Pressure Canning ~ Some Soup Success…Tuscan Minestrone

Okay, after weighing the pros and cons and taking in all of your helpful suggestions, we decided to press on with “operation soup“.  It simply is too important to give up at this stage in the game.  We read all of your comments and took your advice and altered our pressuring canning methods (slightly) and we’ve had better success.  YEAH!!!  “Operation Soup”  here we come!

RECIPE FOR RIBOLLITA ~ THE TUSCAN MINESTRONE from Sunday Soup

• 8 ounces (1 cup) dried great Northern or cannellini beans (white kidney beans)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for garnish
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped leek, white and light green parts only ( about 1 medium leek)
• 1/2 cup diced carrot (1/2″ diced)
• 1/2 cup diced celery (1/2″ diced)
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon crushed dried rosemary
• One 14 1/2 ounce can diced tomatoes and their juices
• 8 to 10 ounces Savoy cabbage (from 1 head), halved, cored and cut into 1/4″ wide strips to make 2 1/2 to 3 cups
• 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more if needed
• 8 ounces russet or Yukon gold potato (1 medium), peeled and cut into 1/2″ dice
• 8 ounces zucchini (1 medium), halved length-wise and cut into 1/2″ thick slices
• 6 ounces Swiss chard, stems removed and leaves cut into 1/2″ thick strips to make 2 cups
• 8 1/2″ thick slices day-old Italian bread, such as ciabatta 1 to 2 whole garlic cloves, peeled and halved (we use our crusty Country Loaf)
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, preferable Parmigiano-Reggiano, for garnish

1. Rinse the beans and place in a large bowl; cover with 3 cups of boiling water.  Soak beans for 1 hour. Drain beans in a colander and reserve.
2. Heat olive oil in a large stockpot (lid required) over medium-high heat.  When hot, add the onion, leek, carrot, and celery and cook until tender approximately 3 to 4 minutes.  Add minced garlic and rosemary and sauté for 1 -2 minutes.
3. Add 8 cups water, the reserved beans, tomatoes, cabbage, and 1 1/2 tablespoons salt.  Bring the mixture to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer with the lid on for 1 hour.
4. Add potatoes, zucchini, and chard; simmer, covered, until the potatoes and zucchini are soft and the chard has wilted, for 20 to 25 minutes.  Season the soup to taste with salt and/or freshly ground pepper.
5. Ladle the hot soup into the sterilized jars, leaving 1″ headspace at the top. Note: sterilizing the jars is not necessary but we’ve gotten into the habit of doing it and this way your jars are also extra clean and nice and hot too.)   Use a damp paper towel to wipe the rims of the jars, then put a flat lid and ring on each jar, adjusting the ring so that it’s just finger-tight.  Place the jars in the pressure canner and follow the pressure canning directions for your area.   We pressure canned the soup for 85 minutes.  And, left it in the pressure canner to cool to zero pounds of pressure for over 30 minutes.
6. Serve the soup with lightly toasted fresh bread slices rubbed with a piece of cut garlic.  The bread can be placed on the bottom of the bowl or the top.  Sprinkle each cup of soup with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and a swirl of good olive oil.  Note: This is done when served…it is not meant to be pressure canned.

Success…or at least a whole lot better than last time.  This time 6 out of our 7 jars sealed….and, I can live with that. 

Here is what we did differently:

1. After letting the pressure canner reach its’ 10 pounds of pressure (the amount of pressure required for a vegetable soup) we reduced the heat.  The jiggling gage did not jiggle as much…about 1 to 4 times per minute but not more…and sometimes a little less.   Note: This is in accordance to our pressure canners’ instructions…others should follow the instructions/guidelines on their pressure canner to be sure that the proper safety standards are met.  We watched to be sure that the pressure was maintained at 10 pounds or slightly higher as it is plus or minus 2 pounds but did not worry too much if the gage didn’t jiggle once every minute…once every two minutes with a little hissing was just fine.
2. When our time was up we let it cool to O pounds of pressure and then left it longer (as suggestion made by Gardening in the Borough of NYC).  In fact, we did not open the pressure canner for quite a while.  It took over 30 minutes for it to cool to zero pounds of pressure and then we probably left it undisturbed (lid on) for another 30 minutes or more.  When we opened the pressure canner all but 1 of the 7 jars had sealed and that 7th jar never sealed.

I will record this as a success and enjoy the unsealed jar tomorrow for lunch!

Please note that we double the above recipe to make just a little over 7 x 1 litre jars which is the correct amount for our pressure canner.

Put up Total:

• 7 x 1L regular mouth mason jar ( 1 did not seal and was refrigerated)