Why not take some time to can up a chicken pot pie base. It's a time saver and always great to have on hand for quick and easy dinner prep. One quart jar fits a 9" inch pie dish. You will be thickening this base once opened to heat and eat. You also need to decide if you want to use store-bought pie crust or make your own. I'm thinking of having smaller foil tin rounds on hand so I can do smaller, individual pot pies. No matter how you slice it - its a great time saver and an even better addition to your canning pantry. Enjoy! Diane
Yield: 6 Quarts Ingredients: Sauté on Stovetop: 3 Tablespoons butter 3 Cups onion, diced 3 Cups carrots, diced 2 Cups potatoes, peeled & diced 1 Cup celery, diced 1 Cup red bell pepper, diced Add in once vegetables are lightly browned: 4 Quarts Chicken Broth 1-2 Tablespoons Organic Better then Bullion Roasted Chicken, optional 1 bay leaf, remove before jarring 1 teaspoon black pepper 2 teaspoons dried thyme 2 teaspoons salt dash of cayenne pepper powder Stir in at the end, before jarring contents: 6 Cups Raw boneless/skinless chicken, cubed into 1" inch chunks 1 cup peas, frozen 2 Tablespoons bottled lemon juice Directions: Place butter in stockpot on stovetop over medium heat. Once butter is melted, add in your diced vegetables. Sauté for about 5 minutes. Add your broth and seasonings and bring everything to a boil; reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes (until vegetables are tender.) Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Make sure to remove your Bay leaf. Ladle 2 cups of the hot stew mixture into each quart jar followed by 2 cups of the hot stew broth into each jar leaving 1" inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust liquid level if needed. Process Quarts in your Pressure Canner for 90 minutes according to your canner type and altitude. Want to turn your Quart of Chicken Pot Pie Base into a Pot Pie!!? Make your pie crust; make sure to make your crust at least an hour in advance as the dough will need to chill in your fridge! Pick your favorite Double-Crust "Flaky Pie Crust" recipe ready to make one 9" inch pot pie, you can use store bought pie dough too. Here is a link to an easy flaky double-crust: King Arthur Flour Classic Double Pie Crust make sure to omit the sugar when you make a pot pie crust!! Make your Roux; You will drain liquid from Quart jar into a large measuring cup. You should have about 2 cups of liquid. In a large saucepan melt 2 Tablespoons of butter and add in 2 Tablespoons of flour. Mix these two together until the flour starts to brown and smell a bit 'nutty'...you're making a roux; the thickener for our stew. Once roux is browned, slowly stir in the liquid from your measuring cup, raise heat to high and keep stirring as you add in all the liquid at a boil. Once the liquid is thickened into a "gravy" - lower heat to simmer and stir in the remaining contents of your Quart jar (all the chicken and vegetables.) Assemble and Bake your Pie; Preheat your oven to 400F Place bottom crust into a lightly sprayed 'non-stick sprayed' pie pan (I use Pam for Baking *With Flour), place filling into shell and top with second pie crust, fold edges under and crimp pie crusts together. Cut steam vent slits into top of pie. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove pie from oven and let cool at least 15 minutes ((you want your filling to cool a bit and firm up before serving.)) Slice and enjoy! Canning Recipe adapted from: Ball's Hearty Chicken Stew Pie Crust: Link to King Arthur Flour
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Preserve strawberries now for the future. Great for baking, ice cream making, desserts, jamming, salad dressings and syrups (think pancakes.) Some do not like the way whole strawberries can up as they can lose their color. I do add 1/2 tsp citric acid to each quart jar to help preserve color and quality. I plan on using these quarts for future jamming, pie filling and ice cream mix ins. Hope you enjoy! Diane
Ingredients: Strawberries White Granulated Sugar Water Directions:
