Not Your Mama's Canning Book: Modern Canned Goods and What to Make with Them

318 Pages·2016·24.912 MB·English

by  Rebecca Lindamood

NOT YOUR MAMA’S
CANNING BOOK
MODERN CANNED GOODS AND WHAT TO MAKE WITH THEM
REBECCA LINDAMOOD
FOUNDER OF FOODIE WITH FAMILY
Begin Reading
Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page

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THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY HUSBAND, LINDY—MY EVIL GENIUS, EYE
CANDY, CHIEF TASTE TESTER, FIXER OF BROKEN DISHWASHERS, DOER OF POTS
AND PANS AND MY NUMBER ONE FAN.
AND MY WILD AND CRAZY HONYAKS, LIAM, AIDAN, TY, LEIF AND ROWAN.
THANK YOU FOR KEEPING LIFE EXCITING AND FULL OF LOVE, GUYS. I LOVE YOU
BIGGER THAN THE BAY!
P.S. I’M DONE WITH THE BOOK; YOU ARE ALL ALLOWED BACK IN THE KITCHEN
NOW.
FOREWORD
First, let me get this out of the way: I am a Rebecca Lindamood fan. Ever since I had the
pleasure of crossing paths with her several years ago, I have come to know her as a
woman of faith, a raiser of children, a lover of old hymns, a listener, a thinker and a
master of all things domestic. She first made her way to my family’s Oklahoma ranch by
way of winning a recipe contest, and I fell in love with her (and her quirky/beautiful
personality) instantly. I also fell in love with her food instantly. And the rest, as they
say, is history!
A friend of the nearby Amish community in her little corner of upstate New York,
Rebecca is nothing short of Wonder Woman in the kitchen. Her bread-baking, soup-
making, casserole-delivering, recipe-writing and meal-planning skills are nothing short
of intimidating. Rebecca hearkens back to another time, when resourcefulness, frugality
and planning were everyday traits of a homemaker; it’s clear they are in her blood, as
they come so naturally to her. She uses her gifts (and groceries) wisely, seeing to it that
nothing is wasted and everything is thoughtfully prepared. Rebecca is the kind of home
cook who’d use leftover breakfast ingredients to make lunch, leftover lunch ingredients
to make dinner, and use whatever ingredients are left from dinner to whip up a five-
course meal for 200 members of her church the next day, all the while fertilizing her
herb garden with eggshells, enriching her compost heap with vegetable peelings and oh
—setting out ten loaves of bread to rise in the background.
As I said: Wonder Woman.
Given her long legacy of can-do (pun intended!) spirit in the kitchen, it came as no
surprise to me that Rebecca’s first cookbook is all about the subject of canning. And as
I’ve read through its pages, it has come as no surprise to find, with great delight, that it
celebrates canning in a way that only someone with Rebecca’s canning chops could. She
uses great wisdom (and great humor) to identify the different types of canners (from
“The Mooch” all the way up to the “Obsessive Canner”), offer basic canning tips and
safety information, outline necessary canning equipment and fill in any other missing
spaces that all canners at one point or another—whether beginner or pro—have asked.
And, just as is the case with Rebecca herself, the information is never, ever boring or
dry. It’s fun, it’s feisty and it reads like a romance novel! (Okay, maybe I’m
exaggerating just a tad. My point is, it’s a darn fun read.)
But the basic information is only the beginning: You need only browse the first few
recipes to understand just what a feast for the senses this canning book is, and that the
recipes herein are absolutely, positively “Not Your Mama’s!” From Ginger Lime
Marmalade (which is a zippy variation of the regular orange variety) to Masala Chai
Jelly (whose beauty I don’t think I ever could have conceived of in my wildest culinary
dreams) to other delectable combinations for fruits, vegetables, chutneys and sauces,
you’ll want to dive in and start canning immediately just so you can partake of the
delights. A beautiful bonus is the collection of non-canning recipes that follow—dishes
like Sticky Jerk Chicken Wings and Maple Bourbon Pecan Pie—all of which include one
of the canned ingredients from the preceding sections.
If you are a passionate canner, this cookbook will make your fire burn even brighter. If
you’re a beginner, this book is every bit as helpful as the best primers out there … but
taken to a whole new level. Rebecca’s information, recipes and experience can be
trusted, and I can say with 100 percent certainty that her Amish friends would definitely
approve.
(I know her Oklahoma friend sure does!)
—REE DRUMMOND
The Pioneer Woman

INTRODUCTION
I was lucky enough to be born into a family where canning was a prized skill. One of
my fondest and clearest memories of childhood was slinking down my grandparents’
basement stairs to walk past the shelves of jars upon jars of canned goods that my
grandmother had preserved. I loved admiring all of the rainbow-hued contents and jars
of various shapes and sizes. My grandmother would inevitably find me and offer to
crack open a quart jar of her pickles, but she had me wait until they were chilled in the
refrigerator first. It seemed like the wait took an eternity, but it was always worth it.
You can’t buy pickles like that in the stores, and I knew it early on in life.
As a kid, I helped shell peas, snap green beans and do other simple tasks to help the
canning cause while the skilled laborers (my grandma, mom and aunts) did the more
complex jobs like peeling peaches, packing the hot contents into jars and such. My dad
and I canned sauerkraut from my grandma’s recipe. We were drinking our iced tea from
Mason jars long before it was hip.
It’s probably no surprise then that when I grew up and started my own family, I was bit
hard by the canning bug. My first year canning on my own, I put up close to 60 quarts
(57 liters) of applesauce. Given that it was just my husband, our son and me at the time,
that was probably enough applesauce to keep each of us in one or more servings a day
for an entire year. We got a little applesauced out.
For a couple of seasons I canned absolutely everything I could lay my hands on, and
found that we had jars that sat on the shelves for longer than they ought to because I
had no idea what to do with them (I’m looking at YOU, sweet vinegar dipping sauce!).
Then I got a little smarter. I took stock of what we had eaten and what we hadn’t. I
knew what our growing family liked. I kept a canning diary complete with the prices I
had paid for the produce and how much of each thing I put in jars.
My goal was not just to preserve a significant amount of food, but to make food I knew
we would eat. I allowed myself to make smaller amounts of a few new recipes annually
and discovered some real family favorites that way. I found that the key to using these
foods successfully was to have a game plan before the food even went into jars. I tried
some of the new recipes because they were similar to something we bought regularly
from the store, and some we tried because it sounded like something that could work
itself into our normal meal rotation.
After all, a beautiful jar of something sitting on the shelf doesn’t do anyone any good
unless you know how to use it!
When I decided to write a canning cookbook, I knew I wanted to provide a solid recipe
to go with each of the canned goods to help avoid waste. Not Your Mama’s Canning Book
is the result of that idea. For each canning or food preservation recipe, there is an
accompanying Big Payoff! recipe. The book is divided into the following sections:
• Our canning primer, Canning 101: The Art of Getting Canned. The name comes
directly from my grandma who often said that if she wrote a canning cookbook,
that is what she would call it.
• Part I: Can All the Things!
• Part II: The Big Payoff!
I hope you all enjoy the recipes found in Not Your Mama’s Canning Book as much as we
do. Now grab those canning tongs and let’s cram some stuff into jars!