No crisis is terrible; no sanctions can frighten our housewives. You could even say that the crisis and sanctions are the perpetual motion machine for our creative and dominant women.
Even if the family does not have the coveted six hundredths, which fully provide the family with vegetables for the winter, then there is always the opportunity to shop on the market, because in the summer it is cheaper to find some valuable recipes, the most delicious and unusual snacks for the winter, and it’s fun , tastefully celebrate New Year and Christmas in Russian.
The most delicious snacks for the winter - the basic technological principles
Home "canneries" start with the first shoots of sorrel, wild garlic or dandelions, and stop work when the last green tomato is placed in the jar, and if necessary, we can preserve the oranges with bananas, in case of the next sanction list. But the most powerful argument in favor of homemade preparations is that delicious snacks are obtained only at home, and therefore Russian housewives have a wealth of experience and a huge, inexhaustible supply of recipes for winter salads and snacks for every taste.
In connection with the above, it is not worth reminding that vegetables and fruits for canning must be sorted, thoroughly washed, this is an axiom. Sterility is the absence of microbes that spoil food and mood - the number one rule in canning.
But even well-washed vegetables over time are attacked by microorganisms that spoil them. The main purpose of canning is to hide the product well from harmful microbes, of which there are so many and they are so different that you have to delve into, at least superficially, what methods you can deal with them.
Microbes die from a high concentration of sugar, acid or salt, they do not like high or low temperature, and they die without oxygen. You can deal with them in different ways of preserving, but if you want in the winter not sweet jam, and not dried fruit, and not just pickled cucumbers or sauerkraut, then the universal option is to preserve snacks and salads in jars. This is both an appetizer and a side dish, and in some cases a full breakfast, lunch or dinner, if we talk about porridge with meat, vegetable stew or stuffed peppers.
The second main rule is the tightness of the closure. It is impossible to completely get rid of microbes: they appeared on the planet earlier than people, there are billions of them, but there is good news - in a jar of food, without air, they die, regardless of how much salt, sugar or vinegar the hostess put in a snack.
Of course, one can’t ignore the temperature treatment at which most microorganisms die in the process of cooking. In addition, when heated (pasteurization, sterilization), air is displaced from the can, which provides an almost vacuum environment inside the can and prevents the development of fungi or mold. There are methods of home canning without pasteurization, but they can be used only in cases where it is possible to store cans after corking in a cool room, so it’s better not to risk it, even if you add a significant amount of vinegar or salt to help preserve food.
If you follow all these rules, then you can preserve any salads for the winter, to your liking, and even feel free to experiment, in search of your own new recipes.
1. Appetizer for the winter from tomatoes - the most delicious
Ingredients:
Tomatoes and peppers - 1.5 kg each
Mashed Tomato 1.5 L
Eggplant 750 g
Haricot beans 350 g
Parsley, celery 200 g
Salt 50 g
Yield: 10 - 11 cans of 0.7 L each
Cooking:
For the preparation of snacks, it is necessary to select dense meaty tomatoes and peppers in the same amount. Soft and overripe tomatoes are suitable for cooking: about 1.5-7 kg of tomatoes should be selected for 1.5 liters of thick tomato juice.
Get started by preparing a tomato sauce. Sort tomatoes, remove fruits with traces of spoilage, wash and chop. Put in a pan, cook to a boil at a low temperature, occasionally stirring the mass. When it boils, remove from the stove, cool and wipe through a sieve. If there is a juicer, then the task is simplified: it remains only to prepare the juice and boil it until slightly thickened. Put your favorite spices in the ready-made fill, salt, and be sure to add a little sugar.
Garlic, coriander and cloves are very decorated with dishes with tomatoes. If you like spicy, add chili or cayenne pepper. In addition to taste, the listed spices are wonderful natural preservatives.
Wash whole and dense fruits of tomatoes, make cuts on the skin, blanch, and then cut into four parts and remove the seeds. For snacks, it is better to choose tomato varieties with a low grain content and dense pulp.
Washed peppers cleaned by removing the stalks and grains, cut into cubes. Cut eggplant in the same way as pepper; put them in salted water (ten percent solution), soak for a couple of hours to remove the bitterness. Then let the water drain.
String beans, after washing and removing the stalks, cut into bars of the same length with eggplant and pepper.
Dip the pepper and beans in boiling water for 5 minutes, and then pour cold water, dry.
