Canning unusual vegetables

[hiven]

Hi all,

I have been busy canning tomato sauce,soup and paste. Yesterday I was experimenting canning unusual vegetables such as lady slippers (acocha ?), cucumber (precooked) and summer squash (puree).
It seems working! Here is how I can my unusual vegetables :

The lady slippers, slice it open lenghtwise, briefly sautee it with some tomatoes cubes, chopped onions and garlic and season with salt and pepper. No need to evercook, when the tomatoes melted into gravy and the lady slippers start to limp, time to can them (hot water bath for 35 minutes or so).

The cucumbers, peel, cut lengthwise, remove seeds/core, julieen with 0.5cm thickness. Sautee the cucumber with some garlic, add small amount of white wine, season with salt and pepper and into the glass for canning (hot water bath for 35 minutes or so).

Courgettes, cut them in big pieces, steamed them until soft, puree, add a dash of salt and into glass for canning.

Both lady slippers and cucumber are ready to serve once open from the glass, but the courgette puree will still need some taste adjustment such as adding some small amount of chicken broth, creamer,salt ,etc.

I am starting to harvest baby corn, if there are plenty, I will can them too .

Have anyone got other experience canning unusual vegetables to share ?

Thanks and happy canning !

[PatrickW]

You have to be really careful when you make up your own canning recipes, because food poisoning like botulism is a very big risk. The most important thing is you should make sure what you preserve has a lot of acid in it. For example, tomatoes are not usually a problem because they already have acid in them. Cucumbers on the other hand you have to pickle with vinegar or ferment in salt first.

[hiven]

Thanks for reminding me , Patrick.
Yes, I am very aware of this C.Botulinum which capable in forming spores... ,but if the canning is done properly it is really very save.
I have been using Weck canning recipe (Weck inmaak boek) and it's product for 3 years now and only once I failed the canning.
it was purely my fault, I filled the weck glasses almost full and left less then 1cm air space and it failed to vacuum, had to ditch 6 kg of asparagus because of that .

I have done the courgette puree canning last year by converting one of the weck recipe for pumpkin/winter squash and since cucumber and lady slippers got watery consistency, it should work too. I will report if they fail.
I dislike canning pickled vegetables even though I also do lactic acid fermentations. It is healthier to eat lactic fermented food fresh/uncook. I have canned my home brewed soja souce and soja paste and they kept very well...

Experience in canning is very important and it is just great to be able to learn what else "can-able" from the person who master their canning art... any canning expert for unusual vegetables, share me some experience please... thanks!

[bunkie]

wouldn't the white wine be an acidic plus in the recipe for the cucumbers? i most always add a bit of Balsamic Vinegar for acidity...the flavor is so pleasant.

i like the idea of canning a puree of courgettes (summer squash, right?). i have tried canning summer and winter squash just in chunks and it always discolors...taste wasn't that great too...course, color may have affected that visually! i'm going to try your recipe hiven.

i also am going to try the cucumber one. looks tasty!

'rosy red radish relish' is about the most unusual i've canned...so far! ;D

[hiven]

Bunkie,

Yes The cucumber will have a mild tangy taste from the white wine. The wine will also improve the cucumber flavour, I sauteed mine using small amount of butter mix with olive oil,garlic and also add some shoyu (brewed soya sauce), salt and pepper. You can also add some small amount of chili to give a warm kick .

The courgettes are summer squash, I like using the yellow crookneck as it taste nuttier. I think it taste better to steamed them without cores as the puree will be richer in taste and with nice yellow colour (don't peel as you need it's colour effect). Once they are soft just puree and no water needed!
You could add some small amount of salt, pepper and nutmeg powder while turning the steamed summer squash into puree ,but it is really depend on your liking.
I have canned them in chunks before but dislike the result as you need to add extra water which in the end diluted the subtle natural flavour too much and turned them bland.
The hot water bathing time is also around 35 minutes (in 0.5lt canning glass), only start counting the time after the inside vessel reached 100C.

I don't have spring grown radish this year as I was running out of fine mesh (we have severe cabbage root fly problem here) ,but will sow autumn/winter type around mid september or so. I will try to can some radish next spring. It is nice to have radish soup in the summer when it is difficult to grow, thanks, Bunkie .

[grungy]

Hiven, have you tried putting wood ashes around you brassicas to eliminate your cabbage root flies? When we were kids we had several pests such as them and onion maggots ect. We use to dig a trench to put our seeds and / or plants in and then sprinkle wood ashes along both sides. Plant your seeds / plants and pull the trench closed. It sure helped reduce or eliminate the problems.

