Preparing Ingredients

Wash, drain and trim vegetables, preparing according to recipe. You can use a food processor to finely dice onions, tomatoes and other vegetables if required. Root vegetables often require several times rinsing to remove dirt (where bacteria resides). Some vegetables will be heated and packed; others will be raw packed into jars then covered with boiling water or stock. Do not pack vegetables too tightly and remove bubbles before processing. Salt can be added for flavour if desired.
TIP: Dried beans and lentils can be pressure canned, these need pre-soaking, refer to individual recipes for details.
TIP: freeze scraps to make into stock (when processing a batch of vegetables we boil a few pots of stock at the same time).
Discard fat and trimmings from meat, dice into cubes and raw pack into jars, or cook halfway through before packing into jars with sauce/stock (i.e. meatballs).
TIP: we use a rack on a tray to remove excess oil during cooking (before canning).
Spaghetti sauce (tomato and meat or meat-free) and other “meals” are cooked and seasoned before processing in a pressure canner.

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