Canning mushrooms

Since Older Daughter has established herself as our live-in chef (she enjoys cooking but not cleaning up; I don't mind cleaning up but don't enjoy cooking), she's been regularly using the supply of mushrooms I have canned up in the pantry.

So last time I was in the city, after dropping Younger Daughter off at the Spokane Airport, I made a point to purchase a quantity of mushrooms with an eye toward rebuilding our stockpile. I would have bought more, but this is all they had in stock.

Canning mushrooms is easy, though of course they must be pressure-canned. I used my new canning guide from the USDA.

Since mushrooms should be hot-packed, I split them into two pots...

...then filled the pots with enough water to boil the mushrooms, putting on lids to trap the heat.

While the mushrooms were cooking, I washed some jars.

Draining the mushrooms.

Filling the jars.

Adding a half-teaspoon of salt to each jar.

Topping with boiling water.

Into the canner. Those four flats provided enough mushrooms to fill twelve pint jars.

I processed the mushrooms for 45 minutes at 12 lbs. pressure. Well, 14 lbs. A little bit higher pressure is fine.

A dozen jars of mushrooms still leaves me lower in stock than what I'd like, but that's okay. Next time I'm in the city, I'll pick up more and can another batch.

Man, I love canning.

What kind of mushrooms are you canning?

Almost ten years ago, I posted a piece on canning mushrooms.

Just the other day, I got a comment from someone named "Zohaib malik" on that post as follows: "We request you to definitely the actual web page where one can study along with fascinating home elevators comparable subjects. [Buy psychedelics online]"

(The bracketed part, obviously, was a hotlink to where readers could buy psychedelics online.)

"Home elevators"? "To definitely the actual web page"? I don't know what kind of mushrooms Mr. Malik was canning to create such a word salad, but I recommend he lay off of them right away.

Canning mushrooms

In an effort to round out the corners in my repertoire of canned goods, I wanted to replenish our stock of canned mushrooms. This past week when I did our monthly shopping at Cash & Carry, I purchased two flats (20 lbs.) of sliced mushrooms.

(Some of these photos were taken in the very early morning, well before dawn, so pardon any odd lighting. We needed to be someplace at noon and I wanted to get all the mushrooms canned before we left.)

I processed 10 lbs. at at time, starting with simmering the mushrooms in my largest stock pot.

While the mushrooms were on the stove, I rounded up and washed a whole bunch of half-pint jars. In years past when canning mushrooms, I used pint jars. However since Don and I are the only ones who are fond of canned mushrooms (as complements to certain recipes, such as chicken piccata), half the pint jar of mushrooms sometimes went to waste. Half-pints are far more suited in this case.

Using a handled colander...

...I scooped a bunch of mushrooms at a time into a larger colander to drain, and started filling jars.

Half-pints only require a quarter-teaspoon each of salt.

Topping each jar with clean boiling water.

While wiping the rims, I found one jar with a large nick. Oops, it just got downgraded to non-canning purposes. I poured the contents into another jar.

Scalding the Tattler lids...

...and putting them on.

Believe it or not, I've never canned in half-pints before and wasn't sure how many the pressure canner would hold. Turns out, 13 fit on each rack.

That's 26 jars altogether. Half-pints (as well as full pints) of mushrooms get pressure-canned at 10 lbs. pressure (12.5 lbs for our elevation) for 30 minutes.

The first 10 lbs. of mushrooms gave me 28 half-pints, so I held two jars back for the next round.

Next 10 lb. batch, next round of jars.

Empty flats of mushrooms.

Radically messy kitchen. Let's face it, canning is NOT a tidy process.

Halfway done. I held back half a basket of mushrooms for fresh use, so the second batch didn't have as many half-pints, allowing me to fit the two leftover jars into the canner this time. All the hard work is done by this point (including -- ahem -- washing dishes -- hey, I needed the counter space).

Final yield: 50 half-pints of mushrooms, enough to last us a good long time.

Boy do I love canning. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing those rows of jars cooling on the counter.

Canning mushrooms

I'm winding down my canning for the year -- and doubtless you're all sick to death of my canning posts -- but I wanted to can up a few more things to round out my pantry. This included mushrooms.

We enjoy canned mushrooms (sauteed in butter and lemon juice, yummmm!), but I got totally turned off buying those little cans of mushrooms in the grocery store a few years ago when I noticed they were canned in China. I dunno, that just struck me as something I didn't want to eat. (I've since been told there are American-canned mushrooms available, but our local store doesn't carry them).

Mushrooms are easy to can anyway, so why not can my own? That was my conclusion.

Last week I asked our regional wholesale grocery store (Cash & Carry) to order me 20 lbs. of sliced mushrooms. When I went in this week to pick them up, I learned that someone had bought two of my four flats, so I ended up with only ten lbs. of sliced mushrooms. I already have some jars canned up in the pantry and this new batch was merely to add to my existing inventory, so I didn't mind so much.

Each flat holds 5 lbs. of mushrooms.

Mushrooms must be hot-packed -- they're one of those foods that shouldn't be cold-packed.

So I put all ten pounds in my biggest pot...

added water...

...and brought them to a boil. My girls hate it when I can mushrooms because they don't like the smell of them cooking. I always tell them, tough patooties.

While the mushrooms were cooking, I washed the jars.

Then I started filling the jars, using a slotted spoon.

I quickly realized this was inefficient, so I drained the mushrooms into a colander instead. However this wasted the cookwater, something I didn't think about until it was too late. Oh well.

On the other hand, there's no question the drained mushrooms were easier to put in the jars.

I added a half-teaspoon salt to each pint...

...then topped each jar with clean boiling water.

I could have added some ascorbic acid to each jar as well, to preserve the color, but I don't have any in stock. (Make a note: get some.)

Scalding my Tattler lids.

Wiping the rims (and checking for nicks).

Lids and rings on...

...and into the canner.

I ended up with 13 pints out of the ten pounds of sliced mushrooms. The two flats of mushrooms cost $22, which comes to $1.70/pint. I haven't checked the price of canned mushrooms in the stores lately -- did I save money?