How do you preserve food in jars? (canning)?

Beware when you start canning your own sauce, you will never be willing to go back to prepared sauces in your grocery store!!

If you are like me, I was starting from the very basics when I first canned. I, now, can everything! I even buy roasts when they go on sale and can these for very easy meals! But to get started, I always go to pickyourown.org. It is a site with PICTURES! Step by step.

www.pickyourown.org/spaghettisauce.htm

Good Luck and Enjoy!!!

Canning food is a science. Really. I have been doing it for years. You have to know acidity of the item you want to can, as well as sea level. This all plays into how long you have to process the jars. If you do not put meat into the sause, first sterilze your jars AND LIDS. Keep them very hot in boiling water so that when you add the hot sause the jars will not break. Hot jars and hot sause is important because it starts the sealing process. You can do the sause in a water bath. But this has sometimes failed on me. I have a pressure cooker now and it is the only way I do my canning now.

I highly recommend you go the library and get a book called "Putting Food By". It will tell you all you need to know.

You can also can corn, peas, green beans, etc while they are in season. It is a lot cheaper to do this than buy the frozen and processed at the supermarket, you can support your local farmers and get really, really fresh stuff to can.

Good luck. I have a 10' x 6' shelving unit in my basement that is usually full with my garden's bounty. We live on this all winter. (we do buy stuff at the market). But is a really nice to go down to the basement and get a jar of beans or something for dinner and know where it was gorwn, who's hands were touching it and exactly what is in it.

My mom did this to. Boil the jars and covers so u get rid of any germs. Then make the sauce as usual then pour into jars let it cool before placing cover on and place in the freezer, this can be freezed up to a year depending if u don't use the half the jar. If u use half the jar.. Cook the other half, you shouldn't refreeze the rest.

cook your sauce as you normally do and let it cool .

now get your kilner jars clean and sterilise them fill with your sauce put the lid on and place the filled jars into a large saucepan big enough to fill up to the neck of the jars bring to the boil and boil for twenty min,s remove the pan from the heat and allow it all to cool down when it has cooled down completely remove the jars dry them and now if you want you can put labels on saying what is in the jars and the date it was made and should last for a for a long time as long as they are unopened that is how this is done at a food processors only difference they do it all on a large scale and use machinery for the precess

anything which contains meat has to be preserved by using a pressure canner, or else botulism will develope. The best way is to put the mix in freezer bags and pop them into the freezer. Plain tomatoes can be canned by putting them in serilized jars, and using a hot water bath, just be sure the lids seal after removing from the boiling water (you will hear the tops pop, and the lid will then have a indentation.)

The process involves boiling the jars and lids to kill any bacteria, then fill and seal while hot. Allow to cool then store.

I prefer freezing my sauce in quart plastic containers.

Food was preserved in glass long before metal cans were invented. why it is called canning is a mystery. you are correct it is and should be referred to as preserving, not canning.

go to your Hardware Store and ask for the canning kit,,

it comes with a simple instruction book

It may have a simple recipe book also

but maybe

http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/home/1.php

See this site to give you a idea of how it is done, SAFELY.

http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/home/1.php