Presto Pressure Canner and Cooker Pressure Canning Vegetables, Tomato Juice, Tomato Sauce, Salsa

TOMATO JUICE

Wash ripe, juicy tomatoes. Remove stem ends and cut into pieces. To prevent juice from separating, quickly cut about 1 pound of fruit into quarters and put directly into saucepan. Heat immediately to boiling while crushing. Continue to slowly add and crush freshly cut tomato quarters to the boiling mixture. Make sure the mixture boils constantly and vigorously while adding the remaining tomatoes. Simmer 5 minutes after all pieces are added. If juice separation is not a concern, simply slice or quarter tomatoes into a large saucepan. Crush, heat, and simmer for 5 minutes before juicing.

Press heated juice through a sieve or food mill to remove skins and seeds.

Add 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice or ½ teaspoon citric acid to each quart. Add 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice or ¼ teaspoon citric acid to each pint.

Heat juice again to boiling. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to each quart, ½ teaspoon to each pint, if desired. Fill jars with hot tomato juice, leaving ½-inch headspace. Adjust jar lids.

Pressure canning: Process at 10 pounds pressure, pints and quarts 15 minutes.

Boiling water canning: Process pints 35 minutes.

TOMATO SAUCE

Prepare and press as for making tomato juice (see recipe above). Heat in large saucepan until sauce reaches desired consistency. Simmer until volume is reduced by about one-third for thin sauce, or by one-half for thick sauce. Add 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice or

½teaspoon of citric acid to each quart. Add 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice or ¼ teaspoon citric acid to each pint. Pour hot sauce in clean, hot Mason jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Adjust jar lids.

Pressure canning: Process at 10 pounds pressure, pints and quarts 15 minutes.

Boiling water canning: Process pints 35 minutes.

SALSA

Process salsa using the boiling water method. Refer to page 19 for tested canning recipe.

PRESSURE CANNING VEGETABLES

Pressure canning is the only safe method for canning vegetables.

Young, tender, fresh vegetables, slightly immature, are better for canning than those which are overripe. As a rule, vegetables are best if canned immediately after picking, since flavor decreases upon standing and often unpleasant color changes take place. Avoid bruising vegetables because spoilage organisms grow more rapidly on bruised vegetables than on unblemished ones.

Wash and prepare garden fresh vegetables as you would for cooking.

To raw pack vegetables, simply place the prepared vegetables into clean, hot Mason jars and cover with boiling water.

To hot pack vegetables, precook in boiling water until heated through. Pack pre-cooked vegetables into clean, hot Mason jars and cover with boiling water. Whenever possible, the precooking water should be used as liquid to cover the vegetables after packing into Mason jars. However, there are a few vegetables, such as greens and asparagus, which make the cooking water bitter and undesirable to use.

When packing vegetables, leave 1-inch headspace in Mason jars.

Foods may be processed with or without salt. If salt is desired, use only canning salt. Table salt contains a filler which may cause cloudi- ness in bottom of jars. Add ½ teaspoon canning salt to each pint jar, 1 teaspoon to each quart jar, if desired.

Follow step-by-step directions beginning on page 6 for canning procedure. Process specific vegetables according to the following recipes.

Altitude Adjustment

The processing times given in the specific vegetable recipes are for altitudes of 1,000 feet or less. When pressure canning above 1,000 feet, process at 15 pounds of pressure. Processing time is the same at all altitudes.

11