Preserving Endive and Swiss Chard - by Sunscape

in Foodies Bee Hive7 months ago

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The greens were ready to be harvested last week and I planted a few too many to eat all at once. So, I decided to look up how to preserve greens in the Ball book of Canning.

The procedure was very simple so I got to it one morning.

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I trimmed and washed all the endive/escarole greens first and cut them up into smaller pieces.

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I then did the same with the Swiss chard except I removed all the stems from the leaves.

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I boiled a large stock pot of water and blanched all the greens for a few minutes until they wilted. Once they were drained, I filled these pint jars and topped them off with boiling water leaving 1" of headspace and added a 1/2 teaspoon of salt to each jar. Using a chopstick, I stirred the greens to release any trapped air bubbles.

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Into the pressure canner they went and I processed them for 1 hour and 10 minutes at 10 lbs of pressure for my elevation.

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I will be able to add these greens to a variety of soups over the winter months. I still have some jars of kale that I did last year to use up. These jars will be one more item to add to the prepper-pantry shelves.

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Enjoy your day fellow Hiveans, I am off to the kitchen to process tomatoes.

Until next time, this is Sunscape
Sun. Scape. Ing Your Day

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Wow! And they stayed green! That seems like an awfully long time to process greens. Carrots don't even take that long.

I started to process tomatoes today, but hadn't turned the ice machine on, so I could only peel about a dozen. Live and learn!

I also thought it was a long time for greens, but we have to be safe and follow the guidelines. I have been doing tomatoes too. That is an ongoing process until they are done fruiting. Oops on the ice! Next time you will remember, ;-)

Very interesting way to have green vegetables in the winter! We don’t have the big steamer here.

The pressure canning process is different than the water-bath and is necessary with low-acid foods. Too bad you don't have something like that there as it allows one to preserve a huge array of food. Be well!

Thank you! I wish I could learn about preserving vegetables one day. Perhaps making kimchi would be a good start.

Making Kimchi is so easy and I know you would love having your own homemade.

Oh, this is interesting! I have so much Swiss Chard and end up giving so much of it away because I cannot eat it all by myself. This is surely an awesome way to preserve it, especially for the wonderful soups in the winter. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe or method! I appreciate it.

Just be sure it is pressure-cooked and not water-bath.

Will do that! I can only imagine the problems if not pressure cooked - not safe for long term storage.

A very beautiful way to preserve the greens. Would the vitamins still be intact?

I would imagine some of the vitamins would be.

It is an excellent option to preserve food for a long time, the step by step was very well explained.

Thank you, I like to encourage people to preserve food for themselves.

What is the texture after pressure canning and then adding to soups?

It is like adding it to the soup if it were fresh but you have to cook it for a long time. Pressure-canning it cooks it fully and I just add it to the soup near the end of the cooking time. It beats wasting the greens when I plant too many. ;-)