Canning dry beans and sauerkraut

My computer went on the fritz and I had to take it to the Dr., when it came back I had lost alot of information that I had saved and my Jackie file is GONE! There was a person that had written to you and told you the exact formula on canning dry pint beans. They told you the exact amount of beans to put into the jar and the canning pressure time. Do you happen to know this?

Also, I am getting ready to make kraut, after the fermentation is complete, I will heat it up as recommended in your canning book, my question is, will that kill all of the beneficial bacteria or enzymes?

Tonya Bowles
Paoli, Indiana

The archive recipe is this: 3/4 cup dry beans in pint jar, fill with boiling water, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Process pints for 75 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.

Canning sauerkraut will reduce, but not totally kill, all the beneficial bacteria and enzymes in the kraut. But it will taste wonderful for years! — Jackie

Bread and butter pickles

Do you have a recipe for bread and butter pickles. I just ordered your pantry cookbook about a week ago, but it does not have any recipes for making pickles.

Janet Wilmoth
West Carrollton, Ohio

Sorry, but the pantry cookbook is a recipe book, not a canning book. My last book, Growing and Canning Your Own Food has several bread and butter pickle recipes for canning. Here is one for you:

Bread and butter icicle pickles:

4 quarts medium cucumbers, sliced
6 medium onions, sliced
1/2 cup pickling salt
1 quart cracked ice (or ice water)
3 cups white vinegar
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. mustard seed
1 tsp. turmeric
2 tsp. celery seed

Rinse fresh cucumbers thoroughly, remove stem and blossom ends. Slice thin. Do not peel. Slice onions. Mix cucumbers, onions, and salt. Add cracked ice and let stand for 3 hours, then drain thoroughly. The ice-salt mix helps make crisp pickles. Combine remaining ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Add drained vegetables. Heat just to boiling, stirring to ensure even heating. DO NOT OVERCOOK. Pack hot pickles in sterilized hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Ladle hot pickling syrup over pickles, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace. Remove air bubbles. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.
Note; I often add chopped red and green peppers to the vegetable mix and add 1 cinnamon stick and 1 Tbsp. whole cloves in a spice bag to the boiling pickling liquid; we like the spicy taste. — Jackie

Canning pork patties

We have been given several packages of frozen ground pork patties, 12 to a package. Since there are only the two of us, and we have to unthaw all 12, do you have any suggestions of what to cook? We had “pork”burgers today and I browned the remaining patties in the skillet and seasoned them for tacos.

Liz
Longdale, Oklahoma

Are the patties separated by paper? If so, you can partially thaw a package, then pry whatever you want apart to use in a meal, then re-freeze the balance, packaging them in individual meal-sized packages. Some suggestions for recipes? Thaw them, bread them, then fry them and top with chicken gravy for “chicken fried steak”, dice them, fry them, then use in a stir fry with onions, peppers, celery, snow peas, and whatever vegetables you choose. Serve over rice with sweet and sour sauce. Crumble, fry, then make enchiladas using the meat, enchilada sauce, and corn tortillas. Crumble, lightly fry, then top your favorite pizza with them or crumble and use in your favorite chili recipe. Hope that gets your creative juices flowing. It made ME hungry! — Jackie

2 COMMENTS

  1. We mix fried sausage, scrambled eggs and onion and fold into flour tortillas for taquitos(for breakfast mostly, although it makes a good lunch). Along those lines, you can put just about anything in a flour tortilla and eat it.

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