Preserving Book Reviews

I certainly never thought I would be writing book review for fun once my collegiate days were over. Yet, here I am willingly. There is no gun to my head, no deadline, no grades to make.
Yet, here I am.
What is wrong with me?

Well, don't answer that. You may need an oxygen tank when you run out of air.

Here goes nothing!
I have been on a bit of a journey with home preservation since discovering my son's food allergies/intolerances. His list of verboten foods is long so let's just say that making it myself is easier than memorizing 22 foods and their chemical derivitives. At that point, processed food becomes a luxury item and a nightmare to find. As a point of note, when I can for allergy purposes, I always list EVERY ingredient because as the allergy list grows, I need to make sure that something I made safely a few months ago is not deadly now. I didn't know that celery and carrots were off limits for my son. Guess what flavored my stocks? Yeah, good thing I labeled everything!

Along the way I have had to do a bit of searching for the right preservation books. I started with the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Weck Jars vs. Mason Jars

Weck vs. Mason: WWIII?

I have been doing research into canning....there isn't a lot out there. Americans love Jarden Home Brands (Kerr, Ball) and Europeans love their brands. All of them work. The questions boil down to this:

1: Access to ready supplies
2: Cost per unit
3: Ease of use
4: Personal preserving preference (I love alliteration)


So why even look outside the tried and true American mason jar? Well, the lids used to have BPA and since we decided that to save money and make our winters easier we would preserve as much as we could, we needed something scalable and reliably safe. I don't like the idea of hormone disruptors in my carefully made food. According to JHB:

They began production/release of their BPA-free lids in January 2013. To identify a BPA-free box (they are not marking it on their boxes, according to the company spokesman), look for a production code printed/stamped on each box that is One Letter Followed by 10-11 Numbers. On Ball boxes, you’ll find the code next to the flag on the bottom of the box. On Kerr boxes, you’ll find the code on the back of the box, above the text. It won’t be a particular code, but only BPA-free boxes will have these (or any) codes like this stamped on them.

For a visual identification guide check out this page:

BPA aside, I know the world well enough to know that even if they removed BPA it had to be replaced with something. What did they use? Good question. One blogger wrote that they were corny, another that they had other hormone disrupting chemicals, just not BPA. So what to do? Look elsewhere. I looked around and found Weck jars.

Weck jars are made in Germany and are the Bundesrepublik's original mason jar. Instead of a screw band to hold the lid down, they offer a rubber gasket and glass lid secured by two clips. Once sealed, the clips can be removed. When opened, the rubber gasket can be set aside and the lid sits on nicely to make a great refrigerator lid. Optional are plastic lids for easier cold storage. They are also a very durable glass so you can bake in them. There is a great YouTube video of a man making a cake in one then preserving it.

For processing, the sizes are more flexible. Instead of a dozen sizes, there are nearly 30. Everything from carafes the fish tank sized behemoths. The option to have any size and shape desired is wonderful. I found that carafes are great for storing almond milk, syrups and juices. The 1L wide mouth size make great peach preserves. The tulip shaped containers in the small size are wonderful for jellies and the large size for soups and stocks.

Cost: Well, that goes two ways. They are more expensive per unit but they seem to hold up better, look better, have the kitsch factor and most importantly...no parts need to be replaced. The rubber gasket is infinitely reusable. The mason jars call for a new lid each time and the bands rust with washing.

This is a little shape sample. Tons of shapes and sizes. 

Additional cost factors: Sourcing them. If you buy them locally you have to have a Cost Plus/World Market and you will pay a premium per. You can also find them at Williams Sonoma. Same problem applies...expensive per unit. Amazon, like with mason jars, does not offer any deals. Best way to purchase them is online. WeckJars.com is the US distributer. They have wonderful customer service and your jars arrive lickety-spit fast. They do not send you an email that they are shipping...they just arrive. From my experience there is just one nice lady in an office that fields all calls and processes orders. Having said that, she is fast! I was surprised to receive a phone call apologizing for the the weather causing her mail not to be picked up that day which would delay my order. You certainly won't get that from Jarden Home Brands. Afterall, the company is so large that they used a marketing company to pick a name that sounded the most friendly...Jarden...like the french word for garden. It's all marketing.  Different tools are required. You will need a jar lifter made just for Weck. Not a huge expense but something to