Preservation Notes - San Joaquin Master Food Preservers

What is Too Hot? What is too hot for home canning and storing canned foods? With the temperatures we have seen here in California's Central Valley recently, that is an excellent question! Seasonal produce is abundant and canning season is now in full production.

Our local produce stand happened to have these beautiful apricots yesterday. I love apricot jam! I have just completed the Master Food Preserver training. I hadn't made this jam before, so I thought I'd give making some a try.

When I was growing up, when we ran out of Welch's grape jelly for our breakfast toast next in line was a jar of my mother's homemade apple butter. Besides apple butter which was a staple in many homes in the 50s and 60s, there are now recipes for making a variety of fruit butters beyond apple.

When I took my first home food preservation workshop, I was surprised at the simplicity of home canning. Most regularly used recipes are easy to follow, have only a few ingredients and all follow the same processing steps. I was hooked as they say.

Fermentation When I went through my Master Food Preserver volunteer training in 2015, seems longer than that, there is a section on fermentation that was hidden in the Chapter 6 titled Preparation and Canning of Pickled Foods.