Putting Food By - Janet Greene [51]
In jars. Pack hot fruit, leaving ½ inch of headroom. Add boiling syrup, leaving ½ inch of headroom; adjust lids. Process in a Boiling–Water Bath (212 F/100 C)—pints for 20 minutes, quarts for 25 minutes. Remove jars; complete seals if using bailed jars.
• Adjustment for my altitude_________________.
In cans (R-enamel or white enamel for red fruit, plain for light-colored). Pack hot fruit, leaving ¼ inch of headroom. Fill to top with boiling syrup. Exhaust to 170 F/77 C (approx. 10 minutes); seal. Process in a B–W Bath (212 F/100 C)—No. 303 cans for 15 minutes, No. 401 for 20 minutes. Remove cans; cool quickly.
• Adjustment for my altitude_________________.
Rhubarb (or Pie Plant)
Never eat rhubarb LEAVES: they are high in oxalic acid, which is poisonous.
Safe to eat are the tart, red stalks of this plant, which are excellent pie timber, make a tangy dessert sauce, and are a favorite ingredient in old-time preserves. However, your best use would be to can sweetened sauce by the method given below, and to freeze the raw pieces for pies. Rhubarb juice makes a good hot-weather drink.
GENERAL HANDLING AS SAUCE
Use a Boiling–Water Bath. Use Hot pack. Use jars or R-enamel or white enamel cans.
For best results, can it the same day you cut it. The stalks need not be peeled (their red color makes an attractive product). Discard leaves, trim away both ends of the stalks, and wash; cut stalks in ½-inch pieces. Measure. Put rhubarb in an enameled or stainless steel kettle (because of the high acid content), mixing in ½ cup of sugar for each 1 quart (4 cups) of raw fruit. Let it stand, covered, at room temperature for about 4 hours to draw out the juice. Bring slowly to a boil; let boil no more than 1 minute (or the pieces will break up). (Alternative: bake sugared rhubarb in a heavy, covered pan in a slow oven, approx. 275 F/135 C, for 1 hour.)
HOT PACK ONLY
In jars. Fill with hot fruit and its juice, leaving ½ inch of headroom; adjust lids. Process in a Boiling–Water Bath (212 F/100 C)—15 minutes for either pints or quarts. Remove jars; complete seals if using bailed jars.
• Adjustment for my altitude_________________.
In R-enamel or white enamel cans. Pack hot fruit and juice to the top of the cans. Exhaust to 170 F/77 C (approx. 10 minutes); seal. Process in a B–W Bath (212 F/100 C)—15 minutes for either No. 303 or No. 401 cans. Remove cans; cook quickly.
FRUIT FOR SPECIAL DIETS
For canning large pieces of fruit without sugar or other sweetener, follow individual instructions given earlier, but in addition to omitting sugar use Hot pack only, and eke out the natural liquid with extra unsweetened boiling juice (not water) if necessary to fill containers.
Pint jars (½-pints for infants or the person with a small appetite) are usually the best size to use unless you’re canning sugarless fruit for several people in the family. Processing time is the same for pint and ½-pint jars.
Fruit Purées
Infants and those on low-residue diets require fruit whose natural fiber has been reduced to tiny particles in a sieve, food mill, blender, or food processor with the steel blade in place (in the last instance, the purée will be runniest, and this looseness can be reduced by longer precooking). These purées are generally processed without sweetening—certainly the strained fruits for babies are unsweetened.
Any favorite fruit may be canned as a purée except bananas, figs, mangoes, melons of any kind, and papayas, which are insufficiently acidic. Apples, apricots, peaches, and pears are the most popular for purées.
Use a Boiling–Water Bath. Use Hot pack only. Use standard ½-pint canning jars with appropriate closures (not commercial baby-food jars, whose sealers are not re-usable).
Apple Purée
Follow directions for Applesauce earlier, but omit sweetening; sieve, pack, and process as for Apricot Purée,