Canning Time Again

It’s that time of year again. Canning time. It seems that every time I turn around someone is telling me a different recipe for canning this or that, and it has all got to become a bit confusing.

So last weekend I sat down and called my Granny Mary and wrote down some of her canning recipes. Each one was very simple and to the point.

Like her sour kraut recipe. No sitting it in a cold place for days before sealing it or adding this ingredient and that ingredient and then letting it ferment in a tub for so many days (I couldn’t even imagine doing this).

She said, “Cabbage, salt and water.”

Now, how much simpler can you get, and there is no other person on earth who can cook and can like my Granny Mary used to.

She could make the best raspberry and blackberry preserves, and her tomato juice, well you usually ended up with an empty Mason jar before you got home.

Now, there is one recipe that I haven’t got yet, and that is my Aunt Tammy’s hot pickles. Mmmm. You want to talk about mouth watering. They are so spicy, yet you can’t eat just one, and by the time you start on the second one your mouth really is watering from the heat.

So, Aunt Tammy, if you are reading this, give me a call and have that recipe on hand! I’ll try and do justice to your recipe, though I’m not making any promises.

Now my mom, she could can the best green beans. She should be the expert since we seemed to eat a whole lot of them growing up. Dad would open up a jar and as they were cooking he would take cold homemade biscuits left over from breakfast and dip it down in the juice and eat it.

Then he’d say, “Ah, won’t be long ‘til they’re done.” Before the beans were completely finished most of them were gone.

So, I called my mom up on Tuesday morning and asked her just how she used to can her green beans.

Her reply, “Beans, water, and salt.”

Another simple recipe. This has me so excited, more so than the squash and zucchini I put away last week.

I really can’t wait to try out my families recipes. I think that once the summer is over and there is no more garden to tend, that I’m going to take all of these family recipes and make them into a book.

Then, I’ll be looking for a new hobby to try this winter. I might just take my summer motto, “You reap what you sow,” and change it to, “You reap what you sew.” We’ll soon find out I suppose, but for now, I’ve got a whole lot of beans to pick and Mason jars to fill. 

7-2-09 - Published in the Citizen Voice & Times