Pantry in Action: Cider-Braised, Barbecued Pork Loin

The "Pantry in Action" series shows creative ways of using all the wonderful food we've preserved during the year. I will include recipes wherever appropriate with links back to the post(s) where a particular ingredient (or ingredients) was canned.

After a rainy, but productive Saturday, we were rewarded with a beautiful sunny Sunday. It started out cloudy and muggy but by noon the sun was out and it turned into a lovely afternoon. So, I decided to invite Colin over for a barbecue.

Earlier last week, I had found a nice little boneless pork loin roast that I had stashed away in my freezer so I decided to try a method I had used previously to great success on spare ribs that involves braising, applying a dry rub and then barbecuing low and slow, slathering with a tasty sauce. But, to gild the lily once more, I thought I would try adding hickory smoke to the mix.

So, to start, I gathered a few things together: my thawed pork loin roast, some aluminum foil, a small half-pint jar of my Cherry Barbecue Sauce, and a bag of hickory wood chips.

Put 3 cups of wood chips in a large bowl a cover with warm water. I placed a plate on top of the chips to keep them submerged. Allow the chips to soak for at least 20 minutes. I left mine for over an hour.

Take 2 similarly sized mini potatoes and cut them in half to use as stilts for the roast to sit on. Pour a can of apple cider into a dutch oven and arrange the four potato halves in the cider so they will support the roast. Lightly oil the roast, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and place gently atop the potato halves so the roast sits above the cider.

Cover the dutch oven and place it in a 275F oven to braise for about 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the roast.

Meanwhile, prepare the soaked wood chips by folding them into a foil packet leaving the ends slightly opened. Pierce with a fork  in several places on both sides. About 20 minutes before the roast is ready, remove the grill from a gas barbecue and place the packet of wood chips on one side of the heat shield. Replace the grill then light the entire barbecue, close the lid and leave on high heat for about 15 minutes or until there are generous tendrils of smoke issuing from the wood chip packet and you can readily smell the hickory.

For a charcoal barbecue, leave the grill off and light the coals right after you've put the roast in the oven. When the coals have a light coating of ash, spread them out and place the packet of wood chips directly on the coals to one side of the barbecue. Replace the grill and cover the barbecue. Leave it until there are generous tendrils of smoke issuing from the wood chip packet and you can readily smell the hickory.

Remove the roast from the dutch oven to a platter and rub with a dry rub. Turn all barbecue burners down to low and place the seasoned roast on the grill above the wood chips. Brush the top and sides of the roast with a nice barbecue sauce like this Sweet Cherry Barbeque Sauce. Close the barbecue and allow the roast to slowly cook in the smoke for about 30 minutes. Watch carefully. With a boneless roast it's easy to overcook it and end up with a dry chunk of meat. This method really does work best with bone-in cuts and is especially good with ribs.

While the roast is starting to grill, halve some more mini potatoes and place in a foil-lined barbecue basket with a bit of olive oil, tossing to coat. Turn cut side down so they crisp up. Add in the four half potatoes from the braise. Place the potatoes on the empty side of the grill and turn that burner up to high. Turn the roast over and brush with more barbecue sauce. Once the potatoes start sizzling, turn the heat down to medium-high and continue to cook. Every 10 minutes, turn the roast and brush with more sauce until a nice glaze develops.

When the roast appears done, remove from the grill and shut off that burner. Place on a cutting board, tent with foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes before slicing. When the potatoes are a nice golden colour, remove them from the grill and shut off the rest of the barbecue. 

Serve roast and potatoes with some steamed mixed vegetables.

Easy Garlic Dill Pickles

There are many wonderful canning recipes out there for dill pickles and I have tried a number of them with great success. However, for this first batch of pickles this year I have decided to take the easier route and use Bernardin's pre-mixed dill pickle mix.

My pickling cucumbers have been coming in one or two at a time, so I've been collecting them over the last few weeks until I finally have enough for a couple of quarts or so of pickles. What you see in the picture above is about 4 pounds of cucumbers and as you'll see I ended up with 3 quarts of pickles.

The first step is prepare the cucumbers by first washing them, then trimming off both ends. It's essential to trim off the blossom end at least as the remains of the blossom contain an enzyme that will cause the pickles to go soft. Actually, the real first step is to prepare a water bath canner and few jars. I'll come back to the jars in a moment.