[hiven]

Thanks a bunch Grungy .
I have collected 4 big pots of wood ash this year and they will be handy for the brassicas.
So far I have not tried wood ash method yet ,but apart from using very fine mesh netting I have been using companion planting with flowers and herbs such as calendula, marigold, celery, spring onions, nasturtium, camomile and basils.
I grow more of the other things then the brassica and wasted space and turn out to be useless ,but it works for fooling the cabbage white though.

Netting seems to be the most effective way ,but it does not look nice nor easy for weeding... I will cover them for 2 months or more and then remove the net and set the collar up, I will apply the wood ash at that stage too, thank again, Grungy!

The darn cabbage root fly even attact my very young seedlings (less then 1 month old)... I lost a lot of brassica both at seedlings stage and mature plants due to running out of nettting.

[PatrickW]

When I had my garden in Friesland I had lots of cabbage root maggots. I did two things for this. The first is egg laying season is early spring. If you put your brassicas out 4-6 weeks after the last frost, you can avoid this period. The other thing is ground barriers, didn't I see you mention these recently? Just a piece of cardboard or plastic around the base of the plant, on the ground, is very effective at keeping the flies from laying their eggs. In stores here you can buy special reusable collars for brassica plants, and these work fine, but it's not necessary to buy them if you make something yourself.

For some reason these aren't as big of a problem in Amsterdam...

[hiven]

Patrick, I get to think that the brassica root fly is endemic to certain area, my old house where I garden before was situated in a village...there I don't have brassica root fly problem at all (just leaf miner and cabbage white butterfly). My house now is only 2km out of the village and there are agriculture fields with the closest one right next to our west side garden. There are several brassica field not far from us...
As for the brassica early planting... I did it this year (with out any collar, just simple netting against cabbage white butterfly) and most oriental brassicas grow to mature size.
The chinese cabbage were attact but luckily they all survived and matured nicely producing 6 tight big heads.
All cauliflowers and lots of broccolies (and even the perennial brassica) weren't so lucky, they get severly attact and died (or get pulled out). I wasn't even aware of the problem till Frank came and id them for us (thanks again Frank!!!).
From my observation there are 3 brassica cultivars that were left alone /not liked, they are:
Spanish kales (a giant!), Couve Tronchudas and Red Flander kales !
I don't know why, perhaps they don't have such strong cabbage aroma or simply having a different type of root structure

From 12 calabrese, I got 6 survived plants which grow to mature size and produce decent heads, but from 12 purple sprouting broccolies, there are only 2 survived plants that grow to mature size ... oh well, at least I still got 2 plants then nothing!

All of my heat tolerant brassica from late spring sowing were infested and killed , they were still in pots... don't even get the chance passing the seedlings stage . I managed to isolate 3 dreaded fly's cocoons from their soil and from the I learned to id the fly... ever since I have been smacking them when ever I can , my revenge .

From now on, brassica seedling will be raised under fine mesh protection and I will use mesh, collar and try Grungy wood ash .

Thanks for confirming the brassica collar, Patrick, I will surely dress my brassicas once the fine mesh is removed .

Aug 7, 2009 11:43:14 GMT -5 PatrickW said:

When I had my garden in Friesland I had lots of cabbage root maggots. I did two things for this. The first is egg laying season is early spring. If you put your brassicas out 4-6 weeks after the last frost, you can avoid this period. The other thing is ground barriers, didn't I see you mention these recently? Just a piece of cardboard or plastic around the base of the plant, on the ground, is very effective at keeping the flies from laying their eggs. In stores here you can buy special reusable collars for brassica plants, and these work fine, but it's not necessary to buy them if you make something yourself.

For some reason these aren't as big of a problem in Amsterdam...

[canadamike]

Hiven, i now do all my canning under pressure, it takes the odds out, I can make meat sauces or anything else, acicidty isn't a concern anymore. And it is much simpler than in a water bath, less procedures, the extra heat strilizes everything. last year I went to a friend with my stuff to can there, the next day she bought a big canning presto too and said farewell to the wather bath forever.

Much simpler and much safer for non acid foods.

[hiven]

Michel,

I have 2 sets of pressure cooker pans from the smallest to the biggest ,but unfortunately both biggest pressure cooker pans are 8 lt size, tiny for canning! They are more for normal pressure cooking then for canning ,but it should be ok to be use for small amount of canning from 1 to 2 liters (depending on the shape of the canning glass). I will try both canning with hot water bath and canning with pressure cooker, thanks!