Hi and welcome to the forum! :)

My simple answer would be something like the wife loves fruits so her focus is jams and preserves that she can use as is, in baking, or turn into syrups and toppings. Canned peaches (everyone she can get her hands on) is her #1 love. Blueberries a close second. She cans them plain so she can later make pie fillings, pop-overs, etc. Apples comes in third and mostly gets turned into pie fillings and applesauce. We don't do much with citrus fruit as canning turns it bitter.

Now my love is vegetables - any kind for the most part but especially the ones I love to eat - tomatoes, salsa, corn, green beans, potatoes, baked beans, limas, pinto, chili beans, etc. I like canned spinach but no one else does so I only do a few pints for me. We both like pickled beets so we always do lots of those.

I tend to focus on canning things plain rather than any of the fancy recipes. A plain jar of most any vegetable can then be turned into all sorts of things later. It's the fancy canning recipes that have built-in limitations IMO.

My one exception to that is relishes and chutneys of all kinds. Great for all sorts of sandwiches, snacks and sides for meat. We do make dill and Bread & Butter pickles but most of my onions and peppers and cukes get turned into various relishes and mixed vegetable chutneys.

Third I make lots of fermented sauerkraut. And I also dehydrate quite a lot of chopped onions to be used later in cooking.

From the foods in your list I would skip the radishes and citrus fruits and pears haven't ever been a big favorite here.

So I guess my first question would be - what do you like to eat? Not much point in spending the time and effort and money on canning things that you likely won't eat, right?

Dave

Thank you Dave! That was exactly the kind of info I was looking for! Good to know on your no-go list that I probably shouldn't mass produce canned oranges if they're not as well suited to canning. Excellent tip on canning simpler more basic things so I have more options!
I primarily eat veggies with dried stuff - rice, beans, lentils, etc. I do love some fruit in there as well! So, I'm guessing canning a good amount of veggies, but also some fruit will be most useful for me. I've been hesitant in canning veggies, probably since they've never been part of my diet and I just am not used to thinking about them.

I've been wanting to make fermented sauerkraut! How do you store it? I haven't been able to find any good information about that - all the recipes indicate that it needs to be refrigerated and consumed within several weeks and canning it completely destroys the good bacteria created in the fermentation process.

Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed answer, it has been very helpful for me!

~Christy

If you can get nice corn I really like making pickled corn relish. It's great on tacos, beans & rice, nachos, or as a dip. I'm pretty sure my recipe is from the ball complete book of home preserving.

I ditto chutneys. I like them because when I have surprise company I can pull out some aged cheddar (we typically have) & a good chutney & it seems like a really fancy snack or app.

In the same vein, I love pickling all sorts of veggies: green beans, carrots, cukes, cabbage, onions..

But I only water bath can, so I can't really provide guidance on pressure canning. I will say, being able to store homemade stock on a shelf vs freezer would be awesome!

I eat oatmeal almost everyday. Monday - friday through the week, it's my breakfast. My most favorite thing to can is jams because I add a tablespoon of jam to my oatmeal every morning. Because of this, I need to make sure I can enough jams over the summer to last me during the off seasons.

Jams are fun because one has more freedome with them. You can make them a little more savory by adding spices like basil or mint, or you can make them sweeter by adding lavender and more sugar.

Jams are definitely part of my canning repetoir.

Then there are tomatoes. I never realized how much tomatoes I ate until I started canning my own food. WOW! Do I eat a lot of tomato products. I would start out canning a wide range of tomato products so you can figure out if you eat them or not. In the case of myself, I thought I *didn't* eat a lot of tomato products but it turns out I eat a lot of crushed tomatoes and spaghetti sauce. I do not eat a lot of ketchup! LOL...so that's my second thing I can: crushed tomatoes and spahettie sauce.

@ kastle - ooooo, sounds yummy! I'll have to make sure to do a couple jars of that! Thanks!

@saskigyrl - sounds like me! A big motivation for canning fruit is to put in my oatmeal for breakfast each morning. I tend to find jam too sweet for my taste. My current favorite when I don't have fruit around is peanut butter and a touch of maple syrup. mmmmmmmmm.

Since you have access to 'undesirable' grocery produce, you need to picture what the most expensive (in the off-season) item you can get. That way you will be saving the most money canning/preserving that.

Of course, some things just don't can well, and other items you probably don't like. Don't do those.

I've also found that what is sent to the grocery stores aren't always picked at the right time, too many times picked unripe. So you will need to be careful about that, you might not get as good as if the produce had been picked correctly and ripe.

To me, fruit is the way to go. There are so many ways to use them.

First I love doing lots of different jams and making them as low sugar as possible. I have two small kids and they eat PB & J like there is no tomorrow so anything I can do to get real fruit and less sugar into it makes me happy. I was very, very upset this year (as were my kids) when the peach jam ran out. I didn't account for my hubby eating almost a whole jar every time he opened it.

Staples I have to have on my shelf - stewed tomatoes, Ball's chili sauce (makes a great sloppy joe), applesauce no sugar added (for eating straight and using as oil in baking recipes), apple butter (the applie cider recipe made with honey), canned peaches in a light syrup, beets, diced potatoes (great for homefries in the morning or to add to soup or chowder), diced tomatoes (great for anything), some sort of salsa (I haven't found the perfect one yet, I am going to try annies this year), and most important chunky tomato basil sauce (I cried when this ran out this winter).

There are tons of other great recipes which I will make if I have extra produce and time. Creole sauce and Zesty Peach BBQ are both great athough neither keep their spice (which is OK here as both my 3 and 4 year old will eat them, the peach is great on fish if you cook it down a bit when you open it to thicken it up then bake it on the fish, not zesty, very sweet but very good.

Good luck, happy experimenting.

two words:

Annie's Salsa

Absolutely - Annie's Salsa - That is the most requested. Friends are always asking - Do you have any more of that salsa?
Next requested is - Bread and Butter pickles and pickled beets.
I also do sauerkraut but, I don't can it. I use a large glass jar or crock that will hold 5 lbs. of shredded cabbage. After it has fermented on the kitchen counter, I then store it in the fridge. It will keep for months.
When I do more than 5 lbs., I freeze it in bags.

Gardengal brings up a good point with the sauerkraut. There are plenty of things that are great that I don't "can". I always keep room in the fridge for a two large Ikea glass jars of bread and buter pickles. I just prefer mine crisper than they come out when processed. Also I pickle my jalapenjos in the fridge also, as well as cherry stuffer peppers (I never have enough of either for an entire batch at once). I keep the top shelf of my fridge open for those tall Ikea jars.

Thanks for the reminder to not get too caught up on canning and use other methods as well! I'm trying to do some drying and fermenting too, but canning is so new and exciting that I've been mostly neglecting other methods of preservation. :-)

Next time I get some tomatoes I'll have to try Annie's Salsa - I just copied it down. :-)

I'd second the posting about making your own all fruit or low sugar jams. I started last year, and since jams are pretty safe to play with, I can make my own recipes, and generally add herbs or liqueur or both. Personally, I've had very good luck with Pomona's pectin, but that's up to you. If you make your own, you can make it as sweet as you'd like. I'm sure many of the processed ones are such high sugar since it's much cheaper than more fruit. Low sugar is spendier, but worth it to me!