I decided to cut half the cucumbers into spears and use my mandoline on the other half to cut them lengthwise into sandwich slices.

The next step is to mix up the pickling brine and get it boiling.

This is simply 2 cups of water, 1 cup of white vinegar and 1/4 cup Bernardin's Dill Pickle Mix. Combine in a saucepan and bring to a boil while the water bath canner is heating.

The jars I'm choosing to use are what I suppose could be called "antique" as they have not been made for quite a while now. There are two types -- Crown and Gem -- and both were manufactured in Canada.

The jar on the right is a Gem jar and the one on the left is a Crown. They are similar but their lids are different. Both are glass and require rubber rings to seal. 

The Gem jar lids are closer to the modern snap lids in that the rim of the lid is higher than the center, the rubber ring fits around the underside edge of the lid (much like the sealing gum on the underside of a modern snap lid) and the rubber ring is placed in contact with the rim of the jar and held in position with a metal (in this case, zinc) band. Again, very similar to modern canning jars. By popular demand, since Gem jars are still being used (more so in Western Canada), Bernardin sells snap lids and rings specially to fit them as they are an odd size in between regular jars and wide-mouth jars.

Crown jars are slightly different in that the glass lid is more like a cap with an edge that sits over the rim of the jar so that the rim of the jar is actually inside the lid. The rubber ring is therefore placed around the outside of the jar rim and the glass lid is placed on top of it then secured with the zinc band.

The picture above shows the jars already packed with cucumbers ready for the brine to be added, but before that happened, I gilded the lily a little.

To each jar I added 2 peeled garlic cloves that I lightly bruised under a knife first by pressing down firmly with the heel of my hand just until the clove cracked slightly. I didn't want to smash the cloves, but just crack them a little so they would release their garlicky goodness into the brine.

I also added a pinch each of yellow mustard seed and black peppercorns as well as a sprig of fresh dill from my garden.

Then into the canner for 15 minutes once it was back up to a full boil.

The result:  3 quarts of garlic dill pickles. These need to age for 4-6 weeks for the proper flavour to develop and unfortunately 2 of my 3 jars did not seal, so once cool, I tightened the bands as much as possible and put them in the fridge to to age.  I will treat them as refrigerator pickles as they are not shelf-stable. I am suspecting that I did not properly wipe off the rims before closing the lids as there is more to consider with these lids than the modern snap lids. I should have taken care to make sure that not only the rims of the glass lids were free of any spilt brine, but the surface of the rubber sealing rings as well. I do love the old-fashioned look of the pickles in these jars, but I will take care in future when using them to make sure all surfaces are residue-free so I don't lose any more jars to failed seals.

Pantry in Action: Sweet Cherry Barbeque Pulled Chicken

The "Pantry in Action" series shows creative ways of using all the wonderful food we've preserved during the year. I will include recipes wherever appropriate with links back to the post(s) where a particular ingredient (or ingredients) was canned.

Having just discovered a bag of cooked chicken meat in my freezer left over from the last batch of chicken stock I made and with the wonderful Sweet Cherry Barbeque Sauce I made last week, this practically made itself!

Pour a pint jar of Sweet Cherry Barbeque Sauce in the bottom of the slow cooker.  Add a medium-sized white onion, sliced thinly and the shredded, cooked meat of one whole poached chicken.  Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or so.  The end.

I split it between five 2-cup freezer containers paired with cooked brown rice and popped the containers into the freezer ready for a quick lunch or dinner. That barbeque sauce is amazing and packs a real punch!

Pantry Inventory 2016

With the canning season approaching once again, it's the perfect time to take stock of what was consumed from the pantry over the last year and what remains. This gives insight into what things you actually eat more of and what you don't and from that you can determine what you should be growing and canning.

Last year, I pretty much dedicated my entire vegetable garden to tomatoes, knowing I use a lot of them in my cooking. I wanted to create enough of an inventory of tomato products to carry me through the year. What has surprised me is number of jars of pasta sauce that remain while my jars of diced tomatoes are all gone. I thought I would use both sauce and diced tomatoes in equal measure, judging by my cooking habits over the previous year.  It appears I use more diced tomatoes than sauce, so this year I will adjust my canning accordingly and when the time comes, I will put up the majority of my tomatoes as diced.

