Home canning is a convenient way to preserve surplus gifts from forests, fields, orchards and vegetable gardens for the summer. Salt, sugar, vinegar and lactic acid are four natural preservatives known for centuries. With long-term storage of fruits and berries, sugar is most often used - compotes, jams, preserves, confiture, jelly, jam are canned, but there are also preparations with vinegar and salt, such as chutneys and other fruit and berry sauces.
One of the basic rules of canning is to choose your ingredients carefully! The fresher you use the food, the richer the flavor and aroma of your dish. Discard broken and spoiled fruits and berries, rinse and dry the rest. Choose your canning recipes ahead of time to avoid unexpected ingredient shortages. Try cooking spicy apples, for example. They will be a great addition to baked or fried meat, poultry, and a cheese plate. You will need 6 kilograms of apples, 12 cups of sugar, 6 cups of water, and 1 1/4 cups of 5% vinegar (apple cider works best), as well as 3 tablespoons of cloves and 8 cinnamon sticks.
Wash the apples. Peel and cut into slices, having previously freed from the core. In a large, 6-liter saucepan, combine sugar, water, vinegar, cloves, and cinnamon, heat to a boil, and cook for 3 minutes. Place apple slices in hot syrup and cook for another 5 minutes. Now the workpiece can be canned.
Sterilize the jars. Fill a wide saucepan the same height as the prepared jars two-thirds of the way with water. Place the glass jars on the bottom, turning the bottom upside down, put the lids in the same pot. Some housewives preliminarily put a special stand on the bottom or put a towel rolled in several layers, in their opinion, such a precaution does not allow the banks to burst. Place a saucepan over high heat and bring water to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes. Wear gloves to avoid scalding your hands. Use large cooking tongs to remove the jars and lids from the boiling water. Place them on a dry, clean tea towel. Do not remove the pot of boiling water from the heat; it will still come in handy.
Fill the jars with blanks. For spiced apples, lay out the fruit slices first and then pour over the syrup, leaving a small space at the top of each jar unused. Close the jars with lids. You can use regular iron screw caps, or you can roll up cans if you have a special machine. There is an opinion that in order to avoid the formation of mold under the lids, it is worth soaking a piece of parchment paper with alcohol and putting it on the neck of the jar before twisting it. Using the same tongs, lower the cans back into boiling water, also with the lids down, and leave there for another 10 minutes, then remove and cool.
Store canned food properly. Keep them in a cool, dark place such as a basement or lower shelves in a kitchen cabinet. If you have a few pieces or a very large refrigerator, put your pieces in it. Under ideal conditions, canned fruits and berries are stored for many years.
