Questions answered from last post on canning, recipes etc.

Well let me see if I can answer the questions you guys asked...

I got the cute canning jars from Bealls Dept. Store.  I know odd place to buy canning jars but there is where I found them, on clearance no less! :O) I have a bit of an addiction to buying canning jars :O). I can't pass up a cute one even if I don't really neeeeeeeed them. LOL

The squash recipe and what the FDA says now... okay here is the deal. I am comfortable with what I did. This is NOT what the FDA says now. So if your a FDA stickler canner then you might as well move on past this squash section LOL.. Please don't leave me yukky comments on this.. Everyone does what they are comfortable with in canning  :O).... and since I was asked how I did this I am posting it for those that asked :O)...

My granny :O) who in my eyes was perfect yes I said perfect and she was :O). My grandparents who raised me for over half of my childhood were saints on this earth for sure. We lived in the Ozark Mountains of AR. My granny canned all of our vegetables ( including squash) and or we cold stored them.  We did not buy canned goods (vegetables and fruits) at the store. We bought staples only  flour, sugar, lard from a itty bitty little grocery in a town about 45 minutes down the mountain to a town from where our farm was..... you get the idea. Makes me think of a sweet memory of mine, my Grandpa was a large man well over six feet and big, not heavy just big!  He would tell me at the grocery store I could pick out all the candy I could hold in my hands. Well I soon figured out that my Grandpa had very large hands! So as soon as we got to the store I would pick out candy and take it to my Grandpa and say, "you hold my candy grandpa".. and because my grandpa was the best in the world he would let me fill his hands with candy and take it to the counter at check out time. Never ever once saying that there was no way I could possibly hold in my little hands all the candy he could in his very large ones LOL. The grocer always put my candy in its own little bag and hand it to me :O) ...LOL I guess I didn't think my grandpa knew what I was doing LOL...  One of many memories I would not take a million dollars for... The love of my grandparents is what has always sustained me in my life and any good that is in me now is truly a result of them and the spirituality they instilled me in.

Ok back to canning, none of us ever came down with any canned good related illness .... now having said that... This recipe comes from a Kerr home canning book I have, its copyrighted from 1952 to 1972.. I was asked for how I can squash, this is how I do it . :O)

I would like to add that I usually let the squash that I can get big. Canning squash is perfect for those Zucchini that get away from you in the garden and are like baseball bats LOL.. Actually its the perfect use in my way of thinking for them. They hold their texture very well. What I do is scrape out the seeds and can the meat and I will sometimes peel off some of  the skin doing every other strip down the zucchini. The size you decide to cut it isn't all that important just be uniform with it. I like to cut it into the size chunks you see. Canned squash is good sauteed with butter and salt or pepper.. Its good for zucchini breads, its good for squash casseroles. It is not as firm as fresh squash so keep that in mind. Yellow squash is the same bigger firmer squash, cut out or scrape out the pithy seed area.. Can the meat..

Boil water, I use distilled water when I can anything, because we do not have a water well and are on county water. I don't want those chemicals in my canned goods. I only drink distilled water so I surely am using it as well in my canned goods! I will pass on all the crap that is in county/city water. I have a counter top distiller and have for years...... But its your call you can use tap water if you want to.

Adjust for your altitude, I live below 1000 feet so that is my canning time. Add one minute for every 1000 feet you live above 1000 feet sea level the book says. This type of canning of squash is done in a PRESSURE CANNER always!
Process quarts for 45 minutes in a pressure canner
Process pints for 35 minutes in a pressure canner

Pack your prepared squash into sterilized jars.Add one tsp canning salt to quarts and half tsp to pints.  Then cover with boiling water.( I add 1 tsp powdered vitamin C per gallon of water). One gallon of water I find will do 8 tightly packed quart jars of squash. (You want pure plain vitamin C powder). Nothing else added. You do not HAVE to use vitamin C. I add this its not in the book. I use it for color retention mostly. Canned squash will turn color after a while of sitting and the vitamin C just helps it to retain its pretty appetizing look and obviously is good for you too. Fill your jars to within 1/2 inch of the top with the water. Put on your lids and rings. Put in pressure canner for appropriate time for your altitude. Thats it.

Dehydrating and re hydrating peppers.
What I do is wash and chop the peppers in my food processor. Fairly small. Put on my shelves in the dehydrator. I let them go in the dehydrator till they are very dry. Then store in a glass jar. I use my air sucky thing to suck the air out of the jar and seal it. But if you don't have one just seal them up in a jar with a good lid with rubber seal on it. Then when your ready to use them add water with a bit of salt in it to re hydrate them. I would go 2 to 1. 2 water 1 peppers... If what your putting them in has juice like soup or such.. just toss them dry into the soup and let the soup re hydrate them. They will keep a very very long time if you can seal them up tight in a glass jar.

Ok the ketchup... this is the first year for me to make this ketchup.. I have made ketchup before that I liked a lot but honey man likes his ketchup sweet like you buy at the store an what I made before was not sweet which is what I like LOL... well this year I decided to make sweet as honeyman eats more ketchup than I do... so this is the recipe I used .. it tasted really good to me when I jarred it.. It was sweet like ketchup you buy and the flavor was really good

Ketchup canning
In a non reactive pan
4 lbs of skinned chopped tomatoes
1 cup sweet onion chopped such as vadalia ( I used vadalia)
1/2 cup organic brown sugar
1 1/4 cups organic sugar
1 1/2 tsp canning salt
1/2 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp cumin
1/8 cup cider vinegar ( I used regular)
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
Juice of one lemon (2 tbls)

In a spice bag at boiling. Leave in after you turn down to simmer for 30 minutes
1 stick cinnamon
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp allspice whole

Skin your tomatoes using boiling water.
Chop tomatoes, put in nonreactive pot and add all other ingredients.
Bring to boil an turn down to simmer, Cook until the mixture is the consistency your want your ketchup to be ...  this can take 3,4,5 hours...  it depends on how juicy your tomatoes were. (this is where a crock pot can come in reallllly handy, you can put this in a crock pot and let it cook down till its the thickness you want.  It wont stick and you can put a splatter screen over it and just let it go) Don't put the lids on it .. A grease splatter screen will keep any bugs or what not out while your not watching it and yet let the moisture escape.)
 Once its the thickness you want, jar in sterilized jars. Put in a hot water bath canner for 20 minutes. I can mine in 8 oz jars.

whew, ok I think I covered it :O)...