Meanwhile, though, the rhubarb is bursting forth in all its glory, so I have been busy pulling it to try and keep it thinned out and hopefully allow more stalks room to thicken up. I realize that the crowns I moved earlier this spring really should be split apart but I had neither the time nor the space to do so this year and consequently the crowns are putting out many skinny stalks as opposed to fewer thicker ones, hence the frequent thinning.

I must admit, though, they do appear to be liking their new, sunnier location and I suspect the addition of compost and manure to their bed didn't hurt either.  I stewed my first batch of rhubarb last weekend and had it over yogourt for breakfast. Heavenly! For now, though, I am freezing my trimmed and chopped rhubarb, collecting and saving it for the next few weeks until the Ontario strawberries are available and I'll be able to make Strawberry-Rhubarb stew and perhaps some Strawberry-Rhubarb jam (same basic recipe -- just more sugar in the jam than in the stew).  Watch for an upcoming post and recipe!

Pantry in Action: Vegetarian Chili

The "Pantry in Action" series shows creative ways of using all the wonderful food we've preserved during the year. I will include recipes wherever appropriate with links back to the post(s) where a particular ingredient (or ingredients) was canned.

Although it's now the second official day of spring, you would hardly know it by the weather!  It feels more like January now than it did in January!  And they are forecasting up to 10cm of snow by Thursday!  Arrgh!

So, to help combat this (hopefully) final blast of winter weather, I decided to make a batch of hearty, warming chili, without the carne for a change to keep my vegetable intake up. When I make chile con carne, I normally use a combination of ground beef and ground pork, but in this vegetarian version, I am using chopped portobella mushrooms as a substitute.

First, roughly chop about 6 large-ish portobellas, then load them into a food processor and pulse them for about 10 seconds or so until they are in fairly small pieces. Peel, chop and process 1 large white onion and several large cloves of garlic.

Sauté chopped mushrooms, onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil on medium-high heat until the mushrooms have cooked down somewhat and have released some of their moisture, the garlic is soft and the onions are translucent -- about 5 minutes or so.

Chop a few stalks of celery, some sweet peppers (I'm using a red, a green and an orange one here -- you could also seed and chop a jalapeno or habanero pepper for more heat, but I'm not for this batch) and slice a few white button mushrooms or creminis.

Pour a jar of your favourite home made tomato sauce (mine is this one from the Bernardin website -- canning instructions can be found here) into the bottom of a slow cooker, pile in the sautéed mushroom-onion-garlic mixture and add the chopped peppers, celery and the sliced button mushrooms.

Drain and rinse a can of mixed beans, red kidney beans or your favourite beans and add to the slow cooker.

Add a jar of home made tomato paste to help thicken and add a bit of body to the chili, then add your seasonings. I am cheating here and using a pre-packaged chili seasoning mix, but concocting your own blend can be fun and very satisfying. When I do, I usually start with the three C's -- cumin, coriander and cayenne and go from there, rifling through my spice cupboard, trying a bit of this and a bit of that. No two chili batches are ever the same and to me that's the beauty of it!

Cover and turn the cooker on to High until it's hot, then turn down to Low and leave it to slow cook for 8-10 hours. I like to start a batch of chili in the evening while I'm getting dinner ready and leave it to cook overnight.

The next morning, I turn off the cooker, give the chili a good stir, then leave it covered all day to cool to room temperature. I usually give it a taste test at this point.  If it's a bit flat, I'll add some salt and taste it again, adjusting until I feel it's right. If it's a little too acidic and/or tomato-ey (which this batch was due to the strength of my tomato paste!), I'll add a bit of white granulated sugar and taste again until the tomato acidity has been mellowed. Be careful adding the sugar as you don't want any sweetness to come through. For this batch, I ended up adding about 1 teaspoon of sugar in total.

In the evening, I take the crock out of the cooker and put the whole thing into the fridge to chill for another 24 hours or so. I find this really brings the flavours together and re-heated chili really does taste better.  

So, although it's two days in the making, it's definitely worth the wait, IMHO! Top with a dollop of sour cream and some shredded cheddar and you have a hearty warming supper on a cold early spring evening. You can find my recipe here.

Multitasking: making sauerkraut, canning yesterday's bone broth and starting another batch

Well, after nearly 24 hours of slow simmering in the oven, just look at this lovely broth!

