Chocolate Sauce Canning Recipe

Oh Boy right? We always have a jar opened in the fridge. Boys like it on their crepes and waffles and such.

Chocolate Syrup Canning Recipe

By Marcie Dingerson

Makes 2 1/2 pints

1 Cup Cocoa

1 Cup Organic Sugar

1/4 Tsp Salt

1 Cup Water

1 Tbsp Vanilla

Stir over low heat until mixed, this takes a few minutes. I then turn it up a bit until it's bubbly and pull it and pour it into jars and let it sit a bit. You waterbath for 10 minutes. I have never doubled the recipe, I just do this in batches. So I made this three times today and got 6 jars.

Canned Potatoes

So yesterday I canned 50 pounds of potatoes, or 36 quarts, or 18 meals. Canning potatoes is one of the easiest things ever. You just peel the potato, dice, put into water, rinse off and put into a jar, top with water, a pinch of salt, and process in a pressure cannier at 40 minutes.

So sadly one of my twins broke yesterday, so I only had one working cannier. It seems the gauge on the second cannier decided to up and quit working. So on my list for Friday is to go and buy another gauge. Ace is well known for selling cannier parts.

These are my tiny square potatoes.

Canned Chocolate Syrup

Well Blogger won't let me up load photos tonight, I even restarted the computer. So for now you get a recipe and I will try to update tomorrow. Now please keep in mind this is NOT a USDA approved canning recipe.

It was so pretty when making it, and it was something quick to make, it just didn't make a whole lot. I want to say 3 half pints per recipe? I did the recipe three times. I would have kept going but ran out of cocoa. I think it would be a great Christmas gift to give.

Chocolate Syrup

1 cup cocoa
2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1 tablespoon vanilla

Combine cocoa, sugar: blend until all lumps are gone. Add water and salt. Mix well. Cook over medium heat, bringing to a boil. Keep boiling until thick, stirring to keep from overflowing. Remove from heat. Let cool. Add vanilla. This can be waterbath canned for 10 minutes.

Caramel Apple Butter Canning Recipe

Yes, you can have Caramel Apple Butter and have it dairy free. HOW? You say Marcie? Well it ain't easy I will tell ya that. First you need to make your own Caramel. I found a recipe to try, I will post below. I am not to happy with it. For canning apple butter it was fine, but to have it stand up as a candy it really would not work well. My hunt will continue!

Anywho, I made the caramel a few days before I was to make apple butter and just kept it in the fridge. So when I was ready I just pulled it out and dumped it into the crockpot. I used This Crockpot Apple Butter Recipe although I used 6 pounds of apples and 2 cups of sugar. I'm not a big fan of sugar around here.

After letting the apple butter sit in the crockpot for awhile, I added the caramel and just left it on low for a few hours. Until it looked way too good to be possible, I then jarred it up and canned it up. I did 10 minutes bwb. Enjoy.

Caramel

1 Cup Coconut Milk
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
5 Tablespoons Earth Balance Butter
2 Teaspoons Sea Salt
1 1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Honey
1/4 Cup Water

Line bottom and sides of an 8 inch square baking pan with parchment paper, then brush parchment lightly with oil.

In a small saucepan, combine coconut milk, butter, and sea salt. Bring the mixture to a boil stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and set aside.

In a large, heavy sauce pan set over medium to medium-high heat, combine sugar, honey, vanilla, and water. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring. Once the sugar is dissolved, cook the mixture until the temperature reaches 248 degrees F, gently swirling the saucepan (do not stir). Carefully stir in the coconut milk mixture. It will bubble up, so take care not to burn yourself. Continue to simmer, swirling the mixture frequently, for 15-20 minutes, or until the mixture thickens and turns golden brown. While simmering, do not allow the temperature go higher then 250 degrees F.

To determine if the caramel with your fingers to determine if the consistency you like, drop a small amount of caramel into a bowl of cold water. Test the ball of caramel with your fingers to determine if the consistency is right.

Pour the cooked caramel into into the prepared pan. Let the caramel cool for 2 hours. Let cool for about 2 hours and cut and wrap each square. ( I did not cut and wrap, knowing I would just dump into the crock pot)

Apple Pie Filling

So our apple tree was loaded this year. This has been our first good year of apples. Last year we got 3 apples. This year it was buckets and buckets. So what is a girl to do? But to make apple pie filling, and applesauce and we will see what else comes to mind as I go.

Here is the finished apple pie filling. It smells amazing.

Apple Pie Filling

Core and slice apples and place in water as you go.

This makes about 7 quarts of apple pie filling.

