Authentic borscht can be canned and stored for use throughout the year.
Canning homemade soup is a great way to store leftovers without cramming your freezer or refrigerator with storage containers. You can give homemade canned soup away as a gift or you can keep it in a temperature controlled area for use throughout the year. Use extra vegetables from your garden or local farmers market rather than commercially produced vegetables from your local grocer. The benefits to purchasing locally are great. You support local industry, reduce your carbon footprint and will consume vegetables with a greater nutritional content than those farmed and shipped from great distances. Borscht and other vegetable rich soups are great for canning.
Instructions
Prepping the Jars and Lids
1. Heat 2 qts.of water to boiling in a stock pot.
2. Wash your canning jars with hot water and anti-bacterial dish soap. Allow the jars to air dry upside down on a clean kitchen towel or inside of your dish-washer.
3. Drop the canning lids into the boiling water and allow them to boil slowly while you fill the canning jars and prepare to can.
Filling the Jars
4. Remove the canning jars from your dishwasher or turn them right side up on the draining towel.
5. Fit the funnel into the top of one of the jars and ladle enough of the hot soup into the jar to fill it while leaving one inch of head-space. Do not add cream or milk to the soup you will be canning. The dairy will curdle and it will make your borscht look completely unappetizing. Add cream or milk to your soup once you are ready to eat it.
6. Wipe any spillage from the rim of the canning jar with a clean, moist towel and tap the side of the jar to release trapped air bubbles. Repeat this process with the remaining jars.
7. Remove the lids from the boiling water using the lid lifter. Fit a clean lid to each filled jar and tighten until just fingertip tight, but do not over tighten the lids.
Processing the Jars
8. Place the pressure canner on top of the stove on the largest burner. A pressure canner is necessary because of the low acid content of this soup. Other canners will not reach a high enough temperature or pressure to successfully can the soup.
9. Drop the rack into the pressure canner and place your filled, sealed jars in one layer inside of the canner.
10. Pour enough hot water into the canner to fill it approximately three inches.
11. Fasten the lid to the canner and remove the weight from the vent port. Turn the burner to high and allow the water inside the canner to come to a boil. Steam should vent strongly through the port once the water comes up to temperature. Allow the steam to vent for ten full minutes.
12. Place the weight over the vent port and allow the canner to come up to ten pounds of pressure. Once the canner has reached ten pounds of pressure, start your timer. Process the borscht for forty-five minutes and keep an eye on the pressure gauge. If the pressure begins to drop or raises too high, adjust the temperature of the burner to maintain ten pounds of pressure.
Finishing Up
13. Turn off the burner and remove the canner from the heating element once the processing time has elapsed.
14. Allow the canner to cool down until the pressure has completely stabilized. The gauge on the canner should quickly begin to drop toward zero as the canner cools down and the pressure is released.
15. Remove the vent port weight while wearing an oven mitt and safety glasses. Once all of the steam has vented and the pressure gauge reads a solid zero, remove the lid from the canner. Do not try to remove the lid when the canner is still pressurized.
16. Remove the jars from the canner using an oven mitt and a jar lifter. Place the hot jars on a cooling rack or on a clean, dry towel in an area free of cool drafts. Allow the jars to completely cool. The cooling process generally takes a full twenty-four hours. Store the jars in a cool, dry place.
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