I removed as many large pieces of the turkey carcass as I could using tongs to lift them out of the broth and place them to drain in a colander placed over another large pot.

When there were only small bones and the vegetables left, I picked up the broth pot and tipped the whole thing over into the colander to let the broth collect in the other pot.

Leaving the bones and veg to drain and cool for a while, I started the set up for my first attempt at pressure canning!  I've had my pressure canner, a 16-quart Presto, for a while now, but have not had a chance to use it until now.  I must admit I was feeling a little nervous about it, but realized that most of it was just fear of the unknown more than an actual fear of pressure canning.  I have read the manual that came with my canner several times cover-to-cover and I have also read numerous blog posts about pressure canning, many of which mention the initial newbie nervousness and how that (just like water-bath canning) if you follow the correct procedures there's no cause for concern. And, having put my faith in the good folks at Presto and successfully pressure canned my first batch, I can assure you it's true! It just takes a bit of practice and getting used to, but it's actually quite easy and nothing to fear.

The Presto manual very wisely suggests doing a trial run with only water and no jars in the canner so you can see and hear how the canner works before actually committing yourself to a canning project. So, while the broth drained and cooled, I did exactly that and took my canner for a trial spin.

After washing the canner and its lid with warm, soapy water to remove any manufacturing lubrication, the manual suggests putting 4 cups of water in the bottom of the canner.  There are measuring marks on the inside of the canner (they're not visible in the above photo) and the bottom mark is 3 quarts, which is the standard amount of water to use when actually canning jars of food. However, for this test run, 4 cups is all that is needed since we won't be running the canner for very long.

This is the underside of the lid held over the canner to show the ridges and valleys around the edge that interlock with one another when the lid is properly attached.  Note, too, the metal tab sticking inwards from the edge of the canner near the bottom of the above photo.  There is a pressure lock built into the lid (actually it's directly opposite the black circular rubber plug you see in the lid above and not shown in the photo -- must work on my "mindful photography" skills!) that engages with this metal tab when there is pressure inside the canner.  Essentially, what happens is the pressure lifts the pressure lock, pressing it against the metal tab and preventing the lid from flying off accidentally. The pressure lock also lifts above the top of the lid, so it's another visual indicator that the canner is pressurized.

When the arrow on the lid is aligned with the arrow on the canner handle, the ridges on the edge of the lid align with the valleys on the edge of the canner and vice versa.  The lid can be pressed gently down into place.

The lid is rotated clockwise to align the lid handle with the canner handle, meshing the ridges and valleys and locking the lid onto the canner.  The manual suggests using a fairly high heat, but to be careful of using the correct sized hob on a natural gas cooktop so as not to use one that is too hot which can potentially warp the bottom of the canner.  So, I'm using the second-largest hob on my cooktop just to be safe.

Once the canner has heated and the water inside is boiling, steam will collect and raise the pressure, which raises the pressure lock.  In the photo above, you can see the pressure lock lifted.  It has also engaged with the metal tab on the inside edge of the canner as shown a few photos back, which acts as an additional safety latch.  Note that there is not enough pressure to register on the dial gauge. This is because air is still being vented via the steam vent to the right of the gauge. Once there is a steady flow of steam coming out of the vent, the canner is left to vent for 10 minutes before the regulator is put on.

The regulator is weighted cap that sits loosely over the vent allowing pressure to build inside the canner.  Once the pressure has reached a high enough level, the regulator will start to rock back and forth, letting out pressurized steam in small bursts. This keeps the pressure inside the canner at a constant level.  You can also help regulate the pressure by adjusting the level of heat under the canner and the Presto manual suggests starting at a relatively high level of heat and then lowering it slightly as the needle on the gauge approaches the desired pressure level.

Oddly, the regulator that ships with the canner is a one-piece solid 15-pound weight.  Many pressure canning recipes call for a 10-pound weight with 11 pounds on the gauge.  This produces an internal temperature of 240ºF, which is enough to kill off the Clostridium botulinum bacteria, whose spores are responsible for botulism, among many other nasty bugs.  Canning at 15 pounds of pressure would work (and is necessary for some recipes), but for a recipe that calls for 10 pounds, it's overkill and a waste of energy.  Fortunately, Presto also sells an adjustable regulator that can be set for 5, 10 or 15 pounds.  This is available for purchase separately and is well worth the $25 or so.  However, why Presto doesn't just include this adjustable regulator with all its canners and forget about the solid 15-pound one is beyond me.