Dip the prepared vegetables in a boiling tomato sauce, simmer for about twenty minutes. Vegetables should not turn out too soft, so that after pasteurization they retain their shape.
Put chopped greens and slices of blanched and chopped tomatoes in prepared jars. Spread prepared vegetables on top, along with tomato sauce.
Cover the jars with sterile lids and pasteurize for half an hour. You can put the snack on a pan filled with water and pasteurize it in the oven at 200 ° C for fifteen minutes. Banks immediately after pasteurization, cork and turn. Cover with a warm cloth. When cool, turn over and transfer to the pantry.
2. The most delicious snack of pepper, apples and zucchini
Ingredients:
Sweet and sour apples with thick flesh
Zucchini (young fruits)
Lettuce (different colors)
Apple cider vinegar (lemon juice) 250 ml
Salt 30 g
Honey 140 g
Water 1 L
Taste:
Melissa
Rosemary
Clove
Fresh currant and cherry leaves
Horseradish (roots)
Mustard seeds
Cooking:
Wash assorted vegetables. The ratio of apples, zucchini and peppers is 1: 1: 1. From peppers and apples, cut the core. Cut everything into rings and circles.
Boil water with salt and honey for the marinade. Vinegar or fresh lemon juice should be added by boiling the fill again, along with herbs and roots.
Arrange vegetables and apples in jars, fill with hot marinade, and cover with lids. Wrap with a warm cloth, leave to cool completely. Pour the cooled marinade into the pan, let it boil, add lemon juice or vinegar, spices. Bring to a boil again and fill the jars of vegetables to the top. Cork immediately with lids, wrap again.
3. Delicious peppers with vegetables and rice - appetizer, main course and side dish for the winter
Ingredients per can (2 L):
Salad pepper 8-10 pcs.
White cabbage 400 g
Steamed rice, boiled 150 g
Dried paprika
Carrot 200 g
Ground coriander
Chile (powder)
Onion 100 g
Clove
Vegetable oil 100 ml
Salt
Tomato juice 0.5 L
Allspice
Vinegar 9% 40 ml
Bay leaf
Cooking:
Take the small peppers, wash, remove the stalks with seeds, prick with a needle and blanch for three minutes, dipping in boiling water. Remove from boiling water and cool in ice water. Dry it.
Thinly chop cabbage (choose winter or autumn grade). Wash the carrots, peel and cut into strips. Put vegetables in a pan, add spices to taste and salt, mix, leave for a while.
Drain the juice that has stood out in a saucepan, add tomato juice (you can use mashed potatoes or pasta), vegetable oil. Bring the pouring to a boil, cook for 5-7 minutes.
Add the rice, boiled until half cooked and washed in cold water, to the chopped vegetables. Stuff peppers, put them tightly in jars, pouring with hot liquid.
Pour vinegar into a filled jar, put bay leaves on top, cover with a lid.
Fill a large pot to half the level with water. Warm up to 50-60 ° С. Carefully dip the filled cans into hot water. Sterilize a 2-liter jar for 60 minutes; 45 minutes - 1 l. Observe the sterilization time from the moment of boiling water.
4. Snacks for the winter: salted eggplant - the easiest and most delicious preparation
Ingredients:
Dill (leaves) 500 g
Eggplant 5 kg
Garlic 300 g
Allspice
Table salt 150 g
Water
Bay leaf
Yield: 10-11 cans (1 L)
Cooking Technology:
Select medium sized eggplants with technical maturity. Remove the sepals, wash, prick with a fork. Blanch in boiling water for 5 minutes. Quickly transfer to cold water. After cooling, make longitudinal cuts at each fruit, leaving only the base uncut.
From chopped leaves of dill, chopped garlic and salt, cook the pulp by grinding the ingredients in a mortar, or chopping them with a blender.
With the prepared mixture, grate the eggplant inside, in sections. Lay them under oppression by placing a board with vegetables on a drip tray.
A day later, fill the eggplant liter jars. Lay them upright, but not too tightly. Pour with boiling water, put in each jar several bay leaves, pepper. Add pungency - hot pepper if desired.
Cover the jars with lids, but do not roll up. Wait 3-4 days. During this time, vegetables will pickle. Drain the brine, boil. Fill them with cans again to warm the eggplant. After an hour, drain the brine again, bring it to a boil again, fill the cans and roll up with sterile lids.
In winter, cut salted eggplant into slices, add fresh or onion, aromatic vegetable oil. This is the easiest and most delicious snack and side dish for your favorite potato.
