CANNING for a new generation?

Someone recently told me that canning is up 40% this year.  Although, I haven’t confirmed this, I do know of a lot of first year canners flexing their new canning muscles.  Are we all becoming more concerned with what’s going in our mouths?  Or, are we tried of wasting our evenings in front of the boob tube?  Whatever the reason I am all for the change.  I feel more thankful for the food that I eat knowing where it has come from, being involved in the growing and harvesting process and nothing beats popping open a lid on that jar of  preserves you made with your own two hands.  Am I right?

CANNING for a new generation…It’s a new book of interesting recipes by Liana Krissoff.  Some of the recipes are fresh takes on old classics but there are a lot of interesting things going on in this book.  I’m excited!!  Plus, she breaks it down by season (which I like) and provides you with great recipes to par with your delicious preserves.  Does it get better than that?

I still have several tomatillos and green tomatoes that are calling out for their jars.  It is time to put these guys to bed and finish them off once and for all.

RECIPE FOR SALSA VERDE from Canning for a New Generation:

• 3 1/2 pounds, tomatillos, papery husks and stems removed, rinsed
• 1 medium white onion (4 ounces), peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
• 5 large cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 firmly packed cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro
• 2/3 cup fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon pure kosher salt, or to taste

1. Preheat oven to 500F.
2. Place all the vegetables on rimmed cooking sheets or spread out in a baking dish.   Broil for 20 to 35 minutes,  occasionally flipping the veggies until the tomatillos are soft, oozing, and black in spots.  
3. Working in batches, puree the vegetables and their juices (all of their juices), along with the cilantro, in a blender.  Be careful as this mixture is very hot.
4. Put the puree in a large stainless steel preserving pan and stir in the lime juice and salt. 
5. Bring to a boil.  At this point, you can choose to reduce, if the consistency is still too liquidy or jar as is.
6. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/2″ headspace.  Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot salsa.  Wipe rim with a damp paper towel.  Place snaps and rings on jars, screwing bands down until they are finger-tip tight.
7. Place jars in hot water bath and bring to a full rolling boil.   Process both 250mL and 500mL jars for 15 minutes.  When the time is up, turn off the heat, remove canner lid and  wait 5 minutes before removing jars to a folded towel on the counter.
8. Check seals, label, and store.  Refrigerate any unsealed jars.

Put up Total: 

• 5 x 500mL wide mouth mason jars
• 1 x 250mL regular mouth mason jar

NOTE:  I did a double batch and did not get the expected yield (short by 1.25L for the double)…however, I think this was because I did not add all of the vegetable juice when I pureed the tomatoes, peppers, onions, and garlic.  And, there was a lot of juice on the baking sheet.  Plus, the lime flavour is very strong; however,would not recommend adjusting the lime juice in this recipe because it is needed to maintain the correct Ph level but I am hopeful that it will mellow with time.  I will update this post in a month or two when I give it a whirl.  The nice thing is the next recipe in Liana’s book is for Enchiladas Verde…you better believe that’s what we’ll be trying our sauce with.

Update:  this sauce is excellent and better after it has been left for a couple of weeks.  The flavours do mellow and combine well in the jar.