Yes, but for fruits only! Do not can vegetables or meat in a solar box cooker, since these foods need to be canned under pressure! You'll find information on canning here.

To keep the pasta from getting pasty, use two pans. Heat the dry pasta with oil in one pan; heat the liquid with herbs in another. Fifteen to 20 minutes before eating, combine the two. If you are going to use a sauce, heat that in a third container.

The first solar cooker we know of was invented by Horace de Saussure, a Swiss naturalist experimenting as early as 1767. See this article for more info.

Indeed, there are some directions for 'canning' butter in circulation on the Internet. Most of what we have seen are not really canning, as they do not have Boiling Water or Pressure Canning processes applied to the filled jar. Jars are preheated, the butter is melted down and poured into the jars, and the lids are put on the jars.

Although most cruising boats today use propane stoves, they do have several drawbacks. There is risk of explosion - I know of several boats that have blown up. (If you can remember to always turn off the gas bottle after shutting off the stove, then there's little danger.) Second, I don't have room anywhere for a gas bottle locker, or something else would have to go.

No. In open kettle canning, food is cooked in an ordinary kettle, then packed into hot jars and sealed without processing. The temperatures obtained in open kettle canning are not hot enough to kill all the dangerous microorganisms in the food. Contamination may also occur during the transferring of food from the kettle into the jars.

Glass home canning jars, sometimes referred to as Mason jars, are designed for durability and reuse. They are the only jars recommended for safe home canning. Constructed of heat-tempered glass, they are able to withstand the superheated steam of the pressure canner, time after time. These special jars feature a deep neck and wide sealing surface that is essential for obtaining a tight seal. They are available in standard sizes to ensure proper processing times as specified in recipes.

All of my green olives are soaked in my secret brine for 9 months before we hand stuff them with garlic, bleu cheese or jalapeno peppers. We also have Special Martini Olives that is soaked in Vermouth. I am not a medical professional, but I can tell you a little bit about what they say. Dr. F.G. Piotrowski of the University of Geneva reported one of the most highly regarded tests on the effectiveness of garlic lowering blood pressure.

To begin, click on the "Add to Your Recipe Box" link found on any recipe page. Please note that you must have registered for a My Recipe Box account to save recipes. If you do have an account, sign in and your selected recipes will be added to your Recipe Box. If you do not have an account, you must click the "Sign Up" link to register. You may also register and sign in by clicking the "My Recipe Box" link at the top right of every page.

Jars do not need to be sterilized before canning if they will be filled with food and processed in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes or more or if they will be processed in a pressure canner. Jars that will be processed in a boiling water bath canner for less than 10 minutes, once filled, need to be sterilized first by boiling them in hot water for 10 minutes before they're filled.

In open kettle canning, food is cooked in an ordinary kettle, then packed into hot jars and sealed without processing. The temperatures obtained in open kettle canning are not high enough to destroy all spoilage and food poisoning organisms that may be in the food. Also, microorganisms can enter the food when it is transferred from the kettle to jar and cause spoilage.

Cooker is the Mandrivalinux development distribution. It evolves constantly, thus being called an "unstable distribution", and is regulary forked to produce a stable distribution for release. Think of it as yet another version of Mandrivalinux that is not meant for everyday use. See the Mandrivalinux cooker page for more details.

It has been reported that glass provides about 10% better performance than plastic. And there is reason to believe that under windy conditions, glass is preferred since it doesn't flap in the wind and pump heat out of the cooker. Plastic, however, is often recommended since it is much less fragile and easier to transport and works plenty well. Plastic glazings will have to be replaced periodically though since they are broken down by UV light.

It's hard to have too much, but you don't want to have too little. The minimum amount of charcoal you should probably ever use (except perhaps for ultra-low temperature smoking like cheese), is enough to just about fill the fire box. For high temperature cooking like steaks, you need to fill the fire box to the top. For long overnight low and slow cooking, you may want to load it up to about halfway up the fire ring so you are sure to have enough to last the entire cook.

