Someone asked me recently when I said I was canning potatoes... "Why? Why would you want to can potatoes, they're so readily available, inexpensive, and they keep a good long while?"
Well, I'm glad you asked!
Here's what I did...
The hardest part of canning potatoes is cleaning them (my plan was to can them with the skins on)... I don't know what the dirt is like in your neck of the woods, but in my garden there's mostly beautiful red clay... that stays moist even on the driest day... and clings to potatoes...
I started out by sorting out the ones I wanted to keep for eating on... the blemish free, good-sized ones to store in a basket in my kitchen...
I dumped the taters into the sink and scrubbed them with a brush... then rinsed them... filling the sink several times and rinsing and rinsing yet again... until I had scrubbed them clean.
Once they were all scrubbed and clean, I began preparing them... I trimmed all the bad spots, rotten spots, and cut spots off... I cut them in large dices (maybe an inch to 1-1/2 inches?)... depending on the size of the potato... the tiny ones were left whole or cut in half. I cut them into a pot filled with cool water so they wouldn't turn brown. After I got a pot full, I drained the water out and gave them another little rinse and refilled the pot with clean water.
I brought them to a boil over medium high heat... and boiled them gently for about 5-10 minutes... heated through but not soft.
I then drained them and discarded the cooking liquid.
I packed the hot potatoes into hot quart jars...
...then ladled fresh boiling water to cover the potatoes, leaving a half inch headspace.
I wiped the jar rims with a damp cloth...
I tightened the hot lids on to fingertip tightness.
Then processed them in my pressure canner at 10 pounds of pressure for 40 minutes (pints would be 35 minutes)
After processing, I removed the jars from the canner using my jar lifter.
...and set them on a folded towel on the counter to cool... and to listen for the PING! of each successfully sealed jar... Music to my ears!!!!!
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| A grand total of 26 quarts of delicious potatoes! |
