For those of you who regularly read The Kitchn, Apartment Therapy’s food-focused blogging wing, you might have noticed my smiling face over there late last week. That’s because all this week, I’m going to be dropping in on Faith, Sara Kate, Dana, Kathryn and the rest of The Kitchn crew to answer the questions their readers have about canning. The Kitchn is one of my favorite food blogs, so I’m totally delighted to be talking about canning with their lovely community.
If you’ve got a canning question and you’ve felt shy about asking it here, feel free to hop over there and leave a note. I’ll do my best to reply!
What do you do with ALL the stuff you can? Give it away? Well, Let me know and I’ll send you an email with my address and all my contacts…who knows what will be waiting on the doorstep when I come home one day 🙂
Kitchen Butterfly, I do give a lot of it away. I’m also getting married in a couple of weeks, so I’ve been making a lot of stuff in mind for the potluck reception we’re having.
The colors/focus in that photo of pears make it look like a painting.
Thanks Justin, I thought that as well.
Since I can’t get on to the other site. Sometimes I just don’t get it! I have a question/recipe I would like to know.
spiced apples without the red candy and not a real thick sauce to it. Do you know of any?
Thank You.
I asked this on the plum in honey thread.
Does the chlorine in tap water affect the canning process or the food I’m canning? Should I be using bottled water?
How can I process jams in the dishwasher? Is that even possible?
I made jam that didn’t gel. How do I know if it is because I didn’t cook it long enough or there wasn’t enough pectin?
Will cilantro and basil turn black if it is processed?
I have a salsa recipe that I’d love to can while the veggies are fresh. Is there a way to determine how long to process? Just compare similar salsa recipes and use that processing time?
Do you have a good rhubarb chutney recipe?
Is there a 12-step program for this? DH and I are getting addicted to canning!
That photo of the seckel pears is gorgeous, Marisa! Did you pickle them? I’d love to have a recipe!
Hi there,
I canned plums in honey last night using your recipe. I’m hoping you can answer a couple of questions for me. First of all, I didn’t have quite enough honey syrup to fill the four jars so had to make up some more quickly. I didn’t use exact measurements and just eyeballed the amount of honey and water. Will this affect the acidity levels?
Secondly, quite a bit of the syrup came out during the processing and as the plums cooked they all floated to the top. Now I have quite a bit of air space in my jars and the plums are floating above the liquid at the top of the jars. All the jars sealed properly though. Is it ok to store these in a cupboard? Should I freeze them? Eat them right away?
Thanks so much for your help!
Amber
Hi, those plums look wonderful. I wanted to ask you about gelling. I have been having a terrible time getting my jams to gel this summer. I’ve never had such trouble before and I’ve been canning for a few years. I’ve followed the directions in Mes Confitures for jam without pectin, and just assumed they were supposed to be somewhat loose without the addition of apples or other high pectin fruit. I even used commercial pectin in some batches that didn’t set. Was it because I was canning during a heat-wave? A fool-hardy endeavor, I know.
If I’ve starting cooking the tomatoes for spaghetti sauce but need to stop and not do the canning until tomorrow, is it okay to re-refrigerate the sauce, then take it out tomorrow and boil it then can it?
i am wanting to know if you know if it is ok to can lemon or grapefruit curd?
According to the National Center for Home Food Preservation, you can can lemon curd. Other citrus curds are not safe, as they don’t have enough acid. http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_02/lemon_curd.html
Marisa, I purchased your book specifically for the Cantaloupe Jam recipe. I made it, loved it, along with everyone I gifted it with. The second batch I added 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon for something different and it came out great. It’s more like peach jam. I will be keeping both versions in the pantry. BTW, I love all the recipes in FIJ. Thanks
I was just starting to water-bath process some applesauce and the power went out for several hours. Can I just reprocess the jars in the canner as they are still submerged and capped after bringing them up to boiling? Or do I have do take them out and reheat the applesauce in a pan and start over with the filling and recapping of the jars? Thanks
I canned pickles 1 week ago. My question is I had a full quart of prepared brime left over. I put it into a sterilized jar and placed it in the fridge. Can I rewarm this up and use it to can more pickles? Or start from fresh brime. I waterbath my pickles
You can absolutely reheat the leftover brine and use it with another batch of pickles.