It would mostly depend upon how it was canned. High acid foods, I would have no problem eating if the seal on the jar was good. Low acid foods, I would ask if it was pressure canned.
What I would prefer though, would be jellies, jams, pickles, pumpkin or apple butter (especially low or no sugar), something like your chili, pasta sauce, or other cold weather season heat and eat meals. Not so much (although I would eat them knowing they were canned properly) green beans, corn or other veggies (I prefer fresh or frozen).
We were debating quart jars vs two pint jars. We’ve got some that would need a quart for their family, but others who would do better with two pints. I’d probably go all pints, but we’ve got quart jars handy so may do some of each.
Lessee, I’ve not done pressure canning since I was a kid, but SO does. All new lids, obviously.
We actually discussed the jars of layered ingredients, but IME with our friends, no one ever actually gets around to making these. I don’t know why, it’s not any harder than a mix in a box. I think they just get stashed out of the way because they’re not in a box like the rest, and then forgotten. Our friends would think getting a cornbread mix was weird, because that’s so easy and common.
The only reason we thought of chili is because it’s something that’s a pain to make and takes a while - having a jar in the pantry would be great. You can get 15-bean soup in a package for $2 at the store here, and it’s a specialty of one of our friends, so that’s not really good for us.
Baking is no problem. I usually do baking for gifts, just wanted something different.
Pasta sauce is the same problem as salsa - didn’t get tomatoes in time. Trying to make that stuff from store tomatoes is just so…pointless.
Pumpkin butter…any recipes? A lot of people don’t care for pumpkin, but this could be terrific for those of us who do!
Specialty mustards - again, any suggestions or recipes? That would be very popular.
I would be leery of giving chili as a Christmas gift because a lot of people don’t like chili at all, or they only like it if it does/doesn’t have beans/meat/noodles/vinegar/hot sauce/whatever. And as you say, chili is rather a pain in the arse to make–I’d hate to put in the time, effort, and expense to make and can something people won’t eat. And it’s the sort of thing that’s kind of awkward to pass on because you can’t really just take it to work or wherever and let people nibble at it till it’s gone or they decide to throw it away.
What would wind up happening to it in our house is this: I wouldn’t eat it on a bet, because I despise chili in all its myriad forms, and I would feel bad trying to palm it off on someone because of the implications that it’s not good enough for me but is good enough for them. So it would sit on the pantry shelf for a few years till I decided I didn’t trust the seal and finally didn’t feel guilty about throwing it away. Vegetable soup, otoh, would get snorked down in short order.
I understand about wanting to something savory, though. The holidays are such a sugar glut that it’s nice to have something to cut all the sweet. A lot of years we make infused oils or vinegars or compound butters (with fresh yeast bread) and this year we’re curing a lot of bacon.
I also tend to make home-made marshmallows for gift baskets. They’re sweet, but not cloyingly so, and they’re light and typically pretty low calorie so people don’t feel guilty about eating them they way they do about cookies or fudge. And you don’t have to can them, just store them in an airtight box or bag or whatever.
Yeah, we thought about soup, too, but I think the principal is the same as far as the canning thing goes, though.
The sugar glut is exactly what I’m talking about. EVERYONE gives away candy and baked stuff, so everyone ends up with a metric buttload of stuff all at once. Last year I froze most of our baked goods and delivered them frozen, so it was easier for people to keep them till later.
A lot of the problem is that our garden didn’t turn out, and things got distracted with the new grandbaby plus a few life crises over the last couple months, so the plans for salsa, peppers, vinegar, etc., aren’t going to happen this year.
And I am totally jealous that you are curing your own bacon.
On the plus side, we haven’t waited till the absolute total last minute (for a change ;)), so as long as we can figure out what we want to do fairly soon we should be OK.
We had nixed the idea of freezing stuff, because it’s more of a PITA than canned.
However, since canning safety seems to be a big issue for people - would you have the same problems with frozen food?
It would be a solidly frozen block (we have a good deep freeze), in a vacuum-sealed bag. Obviously, we’d take steps to ensure that they stayed frozen until people got them home.
Horseradish Mustard
1/2 cup dry mustard
1/2 cup hot tap water
1/2 cup white wine vinegar or rice vinegar
2 teaspoons coarse (kosher) salt
1 tablespoon bottled horseradish
1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
Stir together the dry mustard and water and let stand, uncovered, for 2 hours, stirring once or twice.
In the container of a blender or a food processor, combine the vinegar, salt, horseradish, garlic, sugar, pepper and allspice. Process until the garlic and horseradish have been pureed in the liquid, then strain through a fine-meshed strainer, pressing all juice from any pulp in the strainer.
Combine the strained liquid with the mustard-water mixture in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water. Cook, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes, or until the mustard has thickened (it will thicken more while cooling).
Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Store in sterilized glass jar, covered in refrigerator. Keeps well up to 1 year.
Makes about 1/2 cup.
Honey Mustard
1/2 cup dry mustard
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp cayenne (optional)
Mix mustard and vinegar. Let stand at least 4 hours. Blend in honey and cayenne until smooth. Store in a sterilized jar in refrigerator. Keeps up to 5 months.
For me, frozen would not be an improvement on canned. (Count me as another who voted that she’d eat whatever, only to read the OP and say, well, maybe not chili).
If I’m not expecting a frozen food gift, I have no place to store it. Yes, there are three freezers in this house, but all are mostly filled with crap which should be eaten or disposed of soonish.
