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| Introduction | |
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| About This Book | |
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| Conventions Used in This Book | |
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| Foolish Assumptions | |
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| How This Book Is Organized | |
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| Icons Used in This Book | |
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| Where to Go from Here | |
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| Getting Started | |
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| Everything You've Wanted to Know about Canning and Preserving, but Didn't Know Who to Ask | |
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| Knowing the Benefits of Canning and Preserving Your Own Food | |
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| What is canning and preserving? | |
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| Who is canning today? | |
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| Why would you want to can? | |
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| Meeting Your Techniques: Canning, Freezing, and Drying | |
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| About canning food | |
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| About freezing food | |
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| About drying food | |
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| Finding Out What's Involved in Successful Canning and Preserving | |
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| Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk: The Language and Gear of Canning and Preserving | |
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| Assorted Basic Tools | |
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| Must-have basic tools | |
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| Nice-to-have basic tools | |
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| Pots, pans, mixing bowls, and more | |
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| Making Work Easier with Specialty Equipment | |
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| Food processor | |
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| Food mill | |
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| Blender | |
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| Food scale | |
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| Vacuum-sealing machines | |
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| Canning Vessels | |
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| Water-bath canner | |
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| Pressure canner | |
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| Tools Just for Canning | |
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| Jar lifter | |
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| Foam skimmer | |
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| Home-canning jars | |
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| Two-piece caps | |
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| Lid wand | |
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| Thin plastic spatula | |
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| Wide-mouth canning funnel | |
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| Jelly bag or strainer | |
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| Stoneware crocks | |
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| Tools and Equipment for Freezing Food | |
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| Tools and Equipment for Drying Food | |
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| The All-Important Headspace | |
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| On Your Mark, Get Set, Whoa!: The Road to Safe Canning and Preserving | |
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| Dispelling Your Fears of Home-Canned and Preserved Food | |
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| Knowing the Acidity Level of Your Food | |
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| Meeting the Spoilers | |
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| Mold | |
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| Yeast | |
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| Bacteria | |
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| Enzymes | |
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| Adjusting Your Altitude | |
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| Detecting Spoiled Foods | |
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| Water-Bath Canning | |
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| Come On In, the Water's Fine!: Water-Bath Canning | |
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| Defining Water-Bath Canning | |
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| Identifying High-Acid Foods | |
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| Lining Up Your Equipment | |
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| Equipment you can't do without | |
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| Additional equipment you may want | |
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| The Road to Your Finished Product | |
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| Readying your food | |
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| Preparing your jars, lids, and screw bands | |
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| Filling your jars | |
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| Processing your filled jars | |
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| Adjusting your processing times at high altitudes | |
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| Following step-by-step instructions for canning high-acid foods | |
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| Simply Fruit | |
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| Picking and Preparing Your Fresh Fruit | |
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| Identifying the proper degree of ripeness | |
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| Skin on or skin off | |
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| To cut or not to cut your fruit | |
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| Deter fruit discoloration | |
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| Raw pack and hot pack | |
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| Lining Your Jars with Liquid | |
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| Using sugar syrup | |
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| Using water or fruit juice | |
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| Fresh Fruit Canning Guidelines | |
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| Apples | |
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| Apricots, nectarines, and peaches | |
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| Berries (except strawberries) | |
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| Figs | |
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| Grapefruit and oranges | |
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| Pears | |
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| Rhubarb | |
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| Transforming Your Fresh Fruit into Side Dishes | |
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| Tackling Tomatoes | |
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| Sweet Spreads: Jams, Jellies, Marmalades, and More | |
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| Understanding Your Sweet Spreads | |
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| Meeting Your Fruit | |
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| Getting Up to Speed with Fruit Pectin | |
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| Fruit pectin basics | |
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| Types of commercial fruit pectin | |
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| Setting Up without Adding Pectin | |
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| The Road to Sweet Canning Success | |
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| Jamming and Canning | |
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| Jiggling with Jelly | |
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| Mastering Marmalade, Butters, and More | |
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| Condiments and Accompaniments: Chutneys, Relishes, and Sauces | |
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| Mastering and Preserving Your Condiments and Other Accompaniments | |
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| Complementing Your Chutney | |
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| Reveling in Your Relish | |
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| Satisfying Your Sassy Salsas and Sauces | |
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| Pickle Me Timbers! | |
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| The Art of Pickling | |
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| The ingredients | |
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| The equipment and the utensils | |
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| Brining Education | |
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| The brining process | |
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| Adding crunch to your food | |
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| Packing and Filling Your Jars | |
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| Pickled Toppers | |
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| Pickled Cucumbers Are Just Pickles | |
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| Pickled Vegetables | |
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| Pressure Canning | |
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| Don't Blow Your Top: Pressure Canning | |
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| Making Sense of Pressure Canning | |
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| Understanding the Fuss about Low-Acid Foods | |
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| Knowing That All Pressure Canners Are Not Created Equal | |
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| Size | |
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| Features | |
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| Price | |
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| Putting Additional Equipment in Order | |
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| A Canning You Will Go: Instructions for Successful Pressure Canning | |
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| Gearing up | |
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| Preparing your food | |
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| Filling your jars | |
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| Placing the jars in the canner | |
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| Closing the canner | |
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| Releasing the pressure after processing | |
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| Cooling the jars | |
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| Getting step-by-step instructions for canning low-acid foods | |