Here you can see the gauge is just past 10 pounds.  I have the regulator set at 10 pounds and it is starting to dance, however it doesn't really show in the photo above.  The needle of the gauge topped out at 12 pounds and I was successful in dropping it back to 11 pounds and holding it there by turning down the heat slightly.

Satisfied that I now knew the sights and sounds of my pressure canner, I switched off the heat and left it to cool and de-pressurize naturally on its own.  It took about 10 minutes for the pressure lock button to drop and another 10 minutes for the gauge to return to zero.  I took off the regulator at this point and I left the canner another 10 minutes after that before carefully opening the lid (pointing it away from myself to avoid any lingering steam).

Full disclosure: I am a complete wuss and while the canner was heating and especially after it started venting steam, I stayed at the other end of the kitchen, sometimes even hiding out in the living room having all sorts of "Omygoditsgonnablow!!" thoughts.  It didn't, of course, not even close, and now that I know that it's just the canner's normal behaviour, I am fine with it.

So, now that I was comfortable with the pressure canner, I prepared to can my batch of bone broth. When water-bath canning, it's easy and convenient to just sterilize the jars in the canner while it is heating.  With a pressure canner, you don't have that luxury, so you have to resort to other means.  I could have got the water-bath canner out, filled it with water and boiled the jars anyway (big waste of gas if I wasn't actually going to can something in it!), or I could have run the jars through the dishwasher (I had just emptied it, didn't have enough jars to make a full load and it would take too long, so I nixed that idea, too).  I decided the quickest, easiest and cheapest way was to sterilize the jars in my oven.  250ºF for 10 minutes and done!

The broth recipe states that it yields 4 quarts, so I put in an additional pint jar just in case I had some left over. The five jars and their rings fit perfectly in my small roasting pan! I put the jars into a cold oven so they could heat gradually and then counted 10 minutes once the oven reached 250º.

While the jars were heating, I removed the colander of turkey bones, meat and vegetables and I brought the broth back up to a boil. Then I started in on making sauerkraut. This is the second step of my GAPS diet preparation. The fermented liquid is a great source of natural probiotics and stage one of the intro diet requires me to start with one tablespoon every day. I will also be purchasing organic probiotic yogourt and kefir which will serve as additional sources. Eventually, I will try making my own yogourt and kefir, but for now I'm starting one thing at a time.

The basic sauerkraut recipe in Amanda Feifer's great book, Ferment Your Vegetables is SO easy.  One 2-pound cabbage and 4 teaspoons of kosher salt.  That's it!

You start by halving the cabbage and cutting out the core. Amanda suggests slicing the core and pickling it separately, but I will save that for a future fermenting adventure, so into the compost bin the core went!

I cut each cored half in half and then, with a flat surface against the cutting board I sliced crossways into thin (about ¼-inch) ribbons.

Then, work the salt into the cabbage using your clean hands for a few minutes until the cabbage has a sheen of moisture on it. Amanda suggests letting it sit now for about 20 minutes to allow more moisture to be drawn out, softening the cabbage and making it easier to massage later.

The jars were ready at this point, so I quickly set the pressure canner up again making sure to add the full 3 quarts of water this time as this was a real canning session, not a trial run. The water I added was hot from the tap so that the hot jars would not be shocked and I added a splash of vinegar to prevent mineral deposits, same as for water-bath canning.

One by one, I filled a hot jar with hot broth, leaving 1" headspace (necessary to allow the proper boiling of the broth inside the jar), wiped the jar rim, centered the lid on the jar and applied the band, firmly tightening it and placing the jar into the canner. Unlike water-bath canning, you should tighten the bands on jars to be pressure-canned past finger-tight to prevent the contents from being siphoned out under pressure.  The pressure inside the canner can be enough to loosen the lids sometimes if they are not properly tightened. Still, there's no need to go overboard -- tightening just until firmly snug will suffice.

Turn the heat under the canner on high and bring to boiling. When there is good steady stream of steam issuing from the vent and the pressure lock is engaged, start counting 10 minutes to vent the canner. After 10 minutes, cover the vent with a 10-pound regulator, and bring the canner up to pressure. When the regulator starts rocking, adjust the heat to hold the gauge at 11 pounds and start counting 25 minutes.

