The other vegetables.



The tomatoes



A cllean well lit pot. 20 quarts in this case.



These are tomatoes not good enough to be put out today and sold in bulk by the half bushel. Still tasty, locally grown, mostly organic from a 200 year old farm.



Quarter, actually I'll eighth the useful part.



A few tomatoes, these have already had the first trim and only need to be stemmed.



Lots of eighths.




Scrape the carrot well, most peeler work just as well on an upstroke as a downstroke by the way, makes peeling go faster.



Almost full stock pot, actually there is also a 16 quart equally full.



That has been run through the blender after about 4 hours of cooking, strong simmer or very low boil. It is now being iced, as it won't cool overnight in the fridge.



Sunset



Next day, cocktail is brought back to a low boil for hot packing in quarts. It is not necessary to sterilize these jars as they will be at 240 F for 45 minutes. And if they are real jars meant for canning, they don't need to be hot, the boiling liquid will not break them. Or at least I've never had it happen. I do check the jars for nicks and scratches, that can cause a break.




The seven out of the canner, still bubbling at the top.




29 quarts, more than a year is my guess.



That rack holds more tomato sauce, stocks and various jams.




These are more stocks, more tomato products and pickles.

Vegetable Variations:

From the USDA Manual on canning vegetables, my underline.

which is to be found here.

Selecting, Preparing and Canning Vegetables

Mixed Vegetables

• 6 cups sliced carrots
• 6 cups cut, whole kernel sweet corn
• 6 cups cut green beans
• 6 cups shelled lima beans
• 4 cups whole or crushed tomatoes
• 4 cups diced zucchini

Optional mix – You may change the suggested proportions or substitute other favorite vegetables except leafy greens, dried beans, cream-style corn, winter squash and sweet potatoes.

This then gets pressure canned for 90 minutes for quarts.

and

From 'Putting Food By' 4th edition - revised, Minnesota Tomato Mixture, pp 179.

"But it cannot be stressed too strongly that the proportion of green pepper, onion, and celery to tomatoes CANNOT BE INCREASED -- unless the mixture is to be Pressure-processed for the full time required to deal with the vegetable with the lowest amount of acid."

My underline, capitalization as in original.

You will hear much discussion on how you may not use a recipe that has not been tested, yet I have not been able to discover just what this testing is, and I have looked.

Yet here are two of the most trusted sources in home pressure canning describing how to create your own recipes, within explict guidelines. No, the Ball Blue Book doesn't describe this, but the Blue Book is a primer and makes no claim to be more. The Blue Book, by the way, often does offer variations in it's recipes. Do not post a comment saying because it is not mentioned in the Blue Book it may not be done, the comment will be given short shrift.

The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving does give instructions on pressure canning some of those items the USDA excludes.

Great caution must be taken here, obviously. There are things that can't be canned at all, but vegetables that may be canned, may be mixed, to your recipe, if one of those two rules is followed.

If you are canning onions at 45 minutes the quart for pressure canning and you add tomatoes to the onions you have made it more acidic, safer. What you may not do is reduce the 45 minutes of time simply because you know it is safer. You have no way of knowing how much safer.

The problem with these processing times is texture, I only use this for juice so there isn't a texture problem.

The first two years of pressure canning I would suggest picking one book and using it as your primer, don't use two or three. Get used to one. Joy of Cooking (most edtions cover this), Putting Food By or the Ball Blue Book. I used the Blue Book and studied others.


Acording to: http://www.botulismblog.com/2009/06/articles/botulism-information/mmwr-says-botulism-was-responsible-for-one-of-11-outbreak-deaths-in-2006/

It is a rare poisoning, caution will keep it that way.