Beans

Basic Beans - Pressure canning Pinto Beans

This is a short blog about how easy it is to put up Pinto Beans or any dried bean for later use. The basic recipe comes from the Ball Canning book.You can use this recipe to process dried Kidney, Navy, Black eye peas and Peruano beans which come from Mexico.

Here is the process:

• 5 lbs of dried beans will yield 7 quarts of beans

Yield:  3 1/4 lbs of dried beans makes 9 pints

 

1.   To rehydrate beans, you can:

• soak the beans overnight    OR
• put dried beans in a large saucepan. Add water to cover beans by 2 inches.  Bring beans to a boil, boil 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and let stand covered for 1 hour. Drain. 

2.   Cover beans with fresh cold water by two inches in a large dutch oven. (Because the beans have plumped up you may need a bigger pan.)

3.   Bring beans to a low boil for 30 minutes, stirring frequently. (Hard boil tends to split beans.)

4.  Pack beans using a slotted spoon into the hot pint jars filling about 3/4 of the way. Add 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt to each jar (optional). 

5.   Ladle hot cooking liquid over beans removing air bubbles and add enough to fill to 1 inch headspace. Clean rims, add lids and rings. Process pints in pressure canner at 10 lbs of pressure for a weighted gauge canner and 11 lbs for a dial gauge for 65 minutes, quarts for 75 minutes.

SOURCE:  Canning Homemade

Vegetable Beef Soup

• 1 1/2 pounds stew beef, cubed (or round steak)
• 4 cups beef broth (two pints home made beef stock)
• 1 cup onion, chopped
• 3 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 1 cup celery, sliced - optional
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 28 ounces canned tomatoes (two pints of home canned tomatoes)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
• 1 ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning mix (Renee’s blend) or
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon ground thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon ground marjoram
• 1 cup frozen peas - optional

Preparation: Prepare 6 - 7 pint jars, lids, and rings. Sterilize the jars and keep them in the hot water till its time for processing. Make sure to fill your pressure canner up to the “fill” line and get the water to a simmer.

Cooking: In a stainless steel or enameled dutch oven brown meat quickly using a tiny bit of olive oil just so the meat won’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Add to the pot the rest of the ingredients and cook on medium hight for 10 minutes only just to combine the broth and spices! Turn off the heat. Ladle. 

Filling the jars: On a dishtowel place your hot jars in a semi circle leaving room for your pot that has your recipe.  Using your slotted spoon ladle the meat and veggies into the jar filling only half way then add the soup liquid into the jars leaving 1” headspace. Start from the top of the semi circle and work your way to the end. Remove air bubbles and refill to the proper headspace if necessary. Remove your recipe and taking a clean papertowel and wipe the rims of the jars with white vinegar removing any food particles that would interfere with a good seal. Using your magic wand extract the lids from the hot water and place them on the now cleaned rims. Add your rings to the tops of each of the jars and turn to seal just "finger tight".

Processing: Make sure your rack is on the bottom of the canner and place the jars in the pressure canner.  Lock the lid and turn up the heat bring the canner to a boil. Vent steam for 10 minutes, then close the vent by adding the weighted gauge or pressure regulator (for dial gauge canner).  Process pints for 75 minutes at 10 lbs of pressure (11 lbs for dial gauge canner) and quarts at 90 minutes.  When complete turn off the heat and let pressure return to zero naturally. Wait two minutes longer and open vent. Remove canner lid. Wait 10 minutes then remove jars and place on dishtowel in a place that they will sit overnight to cool. Do not touch or move them till the next morning.

Sealing: Some time in the next hour your jars will be making a "pinging" or "popping" noise. That is the glass cooling and the reaction of the lids being sucked into the jar for proper sealing. Some recipes may take overnight to seal. Check your lids and reprocess any jars that did not seal. Remove rings for storage.

SOURCE:  Canning Homemade

16 Bean Soup

• 2 – 16 oz packets of bean soup
• 4 medium onions, chopped
• 1 ½ stalk celery, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 6 large carrots diced
• 2 - 6oz can diced green chilies
• 2 – 8oz can diced tomatoes
• 4 cups of ham
• 1 large ham bone
• 3 T. of Kosher salt
• 3 T. of pepper
• 14 cups of water

Process the beans first. This is the short cut method. Rinse the packets of beans in a colander. Pick out any rocks or bad beans and toss.  Combine beans with 6 cups of water and cook till only boiling. Turn off heat and let beans soak in cooking water for two hours.

Cook and Serve: In a large stock pot combine all prepped ingredients and 15 cups of water. Drain beans of their cooking liquid and add beans to stock pot. Continue to cook soup for 2 ½ hours never getting to a boil, so as to not split the beans. Remove ham bone.  Serve hot.

For canning:  Cook soup for 1¾ hours also not boiling the mix and prepare jars, lids and rings.  Remove ham bone and ladle soup into 8-10 pint size jars leaving 1 inch of headspace. Remove air, clean rims, place on lids and rings and pressure can at 10 pounds for 60 minutes. If you are going to use quart size jars process for 75 minutes in pressure canner.

After canning the expansion of the beans will make the soup thick. When serving the soup add either chicken stock or water to thin.

SOURCE:  Canning Homemade