Canning Greens

Remember the mustard seeds that I glued to paper napkins to show everyone how to make seed mats. I am so glad that I did that because it came a huge rainstorm the next day and if those seed had not been glued down I would have been picking mustard at the bottom of that hill. Needless to say that the mustard mats germinated and are now ready to pick and can. You can follow along in the Ball Blue Book, 100th Anniversary Edition, page 67 for the recipe.

We picked 4 large laundry baskets of mustard greens and put them one at a time in the big laundry sink to clean. We changed the water several times and added salt just in case there were any bugs left it would kill them. Surprisingly there were very few bugs in the greens.

You want to wash them well and remove the ribs on any of the larger leaves. 

To remove the rib simply turn the leaf to the back side and fold the leaf in half, pinch the rib where it starts to get large and pull down. As you see in the picture above it simply tears right out.  

Then you are left with a leaf minus the tough ribs or stems. 

Once all the leaves are cleaned you are ready to can. I had containers of greens all over my kitchen : )

In the Ball Blue Book they suggest putting in a large pot and cooking the leaves until wilted and then cutting them in the pot.  (Have you ever tried cutting something in a Big Boiling pot.) I prefer to drop my greens in boiling water in my spaghetti cooker. For wilting and blanching vegetables this is the handiest pot in my pantry. An old pot found at a sale of a school cafateria closing down it has served me well through the years. 

Once the greens are wilted which takes about 4 minutes if your water is boiling good, you can simply lift the upper part of the pot out of the water and let it drain for a minute.  

Then dump greens in large colander and let drain.  We had many batches. Once the greens are drained then run a knife through the hot greens to chop them to smaller pieces. We wilted all the batches and drained them, cut them into smaller pieces then added enough back to the pot of water for a cooking which is 7 quart jars.  Then I heated the greens back up to boiling . Do not be tempted to put the wilted greens directly in the jars because they will suck all the water back up and you will be left with jars of greens with no water at the end of your canning cycle.  Put them back in the water and bring back to a boil always..

 I learned this the hard way : )

Then with a slotted spoon dip the greens out of the boiling pot and put in jars. Add hot greens to hot quart jars then add 1 teaspoon of canning salt to each jar.

Now add boiling water from the pot you cooked the greens in over the greens leaving 1 inch headspace. If I am short boiling water I simply stick some in the microwave to top off my jars. 

Quick tip instead of using a ladle I use one of these to pour my boiling water  from my pot into jars instead of a ladle. Quicker and more precise pouring.  It is actually a Tupperware pitcher for pancake batter. Atleast 25 years old.  It's like everything else I own..it keeps popping up on Pinterest as a vintage item. I think they want me to feel old. Is Tupperware still around? 

Now release bubbles...

Wipe rims....

And apply hot lids and rings. Finger tighten only.

Now put hot jars in hot pressure canner  and process at 10 pounds pressure for 1 hour and 30 minutes for quarts.


I will warn you now that we picked 4 large laundry baskets of greens. By the time they were cleaned, stems removed and wilted, we got 14 quarts of greens. They SHRINK that much !

And if your jars come out of the canner with the greens floating above the water that is okay as long as they seal. They will sink in time and if not it doesn't hurt anything.

Blessings from The Holler 

The Canned Quilter 

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