I like jams the best. Especially mango.
Mango Jam
Yield: 6 Servings
Makes about 6 1/2 cups

4 cup mango pulp (buy about 6 lb)
1/4 cup lemon juice
6 cup sugar
1 pkg dry pectin

Wash fruit, peel, seed & cut in cubes. Mash with a potato masher or run through a food processor or blender - try NOT to puree. In a 10 qt pan, mix fruit, lemon juice and pectin. Place over high heat; stirring constantly, bring to a rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Still stirring, add sugar. Return to a boil that cannot be stirred down, then boil for exactly 2 minutes. Remove from heat; skim off foam. Ladle hot jam into prepared half-pint jars. Wipe rims clean. Place lids on jars and firmly screw on rings. Process in boiling water bath for ten minutes.

I am sorry, I don't want to offend, but that pickle recipe does not have enough vinegar to be safe from botulism. You need at least half vinegar that is 5 % acidity in a brine. The cucumbers are low acid vegetables. It takes at least that much vinegar in order to be able to keep them safe. Alum will not keep or make pickles crisp, unless you add it to fermented pickles. That seems to be an old recipe, one based on vinegar that was more acidic. It used to be as much as 40 % acidity, not like our current vinegar. Even some of our vinegars sold are only 4 % acidity and not safe for pickling.

From Clemson,SC. food safety:
The level of acidity in a pickled product is as important to its safety as it is to its taste and texture. Never alter the proportions of vinegar, food or water in a recipe. Use only tested recipes. By doing so, you can help prevent the growth of Clostridium botulinum, the bacteria that produces a highly toxic poison in low acid foods.

If you choose to use firming agents, alum may be safely used to firm fermented cucumbers, but does not work with quick process pickles.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pickle safety.

My favorite is my sweet mixed and bread and butter pickles. Now that I use the Splenda as a sweetener instead of all that sugar, I get the same flavor without all that sugar..

Yes, my cukes are always in a full strength 5% vinegar, or I just add a very small amount of water to the brine. That might explain why they are still very crispy, as vinegar does break them down a bit. Alum, may also not be good to use unless its for a real sour pickle, which is made with bigger cukes, full strength 5% white vinegar, salt, tumeric for a yellow color, and the alum for a bit of pucker. There is no other need for alum in pickles as it doesn't impove stability or crispness of any kind of pickle type.

Linda Lou, As you know we sometimes don't agree on safety processing, but as you can see, I stay with a full strength vinegar for most every pickle type I make, so there is little chance of something 'bad' in my pickles. I do heat process most, but still only for a maximum of about 5 minutes. I feel that if I am making canned products that contain more acid than is in most recipes, its got to be safer no matter how its processed.. Just an schooled expert to a home canning expert talking here..

Linda Lou,

I had started wondering about the recipes safety but then saw the recipe that Annie had used to make Dill pickles using Chase's recipe. I guess I will stick with the recipe and the water bathing of the pickles.

Stacie

Here is a link that might be useful: Chase's pickle recipe

Stacie, if you read my first post carefully in that thread, you will see that I said I increased the vinegar and decreased the water so it was half and half, as suggested by the USDA.

I also said that I open kettled those pickles at my Dad's request, and that the USDA did not approve of that method and that I didn't advise anyone to follow my very bad example.

Annie

This is what I use, It seems to be just about half the amount of Chase's recipe, except I use the ratio of vinegar called for. If I open them and they seem a bit tart, I add a pinch of sugar. I use cider vinegar since it tastes more mild.
Sorry, you know my opinion based on USDA guidelines about the safety of less vinegar than that. The problem with botulism is that you can't see, taste or smell it. So, it is up to you if you are willing to take that chance. I sure don't recommend it.
Annie, I am surprised ! I would have processed them and not told him.
Kosher Dill

4 lbs pickling cukes
14 cloves garlic, peeled & split
1/4 cup salt
3 cups distilled or apple cider vinegar 5% acidity
3 cups water
12 to 14 sprigs fresh dill weed
28 peppercorns

Wash cucumbers; remove 1/16 inch from blossom end, cut in half lengthwise. Combine garlic and next 3 ingredients; heat to boiling. Remove garlic and place 4 halves into each clean jar, then pack cucumbers, adding 2 sprigs of dill and 4 peppercorns. Pour hot vinegar solution over cucumbers to within 1/2 inch of top. Immediately adjust covers as jar manufacturer directs. Process 10 minutes in BWB. Makes 6-7 pints.

Linda Lou, after spending all of July stretching fence, chasing cattle, working the garden when the temperatures were over 100, I just didn't have the energy to argue with him any more. I worked so hard in July that I lost 30 pounds. IN ONE MONTH! Gives a whole new meaning to "worked my butt off".

