Category: Tasty Bites

Check Your Canning and Freezing Equipment

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Tips, Freezing Basics, Tasty Bites

Care of Your Pressure Canner: First, start with your biggest investment, the pressure canner. For safe operation next season, clean the vent and safety valve. To clean the vent, draw a clean string...

Holiday Food Safety Pitfalls

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Tips, Food Safety Basics, Tasty Bites

Avoid common pitfalls that can turn a festive Thanksgiving meal into a foodborne illness disaster! Preparing and cooking a turkey safely can determine whether your family and friends simply enjoy a...

Want to Ferment Vegetables? Start with Sauerkraut

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Food Preservation, Canning Tips, Tasty Bites

What is fermentation? During sauerkraut fermentations, lactic acid bacteria change vegetable sugars to acids and flavor compounds. Commercial sauerkraut may be fermented by naturally occurring...

How to Can Soups

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Food Preservation, Canning Tips, Tasty Bites

Question: I want to know about pressure canning soups. I usually make chicken soup with large egg noodles. Is it okay to add noodles at the time of canning or will they get mushy? I have never...

Canning Thanksgiving Specialities

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Food Preservation, Canning Tips, Tasty Bites

Do your friends and neighbors have pumpkin or hard winter squash on hand? Do they have lots of cranberries? How about turkey? They may want to have that goodness at Thanksgiving or throughout the...

Acidifying Pressure Canned Tomatoes

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Food Preservation, Canning Tips, Tasty Bites

“My recipe for raw packed tomatoes with no added liquid provides both boiling water canning and pressure canning options. Do I really need to acidify the tomatoes if I use the pressure canning...

Safely Storing Food

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Tips, Food Safety Basics, Tasty Bites

You may be asked: How long is it safe to store leftovers in the refrigerator? Is it safe to eat that meat found in the back of the freezer? How long is too long to store home-canned jars of...

Canning Tomato Products To Acidify of Not to Acidify

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Tips, Science Behind the Food, Tasty Bites

Why Acidify Tomatoes? Tomato varieties have been bred for ease in harvesting; as a result many now have milder flavor and lower acidity than the ancestral tomatoes. Testing has shown that some...

Available Moisture in Foods: What Is It Anyway?

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Tips, Science Behind the Food, Tasty Bites

Food preservation methods such as drying, freezing and adding salt or sugar work by lowering the available moisture in foods. Moisture in foods occurs in two forms: (1) water bound to ingredients in...

What is pH?

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Tips, Science Behind the Food, Tasty Bites

The pH value of a food is a direct function of the free hydrogen ions present in that food. Acids present in foods release free hydrogen ions; the hydrogen ions give acid foods their distinctive sour flavor. Thus, pH may be defined as a measure of free acidity. More precisely, pH is defined as the negative log of the hydrogen ion concentration. The range of pH extends from zero to 14. A pH value...

Why Blanch?

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Tips, Science Behind the Food, Tasty Bites

Why blanch vegetables before freezing? Blanching vegetables before freezing them is critical to their quality, but not their safety. Blanching is scalding vegetables in boiling water or steam for a...

Why Foods Need to be Preserved?

Apr 30, 2018 | Canning Tips, Science Behind the Food, Tasty Bites

Why do foods need to be preserved? In other words, what spoils them? Enzymes: Foods begin as living systems. The enzymes that ripen fruits on briars or trees and vegetables on stalks or vines...