Category: Pressure

Dinner, Journal, Low Carb, Lunch, Preserving, Pressure, Recipe

My Pepper Steak

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This was one of my mom’s staples when I was growing up. This is my tweaked version.

My Pepper Steak

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My Pepper Steak
(For the original recipe, see Ma’s Pepper Steak)
2 pounds beef, shredded
Marinade
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons Chinese rice wine (or white wine or water)
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
2 Tablespoons corn (or potato) starch
Vegetables (any vegetables can be used)
2 Tablespoons oil
1 Tablespoon ginger garlic paste (or 1 teaspoon peeled, grated ginger with 2 cloves minced garlic)
6 medium bell peppers, seeded and julienned
1 large onion, peeled and julienned
1 head of cabbage, cored and sliced
Sauce
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon red pepper flakes (or black pepper)
2 Tablespoons brown sugar (optional but highly suggested)
2 Tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Thickener (whisked together)
1 Tablespoon corn (or potato) starch
2 Tablespoons cold water
Leave your beef partially frozen and slice against the grain as thin as you can. Once sliced, cut it into strips, then place in a bowl with the marinade. Mix well and let sit for 30 minutes to overnight, in the refrigerator.
In a large skillet on medium-high heat, pour in 2 Tablespoons oil. Let that heat up a bit, then add all the vegetables. Sautee until mostly cooked. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon, trying to leave as much oil in the pan as possible.
Add 1 Tablespoon of oil (if needed), then brown the meat in a single layer. Once all of the meat is brown, turn the heat down to medium and add the vegetables and sauce to the pan. Mix well and let that cook until the beef is thoroughly cooked (2 to 3 minutes), then pour the thickener evenly around the pan. Mix and let simmer until sauce is thickened.
Serve over steamed rice, noodles, steamed vegetables, or by itself.
This can be pressure canned (with or without the vegetables) in quart sized jars for 75 minutes at the pressure for your altitude (mine is 12 pounds).
Canning, Dinner, Food Storage, Lunch, Preserving, Pressure, Recipe

Home Canned Meat

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Canning meat at home is one of the easiest canning you will ever do! The only special items you need are a pressure canner (not a pressure cooker), jars and pickling salt. If you want to keep canning after you try this, I would also suggest a tool set. I will be including links to these items on Amazon but, aside from the pressure canner, you can get most of these at a local store. This is the picture I took at Ace Hardware. LOOK AT ALL OF THESE GOODIES! I have never seen so many canning supplies in person! There were so many I ended up buying more than I intended (they had 1/2 gallon jars!!!!).

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This is my pressure canner.

Presto Canner
It’s a Presto 16-quart pressure canner and holds 7 quart jars (16 quarts is the total liquid the pot holds). There are times I wish I had a bigger one but it would make it too heavy to move around if I did have a bigger one (which means, maybe, I should get a second one). Now, even though mine isn’t the largest, it IS heavy. You cannot use canners on glass top stoves! If that’s what you have, you could use them on a stable/secured turkey fryer base (you don’t want it tipping over), a propane grill, or a tabletop electric burner (as long as it can handle the weight). You need your heat source to be easily adjustable, so wood or charcoal would be much more difficult.

Pickling Salt
Pickling salt: why do you need this? Well, table salt has iodine and anti-caking agents (which can change the color of the foods and leave liquids cloudy), whereas pickling salt is just that: salt. Officially, this is the only salt you can use for canning. Unofficially, I have used kosher salt and never had any issues.

Now, you will need jars. For meats, I like to use pint or 12-ounce jelly jars. They are perfect for a meal (or adding just a little meat to a dish). Every grocery store I have been to in my area has canning jars but if your stores don’t, here’s a link to the best deal I found on Amazon. You don’t need anything fancy. How many jars will you need? It depends on how much meat you want to can. Roughly 1 pound of raw meat will fit in a pint jar.

Home Canned Meats

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Home Canned Meats
Ingredients
Meat: beef, game, chicken, pork, fish
Pickling salt: 1/2 – 1 teaspoon per quart jar
White Vinegar
For wiping jar rims
Instructions
Wash jars and lids.
Cut meat into cubes. Place in a clean jar, packing the meat down to ensure there are no air pockets. Continue to fill, leaving 1 inch of space between the meat and the rim of the jar.
Pour 1/2 – 1 teaspoon of pickling salt on top of meat (amount of salt depends on your tastes).
Pour some vinegar on a paper towel and wipe the rim of the jar (this is to ensure there is no residual fat or liquids from the meat). Place lid on top of the jar, then screw on the ring. Do not over tighten the ring or it will be virtually impossible to remove later.
Process in your pressure canner for the amount of time required (I am at sea level, so I process at roughly 12-15 pounds pressure for 90 minutes). Turn off heat and allow the natural release of pressure (let sit until the pressure gauge is at 0).
Remove jars from canner, placing them on a towel. Let them cool (and seal).
Remove the rings, wash the jars with soapy water, write the contents and date on the lid, then store in a cool, dark place.
As long as the seals hold, these should last for at least a year.
Canning, Dinner, Food Storage, Low Carb, Lunch, Preserving, Pressure, Recipe, Supplies

Homemade Corned Beef

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I can’t believe I didn’t post about this!  I made homemade corned beef last year, leaving out the sugar and the pink salt, and it was fantastic!  I thought, well, I could make this, then can it so I know exactly where it came from and what was in it.  I haven’t gotten around to canning this because it usually doesn’t last that long!

Anyway, if you are interested (I wanted to see if I could and I did), here is how I did it:

http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/beef/home_made_corned_beef.html

And here is how to can it (ever since I canned that chicken, I prefer raw canning meats):

http://canninggranny.blogspot.com/2011/05/canning-corned-beef-brisket.html

There you go!  Give it a shot (even if you only do one).  It really wasn’t as difficult as my brain said it would be!

Canning, Food Storage, Preserving, Pressure, Recipe

Home Canning Milk

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Update: May 2020: What a difference 10 years makes! That’s how long it has been since I found the website below and never tried it out! I’m glad! I just recently canned my first batch of milk and used a completely different method.

After researching, I discovered a much easier (and more appealing) method (which I found here).

Home Pressure Canned Milk

Canned Milk

Home canned evaporated milk
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Notes

Fill your pressure canner with about 2 inches of room temperature water. Do not turn on your burner yet. Then fill your clean and sterilized room temperature jars with just about room temperature milk. Wipe the rim of the jars with vinegar (to eliminate any possible fats or liquids). Place your lid, then ring on the jar, hand tighten, then place in your pressure canner. Once the canner is filled, put your lid on and turn the burner on medium-high to high. Once a steady stream of steam is shooting through the vent, set your timer for 10 minutes (if you want to always can properly. I almost always forget this step and just put the weight on the vent). Place your weight on the vent, then when it gets up to pressure (sea level is 10 pounds), turn off the burner (if you have an electric cook top,  move the canner to a cold burner) and let the pressure canner sit until the pressure gauge reads zero. Remove the weight, the lid, and place the jars on a towel covered rack to cool. After 24 hours, remove the rings, wash the jars, label and store in a cool, dark place.  These should be good for 1 year.

Now is the time to learn techniques that have been safely used for decades before the USDA eliminates this knowledge altogether.

Here’s the original link for canning milk (which produces a much more “cooked” milk).

Canning, Drying, Food Storage, Preserving, Pressure, Recipe

Wendy Dewitt’s Food Storage Seminars

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Disclaimer: I originally posted this 11 years ago but felt the need to update it and include more information.

Whether or not you have your food storage in place or are just beginning, there is so much to learn from Wendy Dewitt (Everything Under The Sun). I always thought Wendy Dewitt had a great food storage plan on her website but it’s even better because she has video taped a few seminars based on her plan. She does love her Sun Oven (I do not have one yet) and if you choose to purchase one or any other type of alternate cooking device, I suggest you use it NOW! There is a learning curve to alternate anything (whether that’s cooking or baking with sourdough) and you do not want to be learning (and failing) when you are operating from a place of scarcity.

Despite the fact that she is Mormon )and speaking to Mormons), she is not overly religious in her presentation. I am only mentioning her religion for those who may be offended by anything religious (or not of your religion).

I have found three (2 older ones and 1 updated version of her seminar) on YouTube and the quality of them shows (the oldest one was recorded in 2008). I downloaded them, did my best to adjust the quality (there is only so much I could do with the audio), and uploaded them to my channel.

Here are the download links for the handouts for the first two videos:

EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN 2010 word

Todo-de-una-manera-sencilla-dewitt-in-Spanish

Filmed in 2005 in Gilbert, Arizona:

Filmed in November of 2008:

And this is her updated seminar (and handout), “Sensible Food Storage” from 2011

Everything Made Simple

Canning, Chicken, Food Storage, Pressure, Soup

I Got My Pressure Canner!

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Presto Canner


After 20 years of waiting, I have finally gotten a pressure canner! I am so excited I can hardly think straight. This was my Christmas present from my husband (in addition to loving me, I think it was mostly to get me to stop bugging him about it). It’s a Presto 16 quart.

The third day, I was re-canning some of my #10 cans of food. I never wanted to open the cans because I did not want to freeze the leftovers. I processed all foods for the recommended times/pressure settings and they all turned out really nice! All except my beets. They look bleached out but one thing I noticed as I was opening up the can of pickled beets. They use high fructose corn syrup! I’ll be making my own from now on.

My first big canning project is going to be chicken. Yeah, I know. Meat first? Yup. See, we buy a lot of whole chickens and load up the freezer. Canning most of the chicken will free up that freezer space for something else.

The majority of the time, we only use whole chickens for my husband’s tacos and enchiladas. Those recipes require us to boil, then de-bone the chicken so why not cut those steps out?

So I went searching around and found this great blog:

http://lovehugsandgiggles.blogspot.com/2008/11/canning-chicken.html

Then I’ll use the bones for chicken soup. Can you tell I’m excited?