I figure he's 75, he's gonna eat whatever he wants to eat anyway. As for him not knowing, he was sitting there watching me so I just gave up. He still open kettles his tomatoes too, and I've given up arguing over that too. No acid either. Arguing just ticks him off, it doesn't change his mind.

Annie

Sorry Annie about that:) My question is did everyone else that followed the recipe then make the change?? So when I make pickles what ratio do I use. We have been doing so much picking and canning I think my brain might be pickled:)

Linda Lou,

No problem I get confused sometimes about the ratio. I know with my mixed pickles I needed to use a recipe that was 2:1 ratio of vinegar to water to make them safe, and that is what I did do. Now what is the ratio for dill pickles with just cukes and dill?? I don't want to make anyone sick. Now even with the water bath the ratio still needs to be higher, am I right about that??

Stacie Who loves to can things despite the problems she causes:(

Stacie, if you are making a quick pack dill pickle, like the recipe I posted, it is always at least half vinegar (must be at least 5% acidity) to be safe. Even with just cukes and dill. All foods must be processed to be considered safe, even jams and jellies, and pickles. Otherwise it is known as "open kettle". It prevents molds and fermentation in jellies. Makes a true vacuum seal on jars, not just a weak surface seal when you process foods, too. Boy, you didn't know you were getting canning 101 did you ? I really am a softy, but I don't want anyone getting sick or having food spoil.
I have had people tell me of exploding lids off pickles, green beans, too, when they didn't use a safe recipe. One gal called the extension, wanted to know why all the lids blew off her pickles. When asked what recipe she used, it was one of the old ones, not enough vinegar. She said the lady at the produce market where she bought the cucumbers from gave her the recipe. Boy, was she mad when she found out it was that recipe ! I have no idea if she went back and told them or called them, but it wouldn't have surprised me.

Annie, in one month?? 30 lbs. ! It has taken me all year to do that. Wow. I don't even know how you canned one thing and worked, too, on top of that. That is too much for you. I hope you take vitamins. Well, you know all about vitamins, LOL. You had to get all new clothes, right ? Me, I keep trying to take things in, but I can't take them in anymore. They look ridiculous. So far, I have lost 43 lb. but it has been a little more than a year for the total. Slow, but my doctor says it is great. I had a bad scare in the store the other day. Blood sugar got too low and I got the shakes BAD ! It was not fun !

Linda Lou, good for you!! Slower is better, your body has time to adjust. Dad gets the "shakes" like that too, it scares the heck out of me, I can tell you. I always have those little glucose tablets with me.

As for me, well, Ashley was in Costa Rica, it was 100 degrees here for days on end and I don't have air conditioning. I hate the heat and I'm not heat tolerant. I'd work in the garden until I got sick, then go stand under the hose to cool off and go back to work. I stretched 5 strands of new barbed wire, 1/2 mile long, and refenced the entire lower pasture. Add the kids fair entries, the escaped cattle (twice) which meant 10 hours on horseback each day, 60 hours a week at the office and, well, I was tired. Too tired to cook or eat.

Now I have a head start, though, I'd like to lose a bit more. No new clothes yet, though, I just went into the basement and brought up the stuff I wore 10 years ago. Funny how women's suits haven't changed much in 10 years.

As for those pickles, I have to get at least half a point for increasing the vinegar and another half for confessing that it was the wrong way to do it! (grin)

Don't worry, Stacie, it's not the worst trouble I've ever been in...

Annie

Annie, now, you know I only want everyone to be safe. Yes, I was proud of you for even letting me know, LOL. I hope I wasn't too hard on you !

That was no fun, I tell you, having those shakes. And, I don't mean milkshakes ! I thought I was fine, but I guess I had done too much walking. I had a granola bar in my purse. Good thing ! I keep one and gummy lifesavers, too.

That is a hard way to lose weight, girl. You need a vacation. Like one in the Bahamas or something.

Now you've done it, Linda Lou. You said "Bahamas." Which is loaded with cabana boys. Which will _really_ give our Annie an excuse to lose more weight.

I do mostly tomato items such as Salsa, roasted tomato soup, Chile sauce, stewed tomatoes, picante sauce, juice cocktail and plain tomatoes. Pickles are my next most popular. B&B's, Sweet Dills and Sweet chunk. I'm not crazy about regular dills. Add to that canned beans, corn, jams, jellies, fruit and berries. In my fruit cellar I have 2 units of five shelve each which I have no problem filling every season.

All of my pickle types get full strength vinegar now, no added water in anything. Processing time is kept to a minimum because of that.

That's fine for you Ken, but I don't like sour pickles. At all. Dad doesn't like them full strength either, he even complains sometimes when they are half and half vinegar and water.

I finally told him that if he wanted me to keep doing his canning, he could quit complaining. Not that he will...

