My mother grew up on a farm just west of Winnipeg, Canada. In those days, canning – preserving prepared food in airtight jars – was not just a hobby or a trendy heritage pursuit, it was a necessary way of life.
That canned bounty gleaned from the relatively short Manitoba growing season and prepared throughout the summer and fall carried the family through long, cold prairie winter months. Nothing like cracking open a jar of succulent, deep purple pickled beets on a frigid January evening.
She tells me that on the farm they would preserve oodles of quart jars (a quart is a little less than a litre) of veggies such as beans, peas, tomatos, and an assortment of pickles…beet, green tomato, cucumber, dill.
They would make lots and lots of apple sauce. Other fruit, such as peaches, pears, apricots and plums don’t grow that well in the Manitoba climate so they would buy cases of them for canning. And then there were the jellies made from pincherries, highbush cranberries, and chokecherries, all of which grew on and around the farm. If they had strawberries, which varied year to year, then strawberry jam was concocted.
Canning is still a necessary way of life for many folks living in rural areas and relying on their gardens for a good chunk of their food. But it has also become a popular food preservation activity that anyone can jump into, regardless of where or how you live. I (Jay) am very much a canning novice – though learning as I go – and I won’t get into the intricacies of canning here (I don’t know them – LOL!), but there are great resources out there such as this handy overview by Mother Earth News.
We just began carrying canning jars made by J. Weck Company of Oflingen, Germany. These are the Porsches of canning jars. Johann Weck first released his meticulously designed all glass jars in 1900. We’ve been planning to carry these for long time because we love the glass lids: No more rust-prone metal lids with plastic-lined (read bisphenol A) interiors in contact with the food. We also love the elegant thick glass jars themselves, the natural rubber seal rings, the nifty stainless steel spring clamps, and the ingenious sealing system…
When the seal on the jar is intact and airtight, the tab on the rubber ring will face downwards. The clamps can then be removed and reused. The jars are stackable for easy storage. And to release the vacuum created by the seal, you simply pull on the rubber seal tab until you hear a whizzing or hissing sound of air moving quickly. The lid can then be removed easily. Cool.
So back to my Mom, whom I consider a master canner. She has certain staples she makes practically every year in late summer and early fall… chokecherry jelly, zucchini pickle, tomato relish, pickled beets, and spicy mixed fruit chutney.
I have childhood memories of stopping suddenly on random country roads because my Mom saw a great patch of chokecherry bushes. Out we would get and start picking, and a few buckets later we would be on our way again.
We just got the Weck jars, so I haven’t actually used them myself for canning, but I transferred some of my Mom’s chokecherry jelly into a Weck jar to try it out for storage (left photo).
Then there were the bumper crops of zucchini, tomatos and beets from her amazing garden. In late summer our huge old dining room table from the farm would be completely covered in a sea of bright greens, oranges, purples, yellows and reds destined for preserves, or salads, or zucchini cake, or toasted tomato and cheese sandwiches…
Below I share with you a few of her favorite recipes, one’s she picked up over the years from various sources…Chokecherry Jelly, Tomato Relish, and…
My favorite has always been her Spicy Mixed Fruit Chutney, made with with fresh apples, plums, pears, apricots.
One year for Christmas, she gave my sister and I the best gift ever…
She wrote out in her own smooth, flowing cursive script all her favorite recipes and had an artist family friend, Lee-Anne, do artwork for the sections to create a magnificent little recipe book entitled, Recipes from Home. (That’s it on the right – as you can see, over the years I’ve stuffed it with tons of other recipes. I know, time for a serious transcribing and filing session.)
And from that little treasure of a book, I’m sharing with you her Spicy Mixed Fruit Chutney recipe. She got it originally from an Indian cookbook and adapted it a bit over the years. Sorry, no photos of the finished chutney yet – and we’ve long used up our current stock! It is the absolute best partner for samosas, or as a sweet and savoury side sauce for practically any meal.
I’ve not yet tried it out with our new Weck jars, but I will. And I’ll look forward to that whizzing sound and succulent smell when I crack open the first jar in the heart of winter.
External photo credit: Jars of green beans from Simply Canning (there’s a great green bean canning recipe there too).
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Recipes from Home (as written out by Mom):
Spicy Mixed Fruit Chutney
1/2 lb cooking apples
1/2 lb cooking plums
1/2 lb cooking pears or apricots (I use both)
2 tbsp sultana raisins
3/4 – 1 lb brown sugar
8 oz vinegar
1 – 2 tsp garam masala
Pinch chilli powder
1 tsp caraway seed
1 tsp ginger, grated
Salt to taste
Wash all fruit, stone plums and apricots, core and peel apples and pears. Cut all fruit into small pieces and place in large pot. Add the rest of the ingredients including sugar and vinegar. Boil over medium heat for approximately 40 minutes or until sufficiently thickened. Stir frequently. Remove from heat and bottle in sterilized jars or store in fridge and enjoy.
The original recipe includes garlic which I have never included, but if you want to experiment go ahead and add 12 cloves of garlic.
Source: Savitri Chowdhry, Indian Cooking, Andre Deutsch: London, 1954.
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Tomato Relish
3 peaches
3 pears
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
3 large onions
15 ripe tomatoes
Chop all fruit and vegetables. Place in large cooking pot.
Add:
1 tbsp pickling salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup vinegar
1/2 tsp pickling spice
Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until as thick as desired.
Bottle in sterilized jars and seal tightly.
Source: A friend.
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Chokecherry Jelly
3 cups prepared juice (about 3 quarts berries)
6 1/2 cups granulated sugar (Jay Note: I know, that’s a LOT of sugar! At my urging she once did experiments with less sugar and brown sugar, but it just would not set the same way)
1 package (2 pouches) liquid Certo
First prepare the juice. Add 3 cups water to washed berries, bring to a boil and simmer covered for 15 minutes. Place in jelly cloth or bag and strain out juice.
Measure 3 cups of juice into LARGE saucepan. Stir in required amount of sugar.
Bring to a boil over high heat.
Boil hard 1 minute.
Remove from heat and stir in Certo liquid pectin.
Stir and skim for 5 minutes. Pour into sterilized jars and seal tightly.
Source: Certo recipes (Kraft Foods).
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