I haven’t done any canning for a while. I haven’t had the energy or desire, and I haven’t needed to. But yesterday I went down to my basement to take something out of the freezer- the freezer that dh told me needs to be replaced because it’s not working properly – and found everything on the door half defrosted and everything in the main section encased in a thick layer of ice.
What to do? First of all, I took out three frozen turkeys to make room for some of the items from the door that could be refrozen without a problem. I also took out a 9 x 13 pan of shredded potatoes, and was able to chip out a couple of containers of cottage cheese and butter. After moving some things from the door into that space, I was shocked that I couldn’t even tell I had taken anything out. How in the world is it possible for there not to be noticeably more space after taking out three turkeys??
(This raised the question in my mind if it’s possible that maybe I buy a little too much food? But I quickly banished that thought.)
Anyway, now I needed to find something to do with the turkeys. One was already roasted so I put that in the fridge to defrost for Shabbos dinner. The other two I decided I’d have to can. I used the pressure canner as a pressure cooker, cooking them one at a time, and couldn’t believe how fast they were done. You know that cooking two solidly frozen turkeys would take hours, right? I’d usually have to put one in the oven and the other in our electric turkey roaster, both of which would have added lots of heat to the house in the hours of cooking. I just love the efficiency and versatility of my pressure canner – it’s been a much more valuable purchase than I expected.
Well, since I was going to can them I didn’t need them to be fully cooked, so once the pressure was up to 15 pounds I cooked them for just 10 minutes, the same as for a defrosted whole chicken. That was enough to cook the turkeys almost totally! If I had left them in another 2 minutes, they’d have been done all the way throught – as it was, they were just a little pink in the very center. When one was done, I put the other one in. Within about 2 hours both turkeys were done. They were finished cooking early enough in the day that I was able to debone and then can them today, too, and they were finished before it was even late in the evening. They’re now cooling on the counter, and all of them sealed except for one. That one will go in the fridge. All of that turkey amounted to 6 quarts (we ate some of it or it would have been 7 quarts) and I canned a quart of broth; the other broth was used to cook the rice for tonight’s dinner.
Six quart sized jars on a shelf will take a lot less room than two turkeys in the freezer! Now I’m going to have to put some effort into using the frozen veggies in the freezer before going out shopping for fresh vegetables. And hopefully we’ll soon find a good used freezer at a good price.
Avivah
Fun!! We haven’t tried canning meat yet. Uh oh, new project. 🙂
Our next adventure: going to the Eritrean market tomorrow morning for green coffee beans and trying out roasting our own. And picking up some fun Eritrean/Ethiopian things in the process. 🙂 Good shabbos!
With all that food stocked up in the house, if you were unable to go food shopping for a long period of time, how long do you think all that food would last your family?
Alpidarko – sounds like fun! You sound like me, always another project in the works. 🙂 (Canning meat is no big deal, just a little more involved than canning jam.)
Mamamoomoo – not long enough. 🙂 A family our size goes through an astonishing amount of food pretty quickly.
We went to H-Mart, which is a giant Asian food supermarket that also includes appliance, dishes, linens, fresh fish, produce… It was soooo fun! The kids really had an unusual experience and we were in awe of the way other people live who are just 5 miles away from our “shtetl.”
We also have an H-Mart here – I didn’t know it was part of a chain! It’s a fun and educational place to take the kids, to explore all the different kinds of foods they have that we don’t. We did it for the first time three years ago when we were studying Asian countries, and it was a great supplement. There are things you won’t find anywhere else, like octopus and lots of exotic vegetables.
So what will you do eventually with the canned turkey? Pot pie, turkey, gravy and grains? While in Chicago, the local grocery stores have turkeys for .99/lb and I bought two so far (and just sent them home with Daniel to Indiana) and will buy more for the winter time. They are regularly 3.99/lb so I can’t help myself. Another decent deal for our Friday nights (we always have lots of guests) were turkey breasts for 1.99/lb, normally $3+/lb. I just roast them with different seasonings or turn them into shnitzel. Daniel complained about the large grocery bills, but he isn’t “chapping” that I am spending now in order to save this fall/winter….
Great deals, Yael! Despite the complaints that there aren’t any deals to be found on kosher food when living ‘out of town’, it goes to show what I’ve repeatedly said – every locale has its bargains. Here I never have seen those items at those prices.
When you start buying food ‘ahead’, it does seem expensive. But within a month or two you’ll start to see the savings piling up, because you’ll have so much sale purchased food that you’ll rarely need to buy anything at full price. The ouch factor is highest when buying meat/poultry for now and the future simultaneously, since they’re so expensive.
As far as using the canned turkey, yes to all of your ideas and more! It’s easy to use for any recipe that calls for cooked poultry – I prefer casseroles, pot pies, and stews.
hi, is it really worthwhile moneywise to can? My mother seems to think that unless I grow my veggies that it’s not?
Ita – I started canning before growing any of my own veggies, and I still have yet to can anything that I grow. So I disagree with your mother, but I guess she ran the the numbers herself and it didn’t work out for her. I’ve gotten a lot of stuff for free that I never would have been able to use if not for the ability to can it – so the cost of a quart of whatever it was, was just my effort and .10 – .20 for the lid. Most of what I can is what I buy, though.
Thanks.. 🙂 You helped me!
Hi, I am reading through your blog and find it very interesting and helpfull. I am a mom of 8 children between 28 and 5 years of age. I am just wondering about the nutritional value of canned food, is it not healthier to freeze it. I always can as well because I like to do it and for the convenience, but since the food is heated I wonder if you don’t use a lot of nutrients. We eat a lot of vegetables and raise our own chickens for meat and eggs and I put most of it in the freezer.
Hi, Diane, welcome! I agree that with pressure canning you lose a lot of the nutrients, and think that freezing and dehydrating are healthier options (that I prefer). With water bath canning, the processing time is much shorter (for pickled vegetables and fruits) and I think there’s less nutrient loss in that case.
But what is nice about canning is that you can process food for long term that is shelf stable and already cooked, which is very helpful if you lose power or if you run out of freezer space. I have a huge freezer, a dehydrator, and can, so I use all three of these options in combination and find that works great!