And then add the reasons why frozen food already in the freezers gets regarded as “mystery food” and mostly ignored . . .
Nice idea, but very likely to be disposed of uneaten.
I think canned Chili sounds awesome. In fact, I might just make a big batch and can a bunch in quarts for my own use. I can eat it with my homemade pepper and black berry jellies on some homemade bread. Thanks for the idea.
Just curious where you get dry mustard in large quantities?
Yes, we have the same problem with freezers. That, and the transport and interim storage difficulties, was why we didn’t go that route to start with.
I’m probably going to can some for us, even if we don’t do it for gifts. It would just be so nice when we had a sudden urge for chili dogs or frito chili pie, to be able to grab a jar of good chili.
OK, in payback for some killer recipes I have gotten on the Dope, I shall now share with you the ultimate Christmas Food Present.
Cumin-Cured Olives
(All measurements eyeballed. Sorry.)
Go to Smart & Final and get a gallon can of black olives and a gallon jar of Manzanilla stuffed olives. Drain and fill a good-sized mixing bowl halfway with a mix of olives. On top of the olives, pour 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup good olive oil, several tablespoons of jarred chopped/minced garlic, 2 tablespoons of red pepper flakes. In a frying pan, toast 2 tablespoons of cumin seeds. Grind the toasted seeds with 2 tablespoons dried oregano and 1 tablespoon dried thyme. Sprinkle over the olives and mix. Fill jars with olives and some of the oil/vinegar solution. Refrigerate until gifting. Serve at room temperature. I don’t know how long they will keep because they are always gone in less than a week!
You still have time to do vinegars and infused oils if you want–dried herbs work almost as well as fresh for that, though you can’t do that pretty sprig in the bottle thing. Compound butters don’t require any fresh produce–dried herbs, fruits, and veggies work just fine, as do strong soft cheese and honey–and really no work or advance planning at all. Soften some butter, chop up whatever flavoring you want, and mix 'em together, then pack into some sort of container. Nothing to it.
And honestly bacon really isn’t hard either. We had to have our local grocery order the pork belly for us, and we had to get the curing salt online, but after that you just rub whatever flavoring you want all over and let it set in fridge for a while, then smoke it or throw it in a low oven for a while. He made a garlic version a couple weeks ago that was divine.
I actually like the idea and would probably eat it too.
But then again, for giving gifts, I like to, at least try, to give people something they normally don’t have.
Chili in a can or bought from a resturant is too easy to get. I’d prefer something like apple butter and frankly you never go wrong with Christmas Cookies full of butter (Yum!!)
Now that’s something I hadn’t thought of. We used to do herb vinegars but haven’t in a long time. We do have herbs! I got sage out the wazoo, in fact. We dug up and distributed about three square feet worth early this year, to make room for other stuff.
OK, I’m going to have to look into the bacon thing. Not as gifts, just for me! How expensive does that end up being?
silenus, thanks so much for the recipes. Got any more? I think a couple-three of those are going on the list!
This one requires some aging, but you can save it for next July, when cherries are in season.
Cherry Bim
Get yerself a mess of cherries. Stem, pit and wash them. Dig up a bunch of quart jars and lids. Sterilize same. Into each jar, place a layer of cherries. Then a layer of suger cubes. Then a layer of cherries. Toss in a few cloves. Alternate until the jar is full. It should be filled but not solidly filled, if you get my drift. You’ll need the space for the last ingredient, which is bourbon. Any bar bourbon will do. Fill the jars and seal. Place in a dark place undisturbed for 6 months. You want the sugar and cloves to remain as high up in the jar as possible. After aging, gift and eat. The cherries go on ice cream, the liquid is enjoyed as a liqueur.
I give out novelty food items for Christmas. Pickled garlic and Pub Onions have always been very popular, and my baby-nubbin-dill as well as Bread and Butter pickles. Jams and jellies from the garden and orchard also go into the baskets. This year I had a bumper crop of figs, so Fig preserves are also on the gift-giving menu.
Costco carries Christopher Ranch peeled garlic for a reasonable price.
Let me make sure I have this right - are you planning to cook a big batch of your regular chili recipe on the stove or in the crockpot, and then attempt to home can it? And you haven’t used a pressure canner in a long time? If that is your plan, please do not do this! Seriously, don’t. It’s a really bad idea, especially if your chili recipe uses meat.
And leaving aside the potential for food poisoning for a moment, your regular chili recipe is probably not suitable for canning and won’t taste very good. Why go through all that work only to throw it all out later?
If, on the other hand, you have have a vegetarian chili recipe specifically designed and tested for home canning (from a real cookbook, not just something you found online) that’s a different story.
If you just want to save some for your personal use, why not just freeze some in tupperware containers, since that’s easier and safer.
And if someone gave me home-canned chili for a gift, I’d thank them, and once I got home I’d dump the chili and the lid, and sterilize the jar to use the next time I make jam.
Some farmer friends once gave us a huge mayonnaise jar (!) of home-canned venison. It looked like something out of a horror movie… these…things…and bones…floating in a murky liquid. We took it to be polite but threw the jar away as soon as we got home. I’m sorry, but as I am irrationally squicked out by even baked goods from friends and neighbors, home-canned stuff is even further beyond the pale. Jam and jelly would be OK, but that’s it. You sound like you mean well, but please research how to properly process canned chili.
I think a couple-three of those are going on the list!