Canning Sweet Potatoes and a recipe

A few weeks ago we canned sweet potatoes.

This is the first year we have grown them. We all love sweet potatoes, I don't know why we never tried growing them before. They do have a tendency to vine a lot, so you need to have a space to plant them where they have room to spread out.

Wash them good. Cut out any bad spots.
Put them in hot water for around ten to fifteen minutes.

 

Take them out and put in cold water so you can handle them easier without burning your hands. The skins come off easy!

Cut them into chunks or long strips. Whichever you prefer. I did most of mine into small chunks.

Put in hot jars. I keep my washed jars hot by keeping them in a 150 degree oven.

Put a teaspoon of salt on the potatoes and fill jar with hot water. Leave a little head space.
Put on lids and and rings and then into the pressure canner for 90 minutes. You have to pressure can sweet potatoes!
Snug lids hand tight - do not over tighten the rings. If you over- tighten the rings, the lids may warp during the processing (especially if you use wide mouth jars). This has happened to us before when my husband tightened the lids too tight before putting jars in the canner.

After processing, make sure the cans seal. Listen for the ping!


As always, follow the instructions in your canning booklet.

We didn't can all of our sweet potatoes. They keep well. I will use the others for casseroles and pies.

Click here for a good site that tells all about growing and harvesting sweet potatoes.

Have you ever ate a sweet potato pie? They are very good. Here is the recipe I used.

Cinnamon Streusel Sweet Potato Pie

print recipe

1 1/2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 T corn syrup
1 cup evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon ginger

Streusel

1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 T all-purpose flour
2 T butter
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts of your choice (pecans or walnuts)

Place cookie sheet on oven rack. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Mix mashed sweet potatoes with remaining filling ingredients with wire whisk (or mixer) until smooth; pour into frozen pie crust.

Bake on cookie sheet 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees; bake 20 minutes longer.

Mix streusel ingredients and carefully sprinkle over filling. Bake 10 to 15 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean and streusel is golden brown. Cool completely.

Serve with whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream.

This pie is very good. It did not last long at our house.

Fruits of Our Labor

The gardening season is winding down. 

We have thus far canned 27 quarts of green beans, 6 jars of salsa, 11 jars of peppers
 

I have frozen 17 containers of spaghetti sauce

24 quarts of tomatoes (love, love, love fresh juicy tomatoes from the garden)

and, approximately 20 quarts of blueberries

I have also put blackberries in the freezer, and we have had oodles of squash and cucumbers. Our watermelon plants were a bust and I'm not sure if our pumpkin vines are going to survive or not. Our potatoes did great! Most of them are still in the ground. We leave them in the ground and dig them as needed.

I am going to make jelly out of some of the blueberries once things are a little less hectic around here. I love blueberry jelly!

I am not a big fan of peppers, but those canned peppers are delicious!

I know a lot of you out there 'put up' much more than I have, but we put back enough for our needs.

I made the salsa last night, now I'm off to the kitchen to 'put up' more tomatoes in the freezer.
I always try to freeze a lot of tomatoes. We use them in chili, soups and creamed tomatoes for breakfast.

What have you 'put up' this summer? Are you glad that autumn is around the corner?
 
P.S. A note to my writing friends who read this blog. Don't forget to go over to my writing blog, Creative Writing in the Blackberry Patch  to follow me there and read my writing posts.

 Posted by Janet F. Smart on Writing in the Blackberry Patch