Sloppy Hoppy

 As I have mentioned before, I have canned a lot of rabbit. With the bones, quart jars are more or less needed, and the odd-shaped pieces of meat mean the quart jars won't have as much meat in them as they would if they were packed with boneless chicken breast chunks, but the process overall works well.

Then one has to figure out what to do with the canned rabbit.  It can be used any way you would use canned chicken, and another option is to use it in place of ground beef--they obviously are not the same, but one idea I got from a few podcasts was to make sloppy hoppy--i.e., sloppy Joes using rabbit meat instead of ground beef.  I looked and found some Crock Pot recipes, which I then adapted.

 

1 quart canned rabbit (usually about 1-1.5 lb of meat)

1 can tomato sauce (or tomato paste; see below)

2 Tb dried chopped onion, rehydrated

1 tsp. powdered garlic

2 Tb mustard

1/4 c brown sugar (or Whey Low for low-carb)

2 Tb white vinegar

2 Tb water (if tomato paste used; omit if using tomato sauce)

1 tsp Worchestershire sauce

1/2 tsp salt

My first attempt used tomato paste, because I thought the sauce would be too watery.  I would judge that to be a swing and a miss.  It ended up being edible, but it was obviously dry and it over-cooked and burned a little at the top edge in the Crock Pot (cooking time is about 4 hours on medium, which I have done, or 2-3 on high, which I have not tried).  The second effort with tomato sauce turned out well.

It's worth keeping in mind going forward.

 

 

 

Canning Rabbit Meat

The first litter of rabbits have now been processed.  Some of the meat has been frozen; some has been eaten fresh, and I have canned some of it.

I have never canned bone-in meat before.  All of my prior experiences have been with boneless beef or chicken.

My first attempt worked out okay, more or less.  The instructions for all meats are pretty similar.  Boneless are processed for 75 minutes for pints, 90 minutes for quarts.  Bone-in meat is processed 65 minutes for pints and 75 minutes for quarts.

I had two rabbits to can. They were in the refrigerator, so I decided to go ahead and use the boneless time.  Two rabbits, roughly four pounds, went into three jars.

For raw pack, no liquid is added, so what you see in the picture cooked out of the meat.  A couple of days after processing, I opened one up to see how it turned out.  The meat was fine.  As with all canned meat, it was somewhat over-cooked and a little on the dry side, although it wasn't objectionable at all (rabbit meat is thoroughly cooked when it reaches a temperature of 165 degrees Farenheit, so heating it up to 240 degrees is definitely overdoing it from a taste standpoint--but it's the only realistic way to get it done).  The main problem was the bones: they more or less crumbled.  That made deboning a little tricky.  I'm pretty sure that's due to the extra processing time that I built in.  Next time I'll do the 75.  Overall, though, this is definitely a viable way to preserve the meat.

Canning Dry Beans

I've posted before about cooking dry beans (primarily pinto, but my favorite is cranberry).  Beans keep a long time when dry, but they eventually become difficult to cook; the solution that has worked best for me is pressure cooking.

Another alternative is to can them.  Now that I'm using my pressure canner, that is an option.  Canning beans offers no advantage over storing dry with the exception that they are ready to eat without further preparation.  Canned beans certainly won't last longer than dry beans in terms of storage life (the latter are good for 30 years, if "dislike slightly" is good enough).

There are numerous sites that describe canning beans, but one thing is striking: most describe canning plain beans.  The NCHFP does have a recipe for canning beans with tomato or molasses sauce that optionally includes adding a small amount of bacon or pork.  As I've noted previously, when making a pot of beans for immediate use (or for freezing) I add onion, garlic, and bacon to the mix.

I decided to give my normal recipe a try.  The amount of bacon per jar would be comparable to that suggested by the NCHFP site, although my precise recipe isn't listed--the one featuring the bacon includes tomato or molasses, which is not the flavor I was going for at all (I cut up a pound of bacon for the batch, which worked out to about one ounce per jar--somewhat more than the 3/4 inch cube in the NCHFP recipe).

The NCHFP site recommends an overnight or quick soak, followed by 30 minutes' worth of boiling before putting in the jars.  The extra boiling might be justified if it helps the beans absorb more water so that they are fully hydrated.  But that level of cooking obviously isn't needed for tenderness: the beans process for 75-90 minutes at 240 degrees.  That cooks them very well.

