We begin canning in mid summer with the first harvest of beets and green beans. We don’t finish our garden canning until after the tomatoes are all done. We have perfected a fabulous canned salsa recipe and have included it in our Winter Gardening Guide ebook.
If you have not canned before, try it out. It grows on you. At first it seems like lots of steps and work. After you run through the process a few times it becomes second nature and very enjoyable. The Ball Blue Book is everyone’s canning bible. If you don’t have a copy that should be the first thing you do. They don’t have every good canning recipe but they do a great job with the recipes that they do have. Don’t be shy to get started.
Here are a few vital things to remember. Clean, Clean, Clean and well sealed. Boil everything: jars, lids, rings, and the liquid that goes into the jars. Pack the jars while they are still hot and be sure that every jar has sealed after it has cooled. If you follow those steps you will produce safely canned foods. The Blue Book has very simple instructions in their introduction. Knowing how to can is an integral part of the sovereign gardener’s harvest.
Canned pickled Eggs
We use good organic eggs from our neighbor to can. Canning eggs is a great way to store extra eggs. They have a shelf life of at least 2 years. Actually they taste better the longer they sit. We hard boil 5 dozen at a time. Shell the eggs and pack them into hot quart size mason jars. We add to each jar:
1/2 cup of vinegar, 1 T of pickling salt, a dash of cayenne pepper, 1 T of dill, 2 large cloves of diced garlic, fill the rest of the jar with boiling water to 1/4 inch of the top of jar. Seal with hot lids and hot water bath for 20 minutes.
They are ready to eat after a couple of months of marinating. We like them sliced on our lettuce salads.
The Winter Gardening Guide