Storing/Preserving/Freezing Veg.

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Storing/Preserving/Freezing Veg.
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Paul Sill

Joined: 16 Jan 2009
Posts: 118

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 09 8:22 pm Post subject:
Runner bean chutney, just about to make my second batch tomorrow.

sarahloo

Joined: 01 Jun 2007
Posts: 125
Location: Reading, Berkshire

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 09 5:00 pm Post subject:

colour it green wrote:

i find beetroot freezes well. I steam it first, then skin it, then box and freeze it.

Same here. But this year I intend to pickle a load as well - I am a vinegar addict after all...

Mutton

Joined: 09 May 2009
Posts: 1508

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 09 10:07 am Post subject:

We've always bottled tomatoes. Used to used Kilner jars for some of them but found the quantity too large for two and the jars fragile - broke a large kilner and lost a lot.

To start with would blanch, skin then cook. Towards end of season too tired to bother with skinning so cook up the lot. Basically boil up, cook down with lid off the saucepan, put clean jars in either oven or microwave with hot water in the bottom, lids in a pyrex of water and then boil it in the microwave (need to have the lids under water to avoid arcing.) When putting water in the bottom of the jar need to be careful not to spilt the bottom of the jar by heating it faster than the rest. Put in a little, swirled it round to spread the heat, then a little more. We always then heated jars in the microwave, my mother used the overn (pre-microwave).
Have run the jars in the microwave until they are hot and the water in bottom is steaming and bubbling, then tip out that water. Fill each jar with tomato from the pot on the stove, put them back in the microwave and heat watching really carefully until you see bubbling on the top. (When filling leave maybe 1cm at the top, don't want the tomato touching the lid.) Then open the microwave, lift out one jar at a time and slap the lid on and tighten it. Lids are in the pyrex of boiling water, have to extract them with a fork.
We found the best jars were old pasta sauce jars. Sealed well, handled well and were the right size for our recipes. We just cooked with a jar we filled in we think 2001.
(No label, but not done any gardening for a few years due to jobs and house move etc. Just back gardening this year.)

Whole operation goes better with good oven gloves and two people - one to hold jar the other to put on lid. You know you've got a good seal when you hear the "pop" from the kitchen as the jars cool and the lid indents in the middle. We always used metal lidded jars only for our bottled tomatoes.

Mutton

Joined: 09 May 2009
Posts: 1508

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 09 10:10 am Post subject:
Runner beans - my father once tried oven drying end of season runner beans following a recipe in my mother's Good Housekeeping book. They smelt really, really foul and went a nasty mottled yellow. After some chuntering about waste, even father wasn't prepared to eat them. Don't know if it would have worked better with younger runner beans.

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