Rebel Canning

 As I had mentioned in my last post, I had discovered a FB group called Rebel Canners.
     "Rebel" canning, basically, is canning some products or canning in ways the USDA doesn't recommend canning or doing for one reason or another.

Rather than hash out the whole rebel canner vs. canning police discussion, you can search rebel canning and read the thousands of arguments for and against and make your own decisions about it.
    This post is just about my decisions and my experiences.  Despite what the canning police think, I love my family and don't wish to make any of us sick or dead.

Going into all the reasons that I can/preserve food would take two or three more posts, but in this particular instance, how I ended up finding out about "rebel canning" was because my big freezer died a few years ago and I have been looking every since to get away from freezer-preserving as much as possible.
 
I had learned about dehydrating ground beef and I was looking for a way to preserve chicken other than freezing.

I searched "how to can chicken" and I don't exactly remember how it went from there, but however it went, I learned it's really easy to can chicken, and discovered the Rebel Canners group.

Like I said before, O. Mah. Gah!
     What a treasure trove of knowledge and information!

For instance, I had no idea all the stuff I could do with my pressure canner.
I knew I had to use it for canning low-acid things like sweet potatoes, green beans, and pinto beans.
And now chicken.

I knew (still know) next to nothing about canning meats - my grannies and Mom usually fill freezers with meat - but I learned I could can things like pot roast, meatloaf, salisbury steak, stuffed bell peppers...
Being able to open a jar and heat and eat is right up my alley!

That would be fantastic to be able to send a jar of ready to eat food with John-the-husband to the fire station, instead of a recipe and a bag of groceries that he may or may not have time to cook.
      Or to take on camping trips. 
            I wish I had known about all this years ago.

Another great idea I learned is Sweet Tea Concentrate.
     We drink a ton of sweet tea around here. I make at least 1/2 gal a day, if not two or three times a day sometimes.
      That usually involved boiling water, steeping tea bags, adding sugar and water, and letting the tea cool for a few hours because otherwise the ice just melts and waters it down and the tea is still warm.
Also, putting too warm of a pitcher of tea in the fridge will spoil your milk.

With the Sweet Tea Concentrate method, I fill pint jars 2/3 full of water, add 4 regular tea bags (you would add 8 for a gallon), microwave (to boil), let steep/cool awhile.
Add a cup of sugar, stir to dissolve, top off with water if needed. Put on lid and either waterbath process, or just refrigerate.

The first batch I did, I waterbath processed to make them shelf stable, but we went through them so fast it wasn't worth the effort to have done that, so now I just refrigerate them, and also they are already cold when we're ready to make a pitcher of tea.

All you do is pour the jar of concentrate in your pitcher and add water to fill and that's it, you're done.
So easy and convenient. 

There were so many ideas for things to can, I spent at least a couple of days printing them out for my canning/preserving notebook.
Most of which wouldn't really be considered "rebel": canning fruits, jellies, jams, relishes, salsas, pickled/pickling, meats, beans, etc.

I had never thought about canning with Cocoa. You can make chocolate + any fruit jam.

 I learned how to make Mint Extract using my own fresh Chocolate Mint plant in my backyard.

I keep the jar in a dark cabinet and give it a shake everyday (okay, most days). It should be ready to drain the leaves in 6-8 weeks, and I have printed out a recipe for making homemade Ande's candies and Peppermint Patties for Christmas prezzies!

There are nearly 58,000 members in the Rebel Canning group, of all ages, from many different countries and cultures.
      All that adds up to a wealth of knowledge, experience, and information.

You find out things like, the USDA doesn't recommend this or that, but this or that is Standard in another country.
     Kind of like American's not knowing you don't have to refrigerate eggs.  Well, fresh, unwashed eggs. Technically not store bought eggs, either, but you have to be careful with them, with the protective *bloom* washed off.

This group of people isn't a bunch of crazy, toothless, backwoods, crackpots on there giving bad and dangerous information. If someone does post something totally wrong and/or dangerous, the others will call them out on it, and also there's a lot of explanations as to why something is really okay to can/preserve, even though the Government (and/or their Benefactors) say it's not.

But there are people in the group that do live in the backwoods, primitive, non-electric lifestyles that requires them to be able to keep foods shelf-stable because they don't have the option of refrigerating or freezing it.

This is how I learned you can can butter and cheese.

Canned butter, cream cheese, peach halves
Dehydrated strawberries, banana chips, and ground beef

Or, well, about half the consensus - including those who have done and are still doing it - says you can. The other half - who haven't and say they won't because the Government Naysayers says you can't.
Who ya gonna believe?

It was quite a mental battle, I'll tell ya.
   I don't live in Alaska or the backwoods, and I have pretty good access to butter, with a spare package in the freezer.
Except I wanted to try to get away from freezer storing as much as possible.

I read lots and lots of articles, and this one The Battle of Bottled Butter Continues made a good deal of sense.
The butter I buy at the store is pasteurized and *shouldn't* contain any botulism spores already.
I wash and keep everything clean as possible when I'm canning (again, I'm very careful not wanting to harm my loved ones) but in the event I somehow manage to introduce botulism spores to the butter, whether you agree with the temp of 180° or 240° to kill the spores, my (gas) oven's lowest setting is 250° so I should be good as far as that goes.

I can't remember the reason why you don't have to refrigerate canned butter, but I think it's something to do with sealing the oxygen out. That prevents the butter (fat) from going rancid.

I leave a stick of (un-canned) butter out in a dish in my cabinet by the stove all the time. (It was on my counter, but the cat kept knocking the top off and eating the butter. Silly girl.)
I didn't really think about why it was okay or not okay to leave butter out. My Mom does it. My grandparents did.... https://www.statefoodsafety.com/Resources/article/category/Resources/article/an-age-old-debate-can-you-leave-butter-out.

 Anyway, I figured, what the heck, I'll give it a try. Worst case it goes rancid and I'll have to throw it out.
      But I *don't* think it'll grow botulism and kill us.

I also canned 5 bars of Philly Cream Cheese.
     I don't even remember the discussion around this one, but many Rebel Canners assure us that it can be safely done, despite what the Governmental naysayers claim.

And one more thing I learned, I hadn't thought about, was re-canning 10# cans of tomato sauce and nacho cheese from Sam's.

I use tomato sauce for making pizza sauce, so I thought it would save me money to buy a large can of tomato sauce from Sam's.

The 10# cans of tomato sauce cost $2.98, which I got 6 pints out of, making it about .50 a pint.

I usually buy 8oz cans at Walmart at .26 a can, so that would be about .52 a pint.

So not much money savings.

The way I usually make pizza sauce is to open the 8 oz cans, stir in the spices and spread on the pizza crusts, not much effort at all.
      Pre-mixing and canning these jars of pizza sauce wasn't worth the effort for the few pennies saved.

I haven't re-canned the nacho cheese yet, but I think it will be a lot better of a project.
The large 10# can was $6.98, or a little over $1.00 a pound.

Walmart sells this in 15oz cans for $1.98, so nearly a 50% savings in buying the 10# can at Sam's.

I don't usually buy this cheese as we don't eat a lot of nacho cheese and even the 15oz can would probably end up mostly wasted. I plan to re-can the cheese in half-pint, or 8oz jars, which I think will be more useful for us, and not wasted.