Canning Recipes

Contributed by: Liz Roberts as a companion to her article Canning: Having Your Harvest At Your Fingertips

The most famous recipe of all is Chowchow. This has been adapted from Edna Eby Heller’s Dutch Cookbook (1960)

Chowchow

Ingredients:

1 pint each sliced cucumbers, chopped peppers , chopped cabbage, cut string beans sliced onions, lima beans, chopped green tomatoes, sliced carrots , chopped celery

2 tabkespoons celery seed

4 tablespoons mustard seed

4 cups sugar

4 teaspoons tumeric

Soak cucumbers , peppers cabbage, onions and green tomatoes in salt water overnight. (1/2 cup salt to 2 quarts water) Drain. Cook beans, carrots and lima beans until tender and drain well. Now mix soaked and cooked vegetables with remaining ingredients and boil for ten minutes. Place in sterilized glasses and seal at once.

From the same cookbook comes a recipe for Spiced Sickle Pears. This would be good to make in the fall and have at Christmas time.

Spiced Sickle Pears

Ingredients:

7 pounds sickle pears 6 cups sugar

2 cups cider vinegar 1 cup water

1 tablespoon whole cloves 6 cinnamon sticks

Peel pears but leave cores and stems. Combine sugar, vinegar and water to make a syrup. Ties spices in a muslin bag to boil in syrup for 30 minutes. Add pears and cook until tender, With a spoon, carefully place pears in jars. Boil syrup rapidly for another half hour. Pour it over fruit . Put in jars and seal.

This is from a great cooking website, Lesley’s Recipe Archive (www.lesleysrecipearchive.com)

Strawberry jam

Ingredients:

6 pints strawberries washed 1 1/3 cups liquid pectin

3 cups sugar juice of one fresh lemon

In a large saucepan over medium heat combine strawberries, sugar, liquid pectin and lemon juice. Bring the liquid to a boil, and reduce heat to medium low. Simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Spoon the hot mixture into 10 half pint not sterilized jars, filling to within ½ inch to the top. Using a clean damp towel, wipe and fit with a hot lid. Tightly screw on metal ring. Process in a hot water bath for ten minutes. Using tongs, remove the jars placing them on a towel. Let cool. Test the seals and tighten the rings. Store in a cool dry place. Yields 10 half pint jars of jam.