6 quarts of sliced apples

5 cups of sugar

1 1/2 cups clear-gel

1 tablespoon cinnamon

2 1/2 cups water

5 cups apple juice

3/4 cup lemon juice

I toss it all into a pot until it boils, I load up the jars and bwb for 25 minutes. Here is a good link to some good photos and how to's.

Enjoy.

Canning Green Beans

Canning Grean Beans is very easy to do. So easy even The Little Naked Chef can do it. Here is Cole helping momma. I raw pack my green beans, so I cut off the ends and cut the beans in half and Mr. Cole packed my jars for me. add a pinch of salt and fresh water and they were ready for the canner. Today we only did 7 quarts. I put them in the Pressure canner for 25 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.

See very easy...

Zesty Peach BBQ Sauce

This is amazing. I made it last year and we used it all up. We poured it over ribs and would let them crockpot. OMG. I could not wait to make more this year. I doubled this year and tempted to make more.

6 Cups chopped, pitted and pealed peaches
1 Cup finely chopped seeded red bell pepper
1 Cup Onion
3 Tablespoons Garlic
1 1/4 Cup Honey (I have used rice syrup before)
3/4 Cup Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce (Beef Broth)
2 tsp hot pepper flakes
2 tsp dry mustard
2 tsp salt

1. Prepare canner, jars, and lids.

2. In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine peaches, res pepper, onion, garlic, honey, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, hot pepper flakes, mustard, and salt. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, until mixture is thickened to the consistency of thin commercial barbecue sauce, about 25 minutes.

3. (I normally run it through the food processor for a second, you choose) Ladle hot sauce into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space.

4. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water, process for 15 minutes.

Caramelized Onions

I did 6 pints of these before our camping trip. The smell was amazing and I am not a big onion fan.
2 Large Onions
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Dry Red Wine
3 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
Salt/Pepper To Taste

Slice Onions Thinly. Combine Onions and sugar, I use my cast iron dutch oven. Cook, uncovered over Med-Heat for about 25 minutes. They will try golden and start to caramelize.

Stir in everything else. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to low and cook about another 15 minutes or so.

Spoon into jars, and bwb for 10 minutes. I found that two onions nearly did 2 pints.

Recipe from Small Batch Preserving.
Salt/Pepper

Strawberry Jam

So the weather finally broke loose and the sun came out and look what I found in our Strawberry beds? STRAWBERRIES. who know they were there? What to do with all these Strawberries? WHAT? I first made jam.

Yes, Three big bowl fulls. This was one days of picking.

Oh look Nummy don't they?

I made Jam.

OK my jam recipe, now we are corn free and I did a TON of research on this. Can I make pectin free Strawberry Jam?

I went off the recipe here now shockingly I did not follow her recipe but got my ideas from it.

Honestly here is what I did, I put all the cleaned washed berries in the crock pot, I only added about two cups of organic sugar (add to taste) and some lemon juice. I'm a dumping kind of girl so I have no idea how much lemon juice just a few dumps.

I put it on high for a bit and then took a potato masher and mashed down after some cooking. I then put it on low and let it cook down until it was jam liked. I then put it into jars and bwb for 10 minutes.

Now next time I want to do this Recipe here .

It looks much easier then waiting for it to cook down all day?

Now it's a touch bit runny, just a tad. But it looks and smells heavenly.

Canning Carrots

My three year old LOVES canned carrots. Loves is an understatement. Every jar in the house is gone so I had to give in and buy carrots to can. So today we just HAD to can carrots. This child helped me every step of the way. His job was to load the jars with cut carrots. He then stirred the mixture. We did 29 pints of carrots this night. We did so many I had two canners going. YIPPEE.

This is a carrot!

This is little naked chef stirring the mixture.

This is the end result. 29 pints of carrots.

This is the recipe for Glazed Carrots

For 6 pints of carrots

6-7 pounds of carrots

2 cups brown sugar

2 cups water

1 cup orange juice

Wash and peel carrots. Cut carrots into coins, fill the jars.

Combine brown sugar, water and orange juice in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Fill jars with liquid. Add two piece lid.

Process pints and quarts at 30 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure in a steam-pressure canner.

TWINS!

I can't tell ya how excited I am to have TWINS! So Saturday knowing everything at Goodwill would be 40% off and knowing two stores have jars. We first headed North to Olympia to clean them out of jars. But looking up and down the aisles I found it. The twin to my canner at home. I opened it up and it looks like it has hardly been used all the parts were there so it quickly went into my cart. Hubby asked How Much? 12.99$ Oh That is a steal. Because 12.99 minus 40% is 7.79. So yeah for 30 bucks I brought home two cart loads of jars and one canner.

We then headed South and hit that Goodwill where they thanked me for cleaning off the shelves of canning jars. Two more carts later we were heading home with a van full of jars and three kids and my new pressure canner.