Linda Lou, that's OK, I can take it. At least I'm honest when I do something that I know is wrong, I say I know it's wrong. LOL Does that get me off "death row"?

GardenLad, no Bahamas for this girl. If it's too darned hot in Michigan, I'm sure not going anywhere "warm". Maybe Alaska...or Siberia.

Of course, it's going to have to wait until after I finish the canning, get the hay in, the pigs and cattle to market and the apples pressed/sauced/stored. Oh, yeah, and I have chickens that need to be killed/cleaned/plucked/frozen. Maybe I'll go on vacation. Like maybe in 2040.

On the upside, I made your squash muffins today while lpinkmountain and I made jam. Very nice indeed.

Annie

Annie,

We aren't cabana boys, but my 3 yr old and 1 yr old helper and myself can send ourselves up to help if you need help...... After we get 80 pounds of tomatoes done along with the 50 pounds I preped yesterday.... and the 5 gallons of concord grapes to juice...... and 5 gallons of apples....... oh and gotta try making some chow chow.....

Stacie

LOL, Stacie, it's the life of a gardener/canner, isn't it?

My problem is that Dad is getting to the point where he can't really do much of anything and that drives him crazy. As everything "trickles down", he drives me crazy. (grin)

He's gotten to the point where he called me at work last week to tell me I needed to come out and move the sprinkle. Right then! I told him to turn it off or ask someone else, I wasn't leaving the office to make a 35 mile round trip to move the sprinkler, it would have to wait until I was out of work. Sure enough, that evening I had to make the trip to move the sprinkler.

What really ticks me off is that my sister, who does not work outside the home, has plenty of time to help herself to my garden, but she couldn't possible move the sprinkler. After all, it isn't HER garden, so she shouldn't have to. She might remember that when she's in my cucumber patch, but she doesn't.

Annie

Rarely do I make an actual sour pickle anymore. Just too much for me. But for all the rest, I don't mind adding the spices and sweetener and salt which helps to cut down the acid taste a bit. Right now, its a big batch of B&B pickles WITH onions this time..

Annie, you are off death row, as long as the botulism doesn't kill you, LOL. You know you are my friend, and I just want to be sure you are safe... Was I really hard on you ?? You know me, I take no chances with things.
Don't they make some sort of timers for sprinklers, so it can be shut off when you want it to ? That way you could save yourself all those trips.

Squash muffins? Recipe please.

Annie, you made muffins while making jam?! I can barely keep up with canning. This explains how you get so much done. Actually today I found pressure canning much easier, but that might have been because I roasted tomatoes & garlic for soup while I prepped vegetable juice cocktail, so I had everything ready to go and was able to clean & arrange things while the cocktail was in the canner. Don't think I had time for muffins though, just a quick tomato sandwich.

Melissa

Thanks, Annie. They look and sound wonderful

Oh yes, I multi-task. Sometimes I'm even successful at it!

I also had a batch of multi-grain bread rising, so it made it to the oven with the muffins. What better lunch, muffins, warm dark bread and homemade jam, all with a good friend.

Annie

Sweet pickles.. Splenda and vinegar as a start for the brine.. Last nights B&B came out great, and because every jar was very tightly packed with sliced cukes and onions, each jar could only take in about 3/4 to 1 cup of the full strength vinegar brine. With that in mind, there is no way that a quart jar with just one cup of 5% vinegar brine added would be too strong for anyone who likes pickles to enjoy, especially if they are also sweetened.

Multitasking- I made a big batch of herbed butter while brining some chicken. The herbed butter was placed under the skins, and roasted on the grill. All this while I was cooking down my apple butter..

Ken, be careful about packing those jars too tightly, the brine must be able to circulate appropriately to preserve the cucumber.

I know one of the examples I've always been given when making pickles was a woman who killed a couple of people with pickled asparagus. She packed the jar so tightly the brine couldn't fully circulate throughout the jar and since it was a low acid vegetable (like cucumbers are), it didn't get preserved. Just like that, a couple of people are dead and another one had months of rehab.

Don't pack too tightly...

Annie

When they came out of the canner, I swirl the jars a little. They do move inside there, so I do know they do shrink up a little, and the liquid was still at the glass ring just below the threads. I tightly packed a small batch of whole dills the other day, using small cukes that were just 3 inches long. After processing they shrank more, and were floating above almost an inch of brine. My sweet mixed quarts also shank and there was almost an inch of brine space at their bottoms too, and there, the onions and cauliflower didn't shrink much. If I wanted to get a really tight pack, I would put the jars in the microwave a few minutes to heat up the veggies, then pack more in tightly. But there, your now looking for that packed too tightly issue.. Yet, another reason I still want to use a full strength vinegar, only because there is less of it than the veggies in each jar.