What are you canning today? Part 8

[Mt_Rider]

Hang in there Homesteaders....both of you.  It's been a siege of a very personal type.     And I'm afraid I'm only a bit behind you on the same road. 

 

Do you ever feel like you're waking up, looking around and wondering where you've been for these last many months?  I'm already feeling like that.

 

MtRider   

[Annarchy]

I got a 14 lb. turkey for .98¢/lb.  MIL wanted turkey this Thanksgiving.  Our little Mkt, said he had leftovers from last year, gave me an 18 lb. one for free. Yikes!  So….  I hickory smoked it for 5 hours.  Took 1/2 the breast and one thigh, sliced, back to them.  
 

Packaged, vac sealed, about 12 lbs, 1 pound per pkg, and set aside the bones, etc.  Pressure cooked all the bones, etc, 2 hours, let it cool naturally, added more water, and pressure cooked another hour (or 2).  Let it cool, while I cooked dinner.  Poured it into my WB canner pot, adding more water, to fill the pot, strained out most of the ‘debris’, putting the carrots, onion, & celery, back into the WB pot.  Simmered, another hour or so, and let it cool.  Refriged it overnight.  Broke the thick bones in 1/2 & dropped them in the pot.   Skimmed off the fat, then, while I was cleaning up and preparing the jars, let it simmer …strained it thru cheesecloth.  The puppies absolutely loved the skimmings and the fat… 😁

 

Canned, 7 quarts & 2 pints of turkey bone broth… so, now, we have ‘flavored’  water in our stock….

 

I’m tired…. 
 

[Mother]

 Good work Annarchy. I did the same thing a couple weeks ago except I froze the smoked meat and broth and even some of the bones and other left overs to give to the cats a little at a time.  That is using everything but the gobble.  🦃🍗.  

[Annarchy]

Oh, & out of all that, we had turkey salad sandwiches and I had a  cup of broth, this morning for my breakfast.

[Annarchy]

Yes indeed, Mother, ‘waste not, want not’.   And, I still need to smoke and process another turkey for MIL…… I need more jars, lids & rings…..🙄

[Mother]

I have dozens and dozens of canning jars.  What I don’t have is lids.  What I do have I’m hanging on to for canning the meat in the freezer if for some reason we lose electricity.   We have an electric pellet grill/smoker but our son does all our smoking.  He has a BIG wood fired smoker and smokes meat and other things for dozens of his friends and family.  Last time he swapped us some of the Turkey for smoked brisket, venison, pork loin, venison jerky, cheese, and sturgeon.  It was a smorgasbord.  I had plenty of broth so took the Turkey carcass and made rich bone broth for him.  

[Annarchy]

DH got me a smoker bbq, 30+ years ago, for $100.00…it’s still working… still producing a massive amount of food.  BBQ, breads, basic baking, etc.  l use it as an oven, when it’s way to hot to cook indoors… like, 110° + outside. Lol.

 

Since we got the new AC… I can cook inside now.  Our electric company sent a report on our usage, saying we are using 11% less than other houses our size… the unit is paying for itself…. Electric used to be $450-$500 per month, it’s down to under $200 per month!!!  PTL!!!  Amen!

[Mother]

Annarchy, is the smoker BBQ wood fired and do you have easy access to the wood?   We have an old gas grill that I’ve used for years in much the same way you use yours.  Unfortunately I can’t use it from the wheelchair and DH isn’t much for grilling so most of our cooking is now done inside. We, thank heavens, do not have the heat you do, our house is well insulated and our electric bills have stayed around $80 all summer. I look for our rates to go up soon with everything else. 🤑

[Annarchy]

21 hours ago, Mother said:

Annarchy, is the smoker BBQ wood fired and do you have easy access to the wood?  

All wood.  The desert has a lot of mesquite trees.  When we need , I gather the dead wood.  

 

We’ve collected pine, from people who cut their trees down, especially after a storm and have a gardener friend who brings us logs.  

[Mother]

Annarchy, I’m guessing you have starting fires down to an art by now with all the cooking you do on your BBQ.  Perhaps you will pop over to Darlene’s post on wood heat and give everyone a few tips.  

[Annarchy]

8 pints of turkey bone broth…waiting for the timer to go off.  (Flavored canned water. )

[Annarchy]

At least, it isn’t this….

 

 

 

[Annarchy]

Long day… started around 7 am, cutting leg quarters up, backs & the leg knuckles hit a bowl, while the rest hit the boil pan.  
 

Ten pounds of chicken, made 6 pints, bone in.  Thigh & leg, plus excess meat to pack the jars.  1 jar broke in the canner, 1 didn’t seal, (For DH’s first taste of my home canned chicken.)

 

Backs pressure cooked, with the last of my garden carrots, dehydrated celery, from the plant growing in the kitchen, and several slices of onion, a sprinkle or two or three of salt & pepper.  Old, old, old fashioned chicken soup.  Lol.  Removed all the bones, and made 6 pints of chicken stock/soup. 
 

wanna see?

 

[Jeepers]

LOVELY!  

[Mother]

I love the looks of home canned foods.  And the satisfied feeling that goes with them.  Those are beautiful. 

[Annarchy]

8 jars of chicken soup & 5 jars of chicken!  Nothing broke in the canner and all sealed. 

 

1 ten lb. bag of chicken, had bbq chicken one evening and chicken salad sandwiches with the leftovers.  
 

Whew… all cleaned & put up…… now…. back to the regularly scheduled  house cleaning.   

[Homesteader]

3 hours ago, Annarchy said:

Nothing broke in the canner and all sealed.

 

I almost forgot to post.  I only needed one can of black beans for a Mexican recipe so went ahead and canned up 11 extra pints for the pantry. 

[Annarchy]

That’s awesome, Homesteader!  Nothing like having it on the shelves, especially when the stores don’t have it.  

[The WE2's]

Didn't do any canning but vacuum sealed 10 pkgs of raw chicken, a thigh and a leg in each bag.  SavALot sells them in huge bags...good bargain.  Still have one more bag in the cooler thawing, will try to do it tomorrow if it's thawed.

[snapshotmiki]

11 half pints of  blueberry butter. Cleaning  out freezer

[Homesteader]

I am trying to rotate my frozen meats and decided to can a precooked, spiral ham. Very tasty indeed. DH pretty much stayed out of the kitchen yesterday whilst the carving knife was in my hand.  

 

I got 8 pints of ham, and all of them sealed.  One more ham to go.     I need more pint jars. With mom gone, I'm back to stretching our meat between multiple meals out of a pint jar. She used to say, "Where's the BEEF?" She has never had to live in another country and receive the last chicken a family owned so that we could eat with them. 

[Midnightmom]

2 hours ago, Homesteader said:

I am trying to rotate my frozen meats and decided to can a precooked, spiral ham. Very tasty indeed. 

 

The one (and only) time I tried canning ham I wasn't pleased with the results - the meat got very dark. I believe it tasted okay, but I haven't canned any since. How did yours turn out? Have you opened and sampled a jar? Did it taste okay or was it salty, etc. I have a ham that I bought and I would like to jar up some of the meat instead of slicing it and vacuum sealing it for the freezer, but that one experience has put me off on the idea. BTW- is a ham shank from the store considered "cooked," or should I oven roast it before trying to can it???   

 

 

[Homesteader]

13 minutes ago, Midnightmom said:

 

The one (and only) time I tried canning ham I wasn't pleased with the results - the meat got very dark. I believe it tasted okay, but I haven't canned any since. How did yours turn out? Have you opened and sampled a jar? Did it taste okay or was it salty, etc. I have a ham that I bought and I would like to jar up some of the meat instead of slicing it and vacuum sealing it for the freezer, but that one experience has put me off on the idea. BTW- is a ham shank from the store considered "cooked," or should I oven roast it before trying to can it???   

 

 

 

I don't mind the canned ham. I usually throw it into a pot of cooked beans or make scalloped potatoes and ham. We grow our own potatoes, so there's lots of ways to serve the two together.

 

I'm not sure about the ham shank from the store. It will say on the outside of the package if its cooked or not. Mine was precooked so I just cut it up in small pieces and placed in pint jars. Don't squish the ham in the jars or they might not heat properly throughout. I poured boiling water over it and pressure cooked for 75 minutes at 10 # pressure. I didn't add any spices. I do that at mealtime.

 

I watched a video last night on how to pressure can dry beans. You put 1/2 cup dry beans into a pint jar and finish covering it with boiling water to within 1" of the top. Add the inner and outer lids and pop them into the canner and pressure can for 75 minutes. Follow the canner mfg recommendations on water in the canner. This lady did it along with some ham she was processing. The dry beans finished filling her canner and she ended up with a few pints of cooked/canned beans. I'm going to give it a try. I seldom veer away from the Ball book. It's always tested and true.     I do like a full canner, though. 

[Cricket]

The label should say "fully cooked" if it's a heat-and-eat ham as many are. 

 

Edited to add that I've tried canning dry beans without pre-soaking or parboiling. Didn't like it. I did some pintos that came out so dense that I worried they didn't process properly for safety. 

 

I make several quarts of bean and ham soup whenever I have a hambone left over. I follow the Ball recipe, presoaking the beans, draining, then adding fresh water and proceeding to make the soup. It come out soooo good. 

Edited May 3, 2022 by Cricket

[Jeepers]

I've never canned just ham before. I can ham and beans and ham and potatoes. Both turned out very good, From what I remember, there is regular ham and there is cured ham. One is good for canning and the other one not as good. What I don't remember for sure is which is which. I'm thinking the uncured ham is best. Probably unsmoked too?  I think it's probably the sugar in the curing process that can turn it brown. 

 

It isn't recommended canning dry beans without soaking them first. A lot of old timers (Sutton's Daze and The Kneady Homesteader) used to but they have stopped doing it. Something about them not absorbing water in the canning process at a reliable rate causing too many seal failures. I put mine in an Insta Pot and pressure cook them until al dente (approximately 10-15 minutes) and then can them. If anyone does this method be sure to add some oil to the pot so the beans don't foam up and clog the vent!!!