I just keep thinking come summer I won't be the one out looking for canning jars now will I? I was smart enough to buy during the winter months. I'll be home canning and tending to the garden.

Canning Chicken

That is something I am in the midst of doing today, is canning chicken. We have ran out it's time to can some more. Now I love how this blog explains it here this blog was the reason I ran into the kitchen last year and canned chicken.

I love canned chicken. It makes for quick meals. As a mom of three, I LOVE quick meals. One meal is taking the canned chicken, dumping into a pan, adding some sauce usually a salad dressing and cooking it up for a few minutes. Well that is cooking away I will cook up two quarts of my potatoes. Well the potatoes are in the mixer after being cooked I start the canned carrots. And boom there you go a quick 20 or so minute dinner. All from jars.

So I currently have ten pounds of chicken in the canner right now. I put the left over chicken all the stuff that is cut away? I put that into a crock pot, cover with spices and water and let that cook away all day long. Right before bed I will jar up the chicken broth and usually can that the next day or two. But hey free chicken broth you can't beat it. And I will say I have had people drive down to my house just to get jars of chicken broth. Apparently it is that good? So I have two crock pots cooking away right now.

Can't beat it. Although I hope chicken goes on sale next week? My freezer is empty and we need more chicken....

Check out the blog here.

More On Canning

Answer some of the comments.

My canned goods are everywhere, under beds on shelves here and there. My son's dresser. He doesn't need clothes does he? But I want to take more photos this year.

Recipes I will try and post as I go this year. I should have more time to a point so I want to post the photos and recipes as I go.

And Penny the world can't handle two of me. (did that come out right?)

2009 Canning Totals

Applesauce 61 Quarts
BBQ Sauce 12 Pints
Blackberry Jam 4 Pints
Bread and Butter Pickles 2 Quarts 17 Pints
Carrots 25 Pints
Chicken 48 Pints
Chicken Broth 19 Quarts 31 Pints
Coleslaw 1 Quart 8 Pints
Hamburger Pickles 9 Pints
My BBQ Sauce 19 Pints
Sauce (pizza, spag.) 39 Quarts
Strawberry Jam 17 Pints 6 Gift Sizes
Strawberry Lemonade 16 Quarts
Sweet Dill Pickles 22 Pints
Peach Butter 5 Pints 5 HPints
Pear sauce 11 Quarts
PF Chang's Chicken 8 Pints
Pineapple 62 Pints
Potatoes 84 Quarts
Zesty Peach BBQ Sauce 17 Pints
Zucchini 7 Quarts
Zucchini Pickles 9 Quarts 3 Pints
Zucchini Relish 14 Quarts 17 Pints
Zucchini Tomato Dish 9 Quarts 2 Pints

These are the total's for 2009 canning season. The plain zucchini was a bust, won't do that again. The Zesty Peach BBQ Sauce is to die for. Potatoes are a BIG time saver. Not enough chicken and the PF Chang's Chicken AMAZING. The Chicken Broth is gone as my mother raided my pantry and took it all. Apparently it's the best stuff around. Carrots are nearly gone. Applesauce should be nearly gone by apple picking season. We will need more potatoes. What I love to do is dump chicken and mix with any salad dressing in the fridge and cook it up. Well that is cooking, cook the potatoes around here two quarts per dinner. Well that is in the mixer get the carrots going. Very quick and easy dinner. The Sauce is a sauce for pizza or spag. or anything. You just spice it up as you cook it. So basically it's a tomato sauce with a few basic spices we like.

For the 2010 canning season I want to focus on more meal type stuff. Our growing should nearly double. OH Gosh Help Me. Hoping I can keep up with myself this year. Now our house is small. I have jars hidden everywhere. Under beds in odd cabinets, under the couch.

Wish Me Luck!

Helping Mommy

So we spent some time tonight finding hiding spots for our canned foods. So under Cole's bed Tucker went to hide Applesauce and Potatoes. Under this bed is packed. There can be no monkey's jumping on this bed! But we got all but 5 jars under the bed so we did pretty good. Now where to hide those darn carrots?

Peaches

So what does one do with over 20 pounds of peaches? They can them. Num, Num. I can not tell you how good my kitchen smelled tonight. OMG.

First up we did a batch of Peach Butter. I added cinnamon and a touch of vanilla. Oh the smell. Heavenly.

Next up I did Zesty Peach Barbecue's Sauce. I ended up doing two double batches. Separately of course. Two different pans. I can't wait to cook this up with some of my canned chicken. The smell was amazing.

Both recipes came from this book. A book I picked up this year and have used it many times so far. I will be picking up tomatoes on Sunday and doing some more Barbecue sauces next week. Things like this will be wonderful when I have about 20 minutes to cook dinner.

