Canned Dilly Beans

The green bean glut is on!

After the harvest on Friday, we knew we had more beans than we could possibly sell or eat at once, so Saturday evening, spurred by the abundance, we undertook our first canning project of the season.

As amateur canners, we carefully consulted and stuck to the recommendations of Nancy Chioffi and Gretchen Mead's book Keeping the Harvest. Their recipe for dilly beans and general processing instructions were easy to follow, and we only needed a few special tools:

• pint-jars
• new pint lids
• large pot
• makeshift canning rack to keep the jars off the bottom during processing (we used the rings off old canning lids)
• jar lifter (available at the grocery store)

If you don't have experience canning, it's best to head to the bookstore or to the library (or jump on the internet) and read up before you get started.

We haven't opened a jar to try them yet, but the process seemed like a success. Do you have a favorite bean canning recipe? We'd love to hear about it!

from Keeping the Harvest by Nancy Chioffi and Gretchen Mead

2 lbs green and yellow wax beans, trimmed
1 tsp cayenne pepper
4 cloves garlic
4 heads dill
2 1/2 cups water
2 1/2 cups vinegar
1/4 cup canning salt

Pack beans, lengthwise, into hot pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch headroom. The jars shouldn't end up too full -- leave enough room for vinegar solution to flow between beans. To each pint, add 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, 1 clover garlic, and 1 head dill. Combine remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Pour boiling hot water over beans, leaving 1/4 inch headroom. Adjust caps. Process pints 10 minutes in boiling water bath (10 minutes from the point when water is boiling vigorously). Yield: 4 pints.

For best flavor let the canned beans stand for at least two weeks before serving. This allows the flavor to develop. And don't worry if they look shrivelled right after processing. They'll plump up in 4-6 weeks.

Fresh beans, trimmed to leave 1/2'' headroom in the jar and rinsed in a colander

Beans packed in the pint jars, topped with a garlic clove, a dill-head, and 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper

Once the jars are filled with the hot vinegar solution (leaving 1/4'' headroom), we wiped the tops of the jars with a dry paper towel to remove any moisture that might inhibit the seal. Then we put on the tops and screwed on the rings.

The jars were added to a pre-heated pot of water, positioned atop our makeshift can rack, made of old canning lid rings. It's important to use a rack and to make sure the jars don't touch each other or the sides of the pot in order to ensure an even temperature around the jar during processing. Once the water came to a boil, we processed for 10 minutes.

We lifted out the jars with our handy jar-lifter and put them in a draft-free place to cool for 12 hours.

The beans were a little shrively, but our sources promise this will go away in a few weeks.

After 12 hours, we tested the seal by removing the ring and lifting the jar by the flat lid. Success!

Freezing Tomatoes and other resources for food preservation

Here on the farm we're just coming into our summer bounty. With all the beautiful food around us: tomatoes blushing red, new zucchinis bursting from the vine, cucumbers coming to size and lettuce growing and growing, it's hard to think about the times of year when all these things just don't grow.

In the past our mothers and grandmothers found ways to preserve food to enjoy during leaner winter months when harvests were scarce or nonexistent. Preserving: pickling, jamming, canning, and drying is coming back into vogue as the economy encourages people to find ways to save, and folks become more excited about eating locally produced products. Ball Jar has seen sales of canning jars go up by 30% since 2007.

Some of our neighbors are well ahead of the trend: many folks on the island have been canning and preserving for years. And we know many more of you are interested in getting started. We had a question on the blog the other day about preserving foods, so we've put together some resources to help.

In the coming months, we hope to compile the wisdom of other folks on the island to give advice on island-friendly techniques for storing onions, garlic, and other veggies to keep throughout the year.

Freezing Tomatoes

Here at the farm, we like to freeze extra tomatoes to use throughout the year in soups and sauces. It's a simple process that takes just an afternoon or evening to process the pounds of extra tomatoes we harvest and can't use up.

1) Rinse your tomatoes well, cut out the stem area and discard. You can leave the tomatoes whole, or cut them in chunks, according to your preference. (We leave them whole.)

2) Place the tomatoes in a large soup pot with nothing else. Bring them to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer them for about an hour, until they are mushy.

3) Put the tomato mixture through a food mill, and discard the pulp that remains. (It should be only a small amount.)

4) Put the tomato mixture in individual glass jars (we use quart-size ball jars with plastic lids) and set on the counter to cool. Then put in the freezer. This should last at least a year.

Other Resources
The San Juan Island library is a great resource for books on canning and preserving vegetables. Check out books near call number 641.4.

Here are some key references to check out (* available at the library):

• Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (2006) by Judy Kingry and Lauren Devine*
• Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables (1991) by Mike Bubel and Nancy Bubel
• Putting Food By (1992) by Ruth Hertzberg, Beatrice Vaughan, and Janet Greene*
• Stocking Up: The Third Edition of America’s Classic Preserving Guide (1986) by Carol Hupping and the staff of the Rodale Food Center*
• Joy of Cooking: All About Canning and Preserving (2002) by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker

You can also check out these sites online:

• National Center for Food Preservation
• Freshpreserving.com (website of Ball Jar company)