Recipe adapted from: Bernardin Canning Canada Do you remember those old fashioned "5 Bean Salads?" They are served cold or room temp, they have a slightly 'pickled' taste to them...Well, I was pressure canning green beans and after a full canner load, I had about 2 pounds left over of cleaned and trimmed fresh green beans. I decided to "pickle" some along with some kidney beans (our favorite) and a few other veggies. You can chose your style of green bean, yellow beans, kidney, garbanzo and limas, they all work nicely. Once the processed jars set in my pantry for at least a month, I'll drain and mix a little good olive oil into the contents and chill before serving. Enjoy! Diane
Diane's Two Bean Salad Yield: 4-5 pints Waterbath or Steam Can Ingredients: 2 Pounds Green Beans, washed and trimmed 3 stalks of celery, washed and sliced 1 medium onion, thinly sliced 1 large red bell pepper, washed and sliced 2 can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed Red pepper flake (optional) Brine: 1 1/2 cups white vinegar, 5% acidity or higher 1 1/4 cups white sugar 2 teaspoons mustard seed 1/2 teaspoon celery seed 2 teaspoons pickling salt 3/4 cup of water Directions: Clean and cut all your vegetables, set aside. Make your brine, bring to a boil and stir until all sugar is dissolved. Reduce to a simmer. In a separate pot, add all your vegetables & beans along with fresh water and bring just to a boil, reduce heat to medium and let vegetables cook about 5 minutes. You do not want to overcook the vegetable mixture or your softer beans might start breaking down. When vegetables are done, divide vegetables up between 4-5 clean pint jars to a 1" headspcae. Top each pint with hot brine to a 1/2" headspace. Process in a boiling waterbath or atmospheric steam canner 15 minutes, adjusting for your altitude. **Kitchen Note: I had enough vegetables for 4 full pints but, depending on what produce you choose and how large you cut your slices, your jar quantity may differ from mine. Canning Plums We were fortunate enough to have some freestone plums that needed to be eaten because they were ripe and sweet! However, we knew we couldn't eat ALL of them so, we decided to can up 3 pints and we look forward to eating them this Winter! They are an easy fruit to can and we chose to Steam Can these. My suggestion is - IF raw packing halves, to give the jars 3/4" headspace (or a FAT 1/2") because they WILL expand in the jar and expel air within the fruits cell walls, which can cause siphoning. If you want to lessen your chances of a siphon, Hot Pack your jars and once processed - leave the canner lid slightly askew for 5 minutes to stabilize the air around the jars before removing from canner.
Reminder!! Just because you have siphoning - doesn't mean that your jars won't seal - as long as you end up with sealed jars and decent headspace, you're ok in my book! Enjoy! Diane
I used/made a sugar syrup of 5 cups water, 3/4 cup sugar NCHFP Processing Times Here I still prefer making jams in small batches, and today I made a small batch of homemade raspberry jam so that I can bake up some Linzer cookies tomorrow (the jam is a filling for the cookies.) This is a very easy recipe - I hope you give it a try. ~Enjoy, Diane
Small Batch Raspberry Jam Ingredients: 3 cups fresh raspberries 1 cup sugar *divided 1/2 cup local honey 1 Tablespoon lower sugar pectin (I prefer Sure Jel in the Pink Box) 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 1/8 teaspoon butter Directions: Add 1/2 cup of sugar to the berries in a bowl, cover and let macerate in your refrigerator overnight. Add all fruit and its juices to a jam pot the next morning. Warm on low, adding in honey and final 1/2 cup sugar until dissolved, mash the berries when soft. Add in lemon and pectin and bring to a hard boil for 1 minute. You can add 1/8 tsp butter to prevent foaming. Once gel stage is reached, spoon jam into clean jars, to 1/4” headspace and process in a boiling waterbath or steam canner 10 mins or according to your altitude. Let jars cool in a draft free area for 24 hours, check seals, wash, label and store. Kitchen Note: You can take an extra step and pass the jam thru a fine sieve to remove seeds if preferred before jarring the jam and processing. Makes 2 half pints *this recipe can easily be tripled |