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| Taking Precautions after Processing | |
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| Paying attention to your canned foods | |
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| Responsibly disposing of spoiled food | |
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| Preserving the Harvest: Just Vegetables | |
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| Selecting Your Vegetables | |
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| Cleaning your vegetables | |
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| Knowing which vegetables are not recommended for pressure canning | |
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| Understanding Preparation Methods before Filling Your Jars | |
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| Raw (cold) packing | |
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| Hot packing | |
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| Processing tips for successful results | |
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| Pressure Canning Your Vegetables | |
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| Asparagus | |
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| Beans | |
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| Beets | |
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| Bell peppers (green, red, orange, yellow) | |
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| Carrots | |
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| Corn, whole kernel | |
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| Greens (beet, collard, kale, mustard, spinach, Swiss chard, turnip) | |
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| Okra | |
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| Peas | |
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| Potatoes | |
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| Summer squash | |
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| Winter squash and pumpkins | |
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| Using Canned Vegetables | |
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| Combining the Harvest: Soups, Sauces, and Beans | |
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| Combining Foods for Convenience | |
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| Mixing low-acid foods and high-acid foods | |
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| Adding meat, fish, poultry, and seafood | |
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| Incorporating pasta and rice | |
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| Pressure Canning Combination Foods | |
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| Stocking Up on Soup | |
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| Teaming Up with Tomatoes | |
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| Rounding Out Your Meals with Beans | |
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| Freezing | |
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| Baby, It's Cold Inside!: Freezing Food | |
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| Defining Freezing | |
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| Freezing basics | |
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| Meeting the spoilers | |
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| Gearing Up to Fill Your Freezer | |
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| Selecting food for freezing | |
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| Evaluating your freezer | |
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| Packaging Is Everything | |
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| Rigid containers | |
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| Freezer bags | |
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| Freezer paper and wraps | |
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| Tracking Your Frozen Food Trail | |
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| Thawing Out Your Frozen Food | |
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| Choices for thawing | |
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| Unplanned thawing | |
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| To refreeze or not to refreeze thawed food | |
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| Meals and Snacks in a Snap: Freezing Prepared Foods | |
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| Managing Your Time with Freezing Food | |
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| The key to delicious frozen food | |
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| The key to thawing frozen food | |
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| Freezing and Using Prepared Foods | |
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| Convenience meals | |
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| Snacks and other treats | |
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| Other foods | |
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| Savoring the Days of Summer: Freezing Fruits and Vegetables | |
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| Mastering Freezing Fruit | |
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| Packing methods for your fruit | |
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| How to thaw and use your frozen fruits | |
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| Step-by-step instructions for freezing fruit | |
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| Freezing Vegetables like a Pro | |
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| Blanching perfect vegetables | |
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| Packing your vegetables | |
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| How to thaw and use your vegetables | |
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| Step-by-step instructions for freezing vegetables | |
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| Drying | |
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| Dry, Light, and Nutritious: Drying Food | |
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| Opening the Door to Successful Food Drying | |
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| Deciding Which Method to Use | |
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| An electric dehydrator | |
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| A conventional oven | |
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| The sun | |
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| Gearing Up with Basic Tools | |
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| Gathering and Preparing Your Food | |
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| Washing and eliminating blemishes | |
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| Striving for uniform size | |
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| Checking out spoilage | |
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| The Finale: Your Dry Product | |
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| Drying food using an electric dehydrator | |
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| Drying food in your conventional oven | |
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| Sun-drying your food | |
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| Protecting the Life of Your Dried Food | |
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| Snacking on the Run: Drying Fruit | |
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| Putting Your Fruit in Order | |
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| Sizing up your preparation options | |
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| Pretreating your fruit | |
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| Detailing Your Fruit-Drying Expertise | |
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| Evaluating dryness | |
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| Drying fruit step by step | |
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| Talking about Drying Fresh Fruit | |
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| Apples | |
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| Apricots | |
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| Bananas | |
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| Blueberries and cranberries | |
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| Cherries | |
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| Citrus peel | |
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| Grapes | |
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| Nectarines and peaches | |
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| Pears | |
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| Pineapple | |
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| Plums | |
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| Strawberries | |
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| Enjoying the Labors of Your Drying | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| Ten (Or So) Troubleshooting Tips for Your Home-Canned Creations | |
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| Your Jars Didn't Seal Properly | |
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| Your Jar Lost Liquid During Processing | |
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| Your Jar's Liquid Is Cloudy | |
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| Your Jar's Lid Has Dark Spots on the Underside | |
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| Your Jelly Doesn't Have the Right Consistency | |
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| Your Jelly Is Cloudy or Has Bubbles | |
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| Your Jelly Has Mold on It | |
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| Your Jelly Has Very Little Fruit Flavor | |
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| Your Jelly Contains Glasslike Particles | |
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| Your Pickles Are Hollow, Shriveled, Discolored, or Slippery | |
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| Your Pickle Jars Have White Sediment in the Bottom | |
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| Your Food Floats in the Jar | |
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| Your Food's Color Is Off | |
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| Ten (Or So) Sources for Canning and Preserving Supplies and Equipment | |
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| Alltrista Consumer Products Company | |
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| The Chile Shop | |
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| Cooking.com | |
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| The Cook's Garden | |
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| The Food Safety Network | |
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| Home Canning Supply & Specialties | |
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| Kitchen Krafts, Inc. | |
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| MyOwnLabels.com | |
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| Penzeys Spices | |
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| Sur La Table | |
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| Tupperware Corporation | |
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| Metric Conversion Guide | |
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| Index | |