I soaked three pounds of cranberry beans overnight, then poured off the water and added the onion, garlic, and bacon, placing them straight into the jars--similar to the process suggested by The Prairie Homestead.

I had some fresh onion, but not enough for the whole batch, so I hydrated some dried minced onion, following the process previously described.  Then it was just a matter of filling the jars, first with beans, then with water, to about the 1" of headspace line.

The NCHFP suggests 5 pounds of beans for 7 quarts (or 14 pints); The Prairie Homestead got more than 1 pound in each quart jar.  But these recipes don't include the onion or bacon.  I ended up with about 17 pints' worth of bean mix.  This was somewhat unfortunate, because my All American 921 canner cannot hold that many widemouth jars (various sites indicate the capacity is 19 pints, but that is based on standard-mouth jars, which are narrower--relatively few sites break the capacity down by different jar types, but those that do suggest the max capacity with widemouths is 16 pints).  In the picture, you'll see that I had one standard-mouth jar.  As I kept filling and filling and filling...I realized I was going to need all the space I had and then some.  Unfortunately, I could only find one empty standard-mouth jar.  I mostly use widemouths, though I have a number of standard-mouth jars--they were just all full of peach and blueberry preserves.   I was only able to get 15 jars into the canner, 7 below and 8 on top.

I processed them for about 80 minutes at 10 pounds.  When they came out of the canner, it was obvious they'd leaked a little, but not much: the water in the bottom of the canner looked (very) slightly cloudy and the jars had some fat-slickness to them.

After they cooled down, the liquid level inside the jars did recede quite a bit--In this case, I don't think it was all leakage, because all of the jars were low and there was nowhere near that amount in the bottom of the canner.  I think the fluid level dropped simply due to it being absorbed by the beans.  Although some of the beans appear to be high and dry in the picture, they are still tender (and cooked to perfection).

I'll probably still mostly cook beans for immediate use going forward, occasionally freezing one or two meals' worth.  However, canning does expand the opportunity to use them. Cooking a batch of beans is a big endeavor, and I don't always have the time when I would otherwise eat some.  Now I have them if I want them.  One pint is about the right quantity for one meal.

"Finger Tight"

Most canning tutorials say that bands should be put on "finger tight" before loading into the canner. That's somewhat vague and qualitative.  As I have noted (more than once), I've historically had a problem getting the right tension.  With water bath canning I eventually just started tightening them pretty tight--call it firm--and dealt with the occasional creased lids.

Even with creased lids, I have almost always gotten a decent seal, and on the exceedingly rare occasion where a jar either hasn't sealed or the seal has later failed, it hasn't been on a creased lid (this is except for the reusable lids, which I have now completely abandoned--anybody want a case of them?).

Back to what in the world finger-tight means.  When I started pressure canning, I didn't want to tighten the jar lids too much, but was somewhat nonplussed at how loose I should make them.  I found this video at the Lehman's site which quantifies how far to tighten the bands:  Screw them on until first resistance, then about one inch further.  That's what I have done for the pressure canning and it has worked (although it's apparent there is some trace leakage from the jars...the residual water in the canner has a somewhat broth-like aroma).  The overall jar fluid level seems to have been okay (but one could ask how much higher it might have been if the jars had been tighter).

This PDF (also written up here) by Frances L. Reasonover of Texas A&M suggests that in a pressurized canner, leakage should be impossible--and, indirectly, indicates why the canner should be allowed to cool naturally (a point also made in the video above).  if the weight is released when the contents of the jars are still too hot, the pressure inside the jars will force an overflow.

In the pressure canner I usually haven't had overflow, but I have found that the contents of my jars are still boiling after the pressure drops to zero--and this continues for some time after they are put on the counter to cool.  The remaining water in the canner does have signs of a small amount of fluid leakage, and when I did a batch of pinto beans, it was apparent most jars had experienced a slight overflow during processing.  However, one thing I have not (so far) seen with the pressure canner is jars overflowing as they cool--this has on occasion happened when canning acid foods, mostly fruit in syrup (even with very tight bands). That might have been because I removed them from the water too soon.