At the end of 25 minutes, turn off the heat and allow the canner to cool and de-pressurize naturally before taking the lid off. Always lift the lid away from you in case there is still some hot steam left in the canner.  

I left the canner for about an hour before I opened it. I noticed the jars were still boiling quite vigorously, so in a brief moment of panic, I put the lid back on the canner and ran to find the manual. It stated that this is completely normal and some jars will continue to bubble for some time after being removed from the canner. The jars are not going to explode, nor are the seals compromised. The same as water-bath canning: if the lid "pings" and is solid, the jar is sealed.

All four of my jars eventually "pinged", although it did take one of them nearly an hour to do so. I must say it was a little disconcerting to see the jars sitting on the counter, bubbling away after so much time out of the canner. The bubbles did slow down and ultimately stop, but it took several hours.

While the jars were being processed in the canner, I picked through the meat and bones left over from the broth and pulled off chunks of meat, ending up with half of a sandwich-sized freezer bag for the freezer.

Next, I returned to the sauerkraut:

It had been sitting for nearly half an hour at this point and certainly was softer and more moist, making the job of massaging more moisture out of the cabbage that much easier. Amanda suggests working the salted cabbage until there is a substantial pool of liquid at the bottom of the bowl and the cabbage starts to clump together in your hand. She states that you should look at the bowl of cabbage and then at the 1-quart mason jar and think that there's no way all that cabbage is going to fit into that jar.  In this case, it turned out to be true!

Using your fist you pack the cabbage in as tightly as possible, squishing it until it is flooded with liquid which you pour out into the bowl so you can pack the cabbage down even further.

Even doing all that, I still ended up with nearly 2 quart jars, which is great!  All the more brine for me to drink! (Yay! Do I sound excited? Or just crazy.)

According to Amanda, the key to a successful ferment is to make sure that all the vegetable material is submerged in the brine. As the fermentation progresses, vegetables tend to float to the top, so it is necessary to weigh them down. A handy trick mentioned in the book is to fill a smaller jar or non-metallic container with water or brine and place it in the top of the fermenting jar. In the photo above, the jar on the left was the first one I started with, thinking it would be the only jar and filled completely (up to 1 inch from the top). I found these little plastic food storage containers that fit perfectly (shown with the red lid in the jar on the left), but for the bonus jar on the right, which isn't quite full, the little plastic containers aren't deep enough to reach the top of the cabbage, so I used a half-pint canning jar instead.  

Amanda also suggests saving one of the outer cabbage leaves to tear into a smaller piece to stuff inside the top of the fermenting jar to act as a sort of shelf for the weight to sit on. The edges can be stuffed down the sides of the jar to help submerge the vegetables. It's hard to see in the photo above, but that's what I did and it seems to work well.

Cover the jars with paper towel secured with a rubber band and leave on the counter at room temperature for a few weeks, checking and tasting every couple of days until you really like the taste, then refrigerate. I will be consuming just the brine for the first little while on the GAPS diet, but will be able to enjoy the actual sauerkraut soon thereafter.

While I was at Loblaws buying the cabbage as well as some organic probiotic yogourt and kefir, I thought I would ask the butcher if they had any beef soup bones so I could make a batch of beef bone broth. Unfortunately, they were all out, but the butcher suggested using osso buco instead. Unfortunately, they were all out of osso buco as well, so I settled for chopped oxtail.

There was just over a pound of oxtail, so I threw it into my crockpot along with a couple of quartered, unpeeled onions, a handful of baby carrots (leftover from my Christmas party a week ago and frozen), a couple of peeled, chopped garlic cloves, a small handful of peppercorns, a good sprinkle of sea salt and filled it up with water.

A true original!  This baby is nearly 35 years old!

I started it off on High, then turned it down to Low before I went to bed. I think I will continue to make broths in the crockpot as I believe it uses less power than the oven does even on its "slow cooker" setting. Plus, the oven makes a low humming noise which I found annoying, so I really didn't fancy it being on all night.

Anyway, the broth was smelling wonderful this morning when I left for work, so we shall see this evening how it turned out and perhaps give the pressure canner another run!