Janz Hot Dilly Beans

Really? The last time I posted was SPRING!!! Spring and Summer for me, is all about OUTSIDE! Up North boating, in the backyard by the pool, putzing in the garden, walks through the Park Reserve and just soaking up the warm weather.

When one lives in Minnesota the thought is always in your mind "winter is coming" even on the first day of spring, as the snow is melting, that goes through your mind. "WINTER IS COMING". Given that... it is my only excuse for not posting :)

What gets me back into the kitchen always is the canning of produce. I don't do a lot of canning, maybe some beans, tomatoes, jellies and jams. It's a simple simple thing to do, you feel like you are being "green" and you get to enjoy the summer's treat of produce in the middle of winter. In addition to having a stock of gifts that you can give throughout the year. Low expense gifts....who could resist this?

I was at the Farmer's Market in Minneapolis looking for some summer squash, peppers and tomatoes when I saw green beans. Mountains of green beans. The scent of dill was also heavily in the air. On a whim I picked up about 2.5 lbs of the beans, fresh dill, jalapeno peppers and I was ready to rock the Hot Dilly Beans at home.

Next stop was Fleet Farm to pick up more bottles. I love Fleet Farm, it always surprises me when I walk through... everything you need is at Fleet Farm. That could be a blog topic all on itself so I won't digress.

Of course, I had to reintroduce myself to canning and a recipe for Hot Dilly Beans. I had a wonderful dill pickle recipe from the web, a friend gave me her Dilly Bean recipe and then of course, I had to put my touch on it so the final product is the result of 3 recipes combined. (Recipe listed below)

First up was to clean the beans and cut them the size the need to be to fit into our bottles.

When you do this, just make sure the bean is about 1/4" below the rim of the jar. And you need to stuff them in as tight as they can fit. And no, I do not have Man Hands... my wonderful husband was helping me. :)

While stuff the beans into the jar, add in the dill, peppercorns, garlic and hot peppers. If you do it while stuffing the beans, so it's pressed against the glass, the final product looks so pretty. Especially if you are giving away as gifts.

As the stuffing commences there should be a large pot on your stove top filled with the mixture of water, vinegar and salt heating up. This will be poured into the jar of beans ect. And of course the giant pot of boiling water which will be your hot bath for the jars of beans. Do these two things before you even start cutting, cleaning and stuffing your jars with the beans. It takes awhile to heat up the hot bath.

Slowly lower your jars into the hot bath and it's always wise to have an extra pot of hot water on the side just in case the water does not cover the jars once they are all in.

What always confused me was the instruction... "let the jars sit in the hot bath for 15 mn" What does that mean? Does that mean that when I lower the jars into the boiling water, it should come up to a boil and thats when I start counting the minutes? NOPE. It means, bring that water up to a boil, lower the jars and from there... time it for 15 mn!!

Pull those processed beautiful jars of dilly beans from the water and let sit on your counter until they have cooled down :) Remember, you don't have to put these bad boys in the fridge to store, they can go in your cupboard! The biggest key is to wait 3 days to a week before you give them a try. Don't get impatient and open them up 15 mn after you pulled them from the water. They have to infuse the flavor and marinate until the delishness is ready!

Enjoy!! Eat them all by their lonesome, add them to your Bloody Mary's, chop them up and throw them on your salad. Whatever! Just enjoy :)

Janz Hot Dilly Beans
For the brine:
3 cups water
3 cups vinegar
1/3 cup canning salt (don't use table salt)
*Mix all ingredients together in a pot, bring to boil and turn down to keep hot until you are ready to pour over the beans.

