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Post-Halloween pumpkins require pressure canner

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By MARY A. KEITH

Tribune correspondent

Published: November 15, 2009

With all the pumpkins on sale after Halloween, I stocked up. But now my freezer is full, so I'd like to can the rest. How long do they have to be in the boiling water? How deep does the water need to be? (I have a big pot, but it's not quite as tall as the jars.) What's the best way to mash large quantities of pumpkin? Where can I get a good price on jars?

Let's start with the basics. Pumpkin is a low-acid vegetable. That means it must be canned in a pressure canner, not boiling water. Otherwise you might end up growing the botulism bacteria in your pumpkin. If you do have a pressure canner, you should only can cubes of pumpkin or other winter squash. Pumpkin puree is too thick to get hot enough in the center for a long enough period of time to ensure it's safe.

If you have a pressure canner, here's the process: Cut into 1-inch cubes and boil for two minutes. Pack the cubes lightly into jars and cover with the hot water they were boiled in leaving a 1-inch headspace. Process at 10 pounds pressure for 55 minutes in pint jars, or 90 minutes in quarts.

If you don't have a pressure canner, bake cakes or cookies and treat your friends, family and church members.

What are lardons? I have my grandmother's recipe for venison roast, and since I was just given a roast from a hunter friend, I want to use it. But I have no idea what she's talking about when she says to "insert the lardons" in the roast. I don't see anything by that name in the stores.

Venison and other wild game is usually very lean meat, which can be tough and dry. Lardons are strips of pork fat that are stuck into the meat, usually about 1 inch apart, with a thin knife or a needle. The fat tenderizes the meat as it melts during roasting. Of course it also adds a lot of saturated fat, so the meat is not so lean anymore. Stick the lardons in across the grain, then slice the meat diagonally so no one ends up with a strip of fat on their plate.

Mary A. Keith, a nutritionist and health agent at Hillsborough County Extension, can be reached at mkeith@ufl.edu.

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