You may be tempted to put something like a Lodge dutch oven in your cooker, heat it up to frying temperatures and then deep fry some catfish or something like that. BAD IDEA!! If you spill the oil, or if the oil bubbles over the edges of the pot into the fire, you will have quite a firebomb to contend with. Do not use your cooker as a fryer! You can sautee using small amounts of oil (see our page on Paella for details), but do not deep fry!

Yes, you can use a pressure cooker to emulate an autoclave, but pressure cookers are not really designed for the precision operation that is required, and their effectiveness cannot be guarantied. (more coming soon)

The DUROMATIC pressure cookers belong to the new generation of pressure cookers. They are built with safety features that make it impossible for this kind of disaster to occur. First, the automatic lid-locking device of the DUROMATIC pressure cookers insures that no pressure can build up until the lid is put on correctly. The lid cannot be removed or come off until all of the pressure has been released. DUROMATIC pressure cookers provide the ultimate protection against excess pressure.

You can use any kind of liquid as long as it is boiling. It needs to be boiling so that when the liquid goes into the hot jar and then the hot jar goes into the hot simmering water in the water bath canner the jar won’t break. Also this will lesson the processing time. As for the liquid it can be water, sugar water, juices or juice water mixtures, or any other kinds of liquids you wish to use.

No, table salt or canning salt cannot be used in place of curing salt. If used, you will get salted meat but the color and flavor of the meat will not be properly developed. Back to Top

No, you may also use a similarly sized plastic storage container with a removable lid or other similarly sized box.

A hard cover travel case costs about $275 from Bike Nashbar or Performance Bicycle mail order companies. Your local bike shop may rent cases, if you prefer to use one, but don’t want to purchase it. For tours that do not begin and end in the same city, there will be a US$30 bike travel case transfer fee. Boxing is inexpensive, but there is some risk of damage to your bike. The most susceptible parts are the front and rear dropouts where the wheel axles attach to the bike.

Box cookers with one back reflector don't need to be turned unless you are cooking beans which take up to 5 hours. Panel cookers need to be turned more often than box cookers, since they have side reflectors that can shade the pot. Parabolic cookers are the most difficult to keep in focus. These need to be turned every 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the focal length. Unless you need a cooker that can stay outside even in the rain, you'll do just fine with a cardboard cooker.

A good first food to try is a small quantity of rice, since it is fairly easy to cook and looks very different cooked than it does raw. Chicken or fish is also very easy to cook. See cooking hints or cooking times. A temperature of 250° F (121° C) is hot enough for all kinds of cooking. Remember that water cannot get hotter than 212° F (100° C). Thus if you are cooking food that contains water, it cannot get hotter than this either.

For best quality, yes. However, some vegetables can be packed raw or cold into jars before being processed in the pressure canner.

least one canning jar manufacturer is selling half-gallon canning jars. That manufacturer has a printed note on the top that says half-gallon jars are only used for some highly acidic foods in a boiling water canner, with instructions to call a toll-free number for the instructions. When we last called, the only choices are grape juice and apple juice, as we also recommend.

Recommendations for canning summer squashes, including zucchini, that appeared in former editions of So Easy to Preserve have been withdrawn due to uncertainty about the determination of processing times. Squashes are low-acid vegetables and require pressure canning for a known period of time that will destroy the bacteria that cause botulism. Documentation for the previous processing times cannot be found, and reports that are available do not support the old process.

Any fat that gets on the rim of the canning jar can prevent an airtight seal. Excess fat in jars makes it easier for the fat to climb the sides of the jar and contaminate the seal.

Recommendations for canning Brunswick stews at home have not been scientifically determined. These are low-acid mixtures which could support the growth of bacteria that cause botulism, so a process cannot be estimated or made up. It must be a tested process known to kill these bacteria in this product. In addition, the recipes for Brunswick stew vary and a process would have to be developed through scientific testing for each variation. No directions for this product are available at this time.

We never recommend re-freezing for any reason. Thaw your tomatoes, make your sauce, store it in the coldest part of your refrigerator, and use it to make scrumptious fresh pasta the first chance you get!