For the Beans:
3 lbs fresh beans
whole peppercorns
Fresh Dill flower and stem
Jalapeno pepper
Whole dried hot red pepper
Whole garlic cloves peeled
*To each tall pint jar add 1 tsp whole pepper corn, 1 dill head with about 3" stem attached, start stuffing with green beans when it's about half full of beans, add the whole hot red pepper (you can add the pepper or jalapeno or both) & garlic so that it's up against the glass and then stuff the rest of the beans until you can't fit anymore.
*Note: I didn't know how hot the red peppers would be so I did one jar with one red pepper, one jar with 2 red peppers and another jar with 2 jalapeno peppers. I'm experimenting here to find out which is the hottest.
*Another note: The garlic came right from my brother Mike's garden. I love that :)
*After you have stuffed the beans, fill the jars with the hot brine until about 1/4" below the top. Wipe off the rims of each jar so the seal will be perfect and no bacteria will develop with a bad seal.
*Lower the sealed jars into the hot boiling bath water and immediately start timing 15 minutes.
*Remove after the 15 minutes and let sit. LET SIT FOR AT LEAST A WEEK to enjoy the wonder of the Hot Dilly Beans!

TOMATOES, TOMATOES, TOMATOES!

Who knew that planting four Cherry Tomato plants would produce so many and how come they decided to finish the season by maturing all at once! I was left with the question of how can I preserve these lil ball of red heaven? I knew eventually I would google and find my answers, but before that happened I had visions of me trying to peel the skins off of these lil buggers. 

I imagined me at the kitchen sink with steam pouring out of my pot of hot water as the bath to rid the red monsters of their skin, with my fingers wrinkled and pruned. Gobs of juice and seed bits all over the walls and counters, in my hair on my clothes... thinking that in the end I would only end up with a cup of some red globby tomato substance that I could can. It wasn't looking very promising.

That's when I googled. I found two ideas that fit my idea of easy and yummy.  Dehydrating looked super simple. And I had a drying feature on my Jennaire oven.  That works.  And Pickled Cherry tomatoes.  Simple recipe and when I read that it was a nice garnish for Martinis I WAS SOLD!!!  I also had a small bucket of Big Boy & Roma tomatoes that produced very little in comparison to the Cherries. 

In the end I would have three tomato projects to do.

1. Pickled Cherry Tomatoes
2. Dehydrated Cherry Tomatoes
3. Good ole fashioned Canning of the Big Boy & Roma Tomatoes

Bowl on left for dehydrating, glass on right for pickling

So ripe and juicy when cut.
I believe I was about a day away from overripe!

This was the most time consuming,
middle back needs a rub down right between the shoulder blades,
part of the process!!
Placing the buggers on the foil lined pan.

Lined up like soldiers. You MUST placed
these guys shoulder to shoulder.
They lose about 25% or more of their size
in the drying process. 
Top them off with salt.

200° oven for about 2-3 hrs
I've read it can take longer.
Mine took about 3 hours.
Keep an eye on these. Pull them when they are like leather.
Keep them in if they still are juicy.
You'll end up picking through and pulling some and leaving others.

First look, pretty good... still a bit juicy but the ends are shrinking!

OOOOOH, THEY ARE DONE!! YUMMY :)
I put them in a baggie and threw them in the fridge to add to
salads, soups, pizza at a later date.

Pickled Cherry Tomatoes (Tomates-Cerises a l'Aigre-Doux)

(Source: GardenWeb's Harvest Forum)
Makes 1 quart

1 quart water
2 tablespoons coarse sea salt or kosher salt
1 pound FIRM (almost under-ripe) cherry tomatoes (round and plum varieties of all colors can be used)
2 cups cider vinegar
1/4 cup granulated sugar or more (to taste)
2 sprigs fresh summer savory or tarragon (or fresh herb of your choosing)
12 black peppercorns

In a large bowl, combine the water and salt, and stir to dissolve the salt. Prick the bottom of each tomato once with a clean needle. Place the tomatoes in the salt brine, cover and marinate for 24 hours at room temperature.

In a large saucepan, combine the vinegar and sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Bring just to a boil over high heat. Remove from the heat and cool thoroughly.

Remove the tomatoes from the salt brine and drain thoroughly. Discard the salt brine.

Carefully place the tomatoes in a 1-quart canning jar. Arrange the herbs and peppercorns around the edges of the jar. Pour the vinegar-sugar mixture over the tomatoes. Secure the jar tightly. Let sit in the refrigerator for 3 weeks before tasting.

Serve as a pickle, or as an appetizer, with toothpicks to spear.

My bowl of tomatoes swimming in their brine bath.

Completed!

Pickled Cherry Tomatoes

Finalized Canned & Dehydrated