October's Bon Appetit came today. There's a recipe for mango tea bread. You know I'm all over that one. We're having company for dinner on Sunday (gee, and less than two weeks after I said I wasn't doing it anymore - I know, I know, but this is different and for a specific reason) and I'm thinking that a slice of warm mango bread with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream topped with butterscotch sauce would be an awesome dessert. A little beige maybe, so I'll have to include some raspberries and mint leaves for garnish. Man, am I hungry. The rest of the menu is pretty basic: garlic puffs and sparkling wine for starters, then roasted chicken (stuffed with preserved lemons), risotto, wilted lettuce salad, homemade (well, the bread machine is in my home!) and steamed broccoli.
I've received a few questions lately that I don't want to hold for my next Q&A post. They concern matters of canning safety - even if the questioners don't know it yet.
Q: What is the hot water processing time for green beans?
A: There isn't one. Green beans are no longer recommended for hot water bath canning unless they're being pickled. Time was one was told to process beans in hot water for 30 or 45 minutes, but that day has long passed. All non-acidic vegetables and vegetable mixtures (like most spaghetti sauces, soups and salsas) should be pressure canned.
Q: Why should jars be hot when they're packed? You're heating them anyway in the canner, right?
A: While it's true that jars are heated and the contents are heated under pressure in processing, it's still important that your jars be hot when you pack them (even if your contents are not hot - known as raw pack, but then even this usually has hot liquid poured over). There are all kinds of food borne pathogens and, with such a variety, you need to make sure that different kinds of heat and for good lengths of time are applied to your materials. It's not such a big hold up to heat your jars for canning - you can either pour boiling water into them and hold while you prepare your recipe, put them on a cookie sheet and heat them in the oven or run them through a dishwasher if you're lucky enough to have one.
Q: You say that the recommended processing time for tomatoes in a hot water bath is longer now. Do I really have to process for up to an hour and a half?
A: Well, I'm certainly not going to write you a pass on this one! That's what the USDA says and there's no way little 'ole me is going to second guess them. The reason for the change is that newer tomato varieties have been bred to be lower in acid than older types. Since acidity is what makes hot water canning safe, going below a certain threshold reduces the safety of the method.
Q: Can I buy a canning kettle or jars from you?
A: Well, no, but it's nice of you to ask. I don't run a store or affiliate thing or anything like that (although, hmmm...there are the college funds that need attention and all...). You can buy canning stuff in pretty much any old-timey neighbhorhood hardware store or a zillion places on line. I buy most of my jars from some place called Odd Lots or Big Lots or Odd Big Lots or Lots of Big Odd Stuff or something like that. They're cheap-ish and, once you lay in a supply you can reuse and reuse as long as the rims aren't chipped and they aren't cracked. (My advice: don't use quarts unless you have a large family or really, really love whatever it is you're canning. They take up lots of space in the fridge if you don't empty them and they're harder to store on a shelf. Pints are great for most things and half-pints even better for specialty products that you don't necessarily want a lot of or won't use a lot of at a time.)