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Making and Canning Stock – Part 3 – Pressure Canning (Preserving)

This post may be somewhat anti-climactic.  The most important parts of it are links to a few previous articles because a lot of it is covered there.  I’ll risk the redundancy to share the mysteries of pressure canning because:

  • It’s a natural evolution from water-bath canning.
  • It’s nowhere near as difficult as it may seem – though it can be very intimidating.
  • It’s an essential technique for preserving low acid foods – i.e. most anything other than fruit, most vegetables and pickles.
  • It’s my party and I can if I want to.  (Yes there was a pun on ‘can’ there…) Read more

Making and Canning Stock – Part 2 – Cooking, Cooling, Cooking, Cooling…

Cooking stock is all about patience.  For many years I just through water in a pot of `stuff`and boiled it as hard as it would go and hope for the best.  I`ve learned that`s a bit like trying to build a house of cards with a hammer and nails – it`s a little too harsh.

Our stock is started by adding roasted bones (if you choose) and the roasted vegetables (we also put our burned onions into the mix at this point) into the pot and covering with cool water.

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Making and Canning Stock – Part 1

There was a good deal of discussion around stock when we posted about intentionally burning onions for that purpose last week so I decided it would be prudent to share our process of making and preserving (via pressure canning) stock.

Stock is a winter activity for us.  It can take a lot of time (although much of the time is passive), generate a reasonable amount of heat, and I tend to use it a lot more in the winter.  We generally use 1-2 liters of stock (often more) per week in the middle of winter.  It`s primary uses are soups and stews but it`s not uncommon for a few tablespoons to deglaze my pans or to bring a stir fry together.

The example we`re going to use here happens to be from venison though it would work with any core ingredients – including a veggie version.  I have been saving some of my peelings, carrot ends, discarded onions, etc in the freezer and tend to make a veggie stock on the fly – it is the only stock I make that can be done in a single day (we`ll share more about that later).

If you`re new around these parts and are curious (or even turned off) by the idea of hunting, I encourage you to visit my diary entries from the last 2 years of the harvest.  There`s no gruesome photos and they try to explain a balanced perspective which include my own struggle with a tradition that has lasted hundreds of years through my family. Read more