5. Korean cucumbers with carrots
Ingredients:
Refined sugar 120 g
Carrot 0.5 kg
Table vinegar (9%) 120 ml
Fresh cucumbers 2.0 kg
Rock salt, kitchen 50 g
Seasoning for Korean carrots (dry mix) 20 g
Garlic 60 g
150 g refined oil
Cooking:
Choose ripe and sweet red carrots, with blunt noses, wash well, peel and chop on a special grater. Sprinkle with dry seasoning, sugar and salt, add vinegar. Set aside for half an hour until the juice stands out. Wash the cucumbers after holding them in water. If necessary, clean them from rough skin. Cut into strips, like carrots. Combine and mix the vegetables. Transfer the cucumber salad with carrots to prepared clean jars (0.5 L).
Pasteurization time - 10 minutes. Seal hot jars immediately, turn them over. Cover with a warm cloth from above, and soak to cool completely.
6. Salad with corn - the most delicious snack for the winter
Ingredients:
Sweet corn (grains) 2 kg
Red carrots 700 g
Onions 250 g
Salad pepper 500 g
Water 2.5 L
Coarse salt 180 g
Sugar 250 g
Vinegar 9% 300 ml
Cooking:
For canning, choose sugar varieties of corn, milk ripeness. For an appetizer, corn kernels are required. To determine how many ears you need to buy or assemble in order to cut 2 kg of grains, please note that the weight of the rod in one ear is approximately 25-30%. That is, the mass of grains in one ear is 70-75%, depending on the moisture and the degree of maturity of the corn. Grains should be dense, but not too soft, pastel yellow. If the integumentary leaves have already dried up and turned yellow, then the grains on the cob are dry, hard and are not suitable for canning.
Boil the cobs in salted water; soak them in the same water until cool. Dice the peeled peppers. The salad will look very nice in the jar and on the table, if all the components have the same size and shape. Therefore, select multi-colored peppers, and chop it finely. Also chop carrots, onions. With a knife, separate the grains from the ears.
Combine the salad ingredients, mix and fill in sterile jars. Pour boiling water, cover, wait for the jars to warm up and the water to cool. Drain and fill the containers with boiled marinade.
Boil water by adding salt and sugar, and after 5 minutes - vinegar. Fill them with cans of salad, and transfer the snack to a bowl of hot water (about 70-80 ° C). Cover the jars with lids, close the pan with a lid and pasteurize the jars: 0.5 l - 40 minutes, 0.7 l - 50 minutes, 1.0 l - 1 hour.
Cork jars one at a time, immediately, taking out of the pan, turn over.
It is advisable to store the appetizer salad in a cool, dark place, since corn is a moody product.
The most delicious snacks for the winter in jars - useful tips and tricks
Sometimes you want to make blanks for the winter from products that require complex heat treatment, special pasteurization conditions. For example, sweet corn, legumes contain a lot of starch, and this complicates their harvesting in canned form. Starch, in the end, is carbohydrates that cause fermentation even at room temperature, which is fraught with "explosion" of stocks in the pantry, a few days later.
What to do? If the house does not yet have a domestic autoclave that allows you to sterilize cans with peas, corn, fish and meat in a clogged state for a long time, then try another method:
Get a few jar clips - this will be a useful purchase, taking up little space, always needed on the farm.
With the help of these simple devices, cans can be sterilized for a long time and at a higher temperature than pasteurization.
Please note: what is called sterilization in everyday life - the usual heating of preservation at a boiling point of water (102-105 ° C), is actually pasteurization. Sterilization occurs at a higher temperature - from 110 to 140 ° C and above, depending on the biochemical composition of the products.
To create such a temperature at home, you need to add ordinary table salt to the water for sterilization. To increase the boiling point of water by 10 ° C, 60 g of sodium chloride must be added per liter of water for sterilization.
But these measures are not enough. As you know, a strong salt solution pushes objects placed in it to the surface. That is, there is a risk that during pasteurization, cans in saline will be pushed to the surface, where the boiling point is lower, and simply turn over.
To prevent this, put a soft cloth on the bottom of the pan for sterilization, put the jars closed with clamps, put a board or a lid of a smaller diameter on their lids, and put on it a yoke that will hold the jars during sterilization at the bottom.
Sterilization should occur in a sealed container so that the canned food warms up as much as possible. After sterilization, glass jars can only be removed when they are completely cooled in salt water. The duration of sterilization depends on the contents of the cans.