Canning Beef

As I noted a few weeks ago, I've canned some chicken.  After years of dreading using the pressure canner, I finally hauled it out and learned that it wasn't at all bad.  With the sporadic meat supply in the spring of 2020, canning it seems like a good approach rather than relying on same-day purchase (freezing is another option, but apparently everyone had the same idea and freezers sold out, so unless the capacity was on hand in early 2020, it wasn't an option).

I decided to try beef next.  I've bought canned roast beef before, and it has ranged from dreadful to not bad. Commercially-canned beef is a bit hard to find now, too, and its cost is comparable to home-canned...with the right kind of beef.  This obviously isn't an exercise to undertake with ribeye steaks or tenderloins. Chuck roast seemed like a reasonable cut to try.

I got two different three-pound roasts and cut them up.  The cutting process took about 45 minutes or so; I used an approach similar to that for making bread cubes for stuffing.  I just cut the meat into reasonable-sized pieces.

As the picture shows, the beef was seamed with fat.  I also trimmed some solid fat off.

As with the chicken, I got a little over 13 ounces in each jar; after accounting for the removed fat, I ended up with 7 jars--one of those had only 12 ounces in it.

The processing time was the same as for chicken--75 minutes, but I stretched it to 80.  After taking them out of the canner, they were seriously cooked (the short one is on the far right).

As they cooled, they all compressed down somewhat, and the fat visible at the top congealed.

I broke one open a few days later to try it.  It wasn't bad, but also wasn't good enough to justify 3x the cost of chicken breast.  If you have your own side of beef to process, it makes sense.  Otherwise, maybe not so much.

Canning Chicken

I have a pressure canner--I actually have two; one bought last summer and one bought a few years ago.  The picture is of my largest, an All American 921 that can hold stacked pint jars.

I have always planned to take up pressure canning, but until now haven't.  I'm not concerned about the pressure canner blowing up.  The All American has six screw-down locks, additional lugs to prevent the lid from blowing off if the main locks somehow fail, and a overpressure plug that will blow out at some point if pressure increases.  And I'm now under 1000 feet in elevation, so am able to can at 10 psi instead of 15, thus reducing the potential problems with pressure, anyway.  My main concern has been food safety.

I've gotten very comfortable with canning acidic foods, but botulism poisoning would be a show-stopper.  But it is also very rare (only 17 cases of foodborne botulism reported in 2018).  So whatever people are doing to can low-acid foods seems to work reasonably well--and I assume that the directions at the NCHFP site are designed to be safe at the > 99% level. However, the site also has horror stories.

All this being said, procedurally, pressure canning of most things is pretty easy--much more so than peach preserves, for example, which require a number of steps to get to the point that something is ready to go into jars.

For chicken, it's very easy.  In this first attempt, I canned some boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  I just cut the raw breast meat up into small pieces and packed the pieces into the jars.  I got about 13 ounces in each jar, leaving about 1 1/4" headspace (to the 'freeze' line).  The processing time is 75 minutes for pints. I processed them for 80 minutes, just to be sure the jars got to 240 degrees throughout.

If you look around online, you'll find some sites that suggest adding liquid to raw-packed meat jars before processing.  In my case, that would not have worked.

As the picture below shows, the jars are pretty full of liquid.  This may be because of the chicken I used--Great Value from Walmart.  The package said something about how the chicken may contain brine, much like the turkeys for sale around Thanksgiving.  The NCHFP site notes that there usually isn't enough liquid in raw-packed meats to cover the contents of the jar, but it worked fine with my low-grade chicken. As a side note, I'd intended to add 1/2 teaspoon of salt to each jar, but forgot--nonetheless, when I opened a jar the next day to sample it, it seemed as though it was seasoned just fine--because of the brine, I assume.

Last summer I didn't do any canning, partly because the house was hot and the thought of running boiling pots on the stove for a long period of time wasn't attractive.  That will definitely be a factor this summer, as well, which is fast-approaching.  I do have an outdoor camp stove with two propane burners that I plan to try using (though the NCHFP discourages this; it seems that it should be doable without causing damage to the canner since the body is so thick--and burners can always be turned down).  All this being said, the big canner seems to absorb and internalize most of the heat, not radiating much out into the room.  Some steam escapes, but it's less than with a boiling water bath or atmospheric steam canner.

Going forward, I expect most of my canning to continue to be non-pressurized.  However, it's nice to have the option to can low-acid foods, as well.