Go and get this wonderful book! I highly recommend it.

My Big Score For Today

I got a call from a lady this morning, she was ready for me to pick up jars. Now I had given up on this lady calling since this was a few weeks ago. But here is the load hubby came home with. Including canned food from 1921. Anyone want a spoon? Raisin Conserves. Num Num.

YES I'M JOKING!

The lady told us to bring boxes and so hubby took 5 and came home with 12 boxes as you can see a few are BIG boxes. I have not done a count yet.

Strawberry Lemonade

Does this look good? Did you know you can can Lemonade?

Here you go. I use a steam juicer (thanks free cycle). Once you have 3 quarts of strawberry juice you are ready to go. I have heard you can put the strawberry's in a Ziploc bag with some sugar for a few hours until you have juice? I use my steamer I am in love with it.

Once you have 3 quarts of strawberry juice in a large, I mean large stock pan you add the lemon juice and water. Finally add the sugar and put on the heat. Once the sugar is dissolved you pour into quart jars, seal and put into the bwb canner for 15 minutes. Honestly very easy. My husband has all ready taste tested three. Isn't that nice of him? These will not last long around here.

3 quarts strawberry juice
3 cups bottled lemon juice
6 cups sugar
4 quarts water

Recipe Heat together, stirring until sugar dissolves. Heat, but do not boil. Pour into hot jars leaving 1/2" head space, cap. BWB 15"Yields 9 quarts

Canning 101

OK I'm going to attempt to do a Canning 101 using Strawberry Jam. Honestly it's easy as one, two, three.

First go strawberry picking. This is a photo of a Strawberry from our bed. So far we have picked enough to make three batches of jam and one batch of Strawberry Lemonade. Num, Num. Pick enough to make 5 cups crushed. I think about 6 cups or so is good.

Now take the time to pick off the tops and to wash the Strawberry's.

Next I toss them into the food processor for a few seconds. I leave them kinda chucky. I than measure out one cup at a time and dump into a big stock pan. Until I have five cups.

I than add 1/4 cup lemon juice.

I than mix in the pectin, this is the one I used this time. The recipe I used comes in the box.

I than bring to a full rolling boil for about a minute, really not long.

I than add in the sugar, I have changed over to organic this year. Yes more pricey. But worth it to me. I get my bags at Costco where it's much cheaper.

Put in 7 cups of sugar. Yes, really. Where I live I can get away with using 5-6 cups of sugar and it sets just fine. But if you live where it's hot I would not try this.

Now boil hard for 1 minute. If you wish to skim off foam go for it. I do not do this.

Well it's boiling get your jars ready. I normally have them sitting in hot water. A trick is to have the lids and rings sitting in hot water in a crock pot.

When done pour into hot jars leaving 1/4 to 1/2 inch space. I normally fill to the first line. If you look at a jar you will see what I'm talking about.

Once all jars are filled put on the two piece (I didn't take a photo, oops) But a top and a ring and tighten it down. Hand tight.

They say to bwb for 5 minutes I actually do 10. Now bwb is easy, Boil Water Canner. You put the jars in and make sure water covers the top of the highest on in there. About an inch over is what you want. You than put the lid on and turn it on high. And you wait for it to boil. When it starts to boil is when you start the timer. You than time for ten minutes. Once the timer goes off, I turn off the heat, I remove the top and let it cool a bit. About ten minutes or so later I come back and take the jars out and set them on the dining room table to cool over night. You want to set them in a place they will not be touched for 12-24 hours. When 24 hours is up you can take off the rings and test the seal if you can pick it up by the seal and nothing happens you have done good.

The pinging sound you hear as you take the jars out of the canner is a good sounds. They are sealing. Don't panic if all don't ping, some seal without the ping. Also your jam may not set up right away. It can take up to two weeks to set. I know that has happened to me.

Here is the ending result. Some nummer Strawberry Jam you can put on your shelf that will keep up to three years. And you know what is in your jam. How cool is that?

So did I miss anything? Do not double recipes. One batch at a time. If you do the pectin verses sugar may be off and have trouble setting. Anybody else have any questions?

And yes I will do a pressure canner one as well. In fact I'm canning chicken right now. Busy, busy...

OMG! 7ft Dehydrator

Yes, I'm serious. It's a seven foot dehydrator. It will be in our house by the end of tonight. Now you say why does one need a seven foot dehydrator? Well um, why not?

I am so stinking excited. I will be drying until the cows come home.

This is hand made, it was made by the Grandfather of the guy we are getting it from.

Now when I update my garden photos you will see why this little baby will come in handy around here.