leaving 1/2 inch of head space.  Put on hot lids.  Tighten the rings and pressure can for 90 minutes at 15 pounds of pressure.   I forgot to add the salt several years ago when I did some of mine, so I have now stopped adding the salt to all of them and it seems fine.

Here is some of the chicken my mom and I canned in October.  There was a sale on 40 pound boxes so we bought a box.  We found it easiest to cut into chunks and remove the fat when it was still slightly frozen.  I removed every drop of fat I could find. I think I drove mom crazy, because I was so picky.  We got 35 pints of chicken from the 40 pounds.  The chicken does not have to be cooked before canning.  Just add the meat and pressure can.  It will make it's own juice.  I followed the time and pressure that is listed in the book that came with my pressure canner.

This is some of the Black Forest ham I have left.  I bought it on sale just before Easter last year and pressure canned it.  I cut it into chunks and added water before pressure canning.  I followed the time and pressure that is listed in the book that came with my pressure canner.