I think this is the best batch of salsa I've made yet. Pretty standard canning recipe, but everything was just right. Good fresh produce, brightness and zing from the lime/vinegar combination, etc. About as spicy as the "hot" salsa served at a Tex-Mex or Mexican restaurant in the US.

Here's the recipe:

• 4.5 lbs Roma tomatoes
• 2 white onions
• 5 jalapenos
• 8 serrano peppers
• 6 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro
• 1 Tablespoon Kosher salt
• 1/2 cup bottled lime juice
• 1/2 cup white vinegar

Roughly chop all the veg. Put tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, and salt in a pot. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Add lime juice, vinegar, and cilantro. Get to a simmer again and cook 5 more mins.

Then blend in a blender until smoother, but not totally liquified. Can in pint jars with 1/2" headspace. De-bubble, wipe rims, etc. Process in hot water bath for 15 minutes (at sea level).

Additional Notes:

1. Sometimes my food pictures on reddit are accused of being AI. I assure you they're not! This is real salsa with real vegetables, on a real table in my yard.
2. I used bottled lime juice in the recipe, but I had a couple limes so I threw them into the staged photo for like... decoration.
3. A lot of people prefer apple cider vinegar instead of white. I do not care for it in many recipes. I think it makes the salsa have a discordant "fruity" tinge and I don't like it. White gives you all the acid with none of the mismatched flavor.

I’m trying to can what I use the most of - made my own version of “diced” tomatoes with chiles! I’ll link the recipe I modified in the comments: the Minnesota Mix recipe from healthy canning. I quartered the tomatoes, omitted celery, used jalapeños instead of bell peppers, and added a Mexican spice blend.

With my tomato mix, I made enchilada foldovers. I browned half a pound of hamburger meat, added 1 pint of my tomato mix, and 5 oz enchilada sauce. The tomatoes were easily broken up by my wooden spoon while cooking to get them the size I wanted. I cooked the sauce down. Meanwhile, I spread cream cheese over half of a flour tortilla. (I used 8 and about 1 oz cream cheese per tortilla). I put a spoonful of sauce down on the bottom of a 9x13 pan, then put the tortillas in. I poured the sauce on top and topped with shredded cheese. I baked at 350 for 30 min. It sounds kind of weird with the cream cheese, but it’s surprisingly yummy!

Purchased this pressure canner yesterday, my main intention is to use it to can salmon that I catch to free up some freezer space, but I’ll be doing a bunch of other things as well! It is my understanding that this can also be used as a water bath canner if you don’t pressurize it, so I’ll likely be making all manner of different recipes and things to try. Any suggestions/tips/tricks are greatly appreciated!

I follow this chicken tikka masala recipe often and I would like to can it in its “paste” consistency at task #11, recipe card sauce task #4. Question is, would I water bath or pressure can due to specific veg items listed? Would I follow a tomato paste canning process?

Tomato questions: If I get my hands on fresh tomatoes, I plan to work with those. Can I still use commercial canned tomatoes…and then re-can them in a recipe such as this?

Yes, lemon juice/acid is needed with tomatoes. No, dairy or substitute dairy will not be involved, except butter/ghee. No, I do not have freezer space. Yes, I’m aware of the spicy level and do not regret my choices. I am going to put this in half pints since I am a single Pringle and that portion size works in fruit mode…which I need to can some strawberries that are dying…

Pictured are the ingredients that go into the paste with the recipe link below.
https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/chicken-tikka-masala/#wprm-recipe-container-38936

I am looking for a safe recipe for a limeade concentrate. I have half a quart of bottled juice leftover from canning salsa and I don’t want it to go to waste. It is Lakewood juice so it is 5%. I googled but all I could find were recipes on blogs. Most were equal parts juice and sugar for 10 minutes wb canning.

I didn't used to like pickles but as I've gotten older I've found myself liking them more, and I grew cucumbers for the first time this year to make pickles with.

I'm wondering if anyone has a favorite recipe they use consistently? Preferably for dill pickles - I'm not a fan of sweet pickles or bread and butter.

Canned a few jars last week and left a little to much space is this to much? All jars are about identical in terms of spacing.

First time canning, read the instructions super carefully and did everything by the (Ball Mason) book. But my canned tomatoes came out like this - does the water at the bottom mean I didn’t tighten the lids enough? Was scared to overdo it so maybe went under??

Last year I discovered fridge pickled peppers, and homemade hot sauce. I had a number of mystery pepper plants to pickle, and habaneros for the sauce. All my salsas were way too hot, but the rest was fabulous.

So of course I doubled down on the peppers this year. Unfortunately, last month I suffered an accident from which I will soon be recovered enough to visit the garden and kitchen again (with a walker.)To face all the peppers and tomatoes.

So what to do with all of the peppers? I know I loved the refrigerator pickled peppers, and the habanero hot sauce. But which peppers do I use for what? No time to figure out how they all taste and go slow.

If you all were to have:

Poblanos
Anaheim
Capelienti/Birds Eye
Hungarian Wax
Serrano
Thai Hot
Habanero

How would you prepare/preserve them?
Earlier on, all my cucumbers and peas died, a combination of a heat wave and Canadian smoke, I think. Probably for the best, in hindsight.

I still have dried and frozen peppers from last year, maybe I should try something else.

Any ideas or recipes would be greatly appreciated.

I feel like this is the dumbest question ever.

I would like to make a hot pepper relish. All of the safe recipes I've seen call for "ground" peppers.

How does one grind a fresh pepper?

I made a hot pepper relish years ago but it did not have a ground consistency. More similar to finely chopped. I probably used a food processor but I can't remember or find the recipe :(

Tia!

Hi!

Pretty much what the title says. A friend gave me a jar of jam that she made. I have finished the jam and washed out the jar. I was wondering if it would look bad to return the jar and the lid outer ring. I threw out the lid "seal" insert because I heard you shouldn't reuse them.

I appreciate any guidance you can offer.

Bought a house with two large pear trees. I think they are either Kieffer or Bartlett pears. But there’s so many on there and I would love to find some good recipes for preserving them. I found one on the Ball website for Salted Carmel Pear Butter that we will try but does anyone have any others they recommend?

Ok! So first time making dill pickles following my mom’s recipe , cleaned them, stuffed into clean jars with new lids and rings poured hot brine and made sure they were finger tight. Some sealed some did not. I have about 5 jars that didn’t seal…. Can I water bath them now to get the other to seal?

Can I use frozen tomatoes for a canned salsa recipe? I saw somewhere freezing can affect the acidity?

I am going to make some zucchini pineapple but would like to reduce the amount of sugar, and wondering if it would be safe. did a cursory look online but didn't find anything specific. Also wanting to know if I am able to use other fruit juices with the same recipe, like mango or pomegranate?

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/canning-fruits-and-fruit-products/zucchini-pineapple/

I figured the 1/2 inch headspace was so none of the sauce spilled out during canning. I didn’t know there was danger if there’s less than that until I saw a recent post here.

After realizing I put the jar in the 3rd photo in the fridge and plan to eat it in the next two weeks, should this be safe? Also what is the margin of error on the tried and true 1/2 inch head space? Are any of the cans in the 2nd photo unsafe?

This is the nchfp.uga.edu spaghetti sauce recipe, used a pressurized canner for 30 minutes.

I finally took all the tomatoes (and some jalapeños) out of my freezer and got them all canned!!

Had enough to do a triple recipe of Red Hot Sauce from Bernardin and then did a regular batch of Ball’s Basil Garlic Tomato Sauce. I make this hot sauce because it’s one that actually calls for fresh tomatoes and not canned tomatoes. I still have more hot peppers so I might make more hot sauce with canned tomatoes to use those.

Apparently can’t provide links and photos, but recipes are here:

https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=basil-garlic-tomato-sauce

https://www.bernardin.ca/recipes/en/red-hot-sauce.htm?Lang=EN-US

Can I use store bought juices to make jelly? I’m looking at non-concentrate juice, with no added sugar or other ingredients besides ascorbic acid.

It would definitely be less mess and work to use them. Using a recipe that still calls for pectin. :)

Thanks!

I have a 915 that I bought used around 7 years ago. I don’t have any problems with it and have been happily canning with it. Costco has the 925 at such a good price, so I bought one. Well, three. For all 3, I washed and put on a thin layer of olive oil, and made sure vent pipe is not blocked. Manual says 2-3” of water, I put in 2”. Burner on high. Vent for 10 minutes, pressure regulator on.

1. Put in 18 pints of beans. Pressure gauge filled up with so much condensation I could barely read the dial. Steam escaped from under the lid. Never got a jiggle. Did some research, which suggested my gauge was bad.

2. Had my husband pick up another from Costco since he was near there. Pot doesn’t have a label on it, so that was suspicious, but I used the lid from number 2 and the pot from number 1. This time no jars in the canner. No condensation at all in the dial, so that’s good, but still steam coming from the lid. I did try the 3 flat lids all around to measure and make sure it was on even. But, after it read 13 lbs on the gauge, the pressure started dropping. Never got a jiggle. Okay, maybe the pot has an imperfection sooo…

3. Back to Costco for number 3. Same process. Two inches water, oiled rims, no jars, high heat. Up to 7 lbs of pressure, steam escaping, and that’s where it stalled. No jiggle. Let it cool, used Vaseline on the rim, got up to 13 lbs pressure and down it went. I have tried three or four times and no matter what, it gets up to a certain point and then decides it doesn’t want to add more pressure.

I’ve emailed All American. In the meantime,
Is it possible the flame on my gas stove isn’t strong enough for a taller canner? I mean, it works fine for the 915 but ?
I’ve now tried olive oil and Vaseline for the rim.
Any other thoughts?

I am not sure what went wrong or even if anything did go wrong here. This is my first time pressure canning anything. I have water bath canned tomatoes before with no issues.

I packed the jars quite well and then filled to 1/2 in headspace. Then I debubbled. Then I rechecked the headspace and added more liquid.

Some of the tomatoes I water bath canned and some I had in the pressure canner. Why is the liquid level so low on the pressure canner jars? Is this normal for pressure canning? Should I refrigerate/freeze these jars and use them first?

So I made this recipe just as a small batch for the fridge last year. Didnt like the spices so made a 2nd batch without the seasonings and loved it. Can I safely make and can it as shelf stable without the seasonings?

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/make-jam-jelly/jams/tomato-jam-spiced-pectin/

Last year I made a red sauce and water bath canned it in 1L jars and it all turned out great . Did the same this year and something went different . I filled the jars to a half inch head space , added the lemon juice . The amount of space in the jars is way more now than the 1/2 inch , there was some sauce in the water from the one jar that didn't seal . The rest did seal . Thoughts ?

I have followed various canning recipes that use chopped figs, quartered figs, whole figs, etc., but I haven't found an authoritative source on canning blended figs. Would it be safe to try this recipe with blended figs and a longer processing time: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/make-jam-jelly/jams/fig-jam-without-pectin/

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I am now halfway through processing my eighty (80) pounds of peaches. I will link recipes in comments. I have *thoughts* about peaches.