This is so easy!
Preheat your oven to 250 degrees F.
Take whatever nuts you want to store. Shell them or just make sure there are no bits of shell or debris.
Place the nuts in whatever size jars you want and place new lids and rings on.
Place your jars on a baking tray (for stability), and bake for one hour. Remove and let cool.
As long as they are sealed, they will store almost forever.
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!!!!).
This is my pressure 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: 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.
Canning meats at home is simple once you have all of the right tools.
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:
It’s so much easier than I thought!
Mix all of the other ingredients, ensuring the salts dissolve.
Remove as much fat as you want, leaving a minimum of roughly 1/4 to 1/8 inch.
Place your meat and the brine in a container that will allow the meat to remain submerged. Submerging the meat is key to proper curing. Exposure to air introduces bacteria. I prefer plastic freezer bags. This allows me to actually remove all of the air and turn the meat with less mess.
Place the container in the refrigerator for a minimum of 5 days, with 7 being preferred. Turn once per day. Now, it’s ready to cook or freeze.
Place the meat in a large pot along with enough hot water to cover it by at least 1″ and put the lid on. Turn the heat to medium, bring to a low simmer and keep it simmering for 30 minutes. If you boil it, it will get tough and shrink. Beware that the meat is cold, so when it warms the water will slowly move from simmer to boil. Keep an eye on it and try not to let it boil.
After 30 minutes, dump out the water and cover 1″ over the meat with fresh hot water. Bring to a low simmer again, this time for 3 hours or until it is fork tender. Keep the meat submerged with a small plate.
For Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner, remove the meat and let it rest. Now add sliced carrots, potatoes, and cabbage to the cooking liquid. Simmer until the carrots are tender.
Slice the meat across the grain and serve.
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!
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 (in English and 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
from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit
Storing canned food in your kitchen cabinets is an inefficient use of space and you will often find old cans in the back. This easy-to-build shelf system will solve the problem by rotating the cans. The cost is a small fraction of the price of retail canned food systems. There are many variations so modify the plans to suit your needs and abilities.
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Build a Rotating Canned Food Shelf. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
One of the biggest treasures I have found online is from Michigan State University. It’s a site called Feeding America and features over 70 American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. I really can’t begin to tell you how much computer space I have in old cookbooks. If only I could have physical copies of them ALL.
Here’s one of the first I found (and tried recipes from). Please consider investigating the old cookbooks that are out there still. They can be invaluable, especially since they teach us so many things we have lost over the generations.
Miss Parloa’s New Cookbook: A Guide to Marketing and Cooking. New York:
C.T. Dillingham, 1882, c. 1880.
Here are just some of the recipes, which are fantastic!
What I love about this recipe is, it easily allows you to adjust it simply based on the quantity of beets you have! This is rare!
Cut boiled beets in slices. Lay these in a large glass jar or earthen pot.
For every beet, put in one slice of onion, on tablespoonful of grated horseradish, six cloves, and vinegar enough to cover.
The beets will be ready to use in ten or twelve hours. They will not keep more than a week.
Nearly fill a jar with ripe berries, and fill up with good molasses. Cover, and set away. In a few weeks they will be ready to use.
Add all of the ingredients (except currants) to a large pot and bring to a boil. Stir until thickened.
Stir in the currants, and cook for 30 minutes.
Wash and wipe six hundred small cucumbers and two quarts of peppers. Put them In a tub with one and a half cupfuls of salt and a piece of alum as large as an egg.
Heat to the boiling point three gallons of cider vinegar and three pints of water. Add a quarter of a pound each of whole cloves, whole allspice and stick cinnamon, and two ounces of white mustard seed, and pour over pickles.
Cover with cabbage leaves.
The fish should be thoroughly washed, and soaked in cold water over night.
In the morning drain the fish and add fresh water. Turn on your burner to high, until it comes to a boil. As soon as the water comes to the boiling point, reduce to a simmer.
From four to six hours will cook a very dry, hard fish, and there are kinds which will cook in half an hour
Put milk on to boil, keeping half a cupful of it to mix the flour. Whisk in flour with 1/2 cup of milk. Once the milk boils, whisk in flour/milk mixture.
Add the fish, season with salt and pepper, and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes.
Heat water in a pot on medium high heat until it boils. Break each egg onto a small plate, then let the egg slide into the water. Poach all six eggs until desired doneness.
Place the toasted bread on a platter. Pour the fish cream over each slice, then top with a poached egg.
Garnish the dish with points of toast and parsley.
Pare the potatoes and boil half an hour; then drain off the water, and mash them light and fine. Add the salt, pepper, one tablespoonful of butter, and the cupful of milk, which has been allowed to come to a boil. Beat very thoroughly, and spread a thin layer of the potatoes on the center of a hot platter. Heap the remainder around the edge, making a wall to keep in the cream and fish.
Put the pint of milk on to boil with the onion. Mix flour and butter together, and when well mixed, add two tablespoonfuls of the hot milk. Stir all into the boiling milk, skim out the onion , add the fish and cook ten minutes. Season with pepper, and if not salt enough, with salt.
Pour into center of the potatoes, garnish the outer ring with parsley, and serve.
This is a nice dish for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Pare the potatoes and boil thirty minutes. Drain the water from them, and mash very fine; then mix thoroughly with the fish.
In a small saucepan, scald the milk or cream. Then add this, butter, salt, and pepper to the potato mixture.
Let mixture cool while you beat the two whole eggs. Add to potato mixture, spread in a 13 x 9 inch baking dish, and bake for 10 minutes.
Separate the last two eggs, setting aside the yolks. Beat the yolks. In a very clean bowl, beat the egg whites to a stiff peak, then fold in 1/4 teaspoon salt and the yolks.
Remove baking dish from oven, spread egg white mixture over the top, then return to the oven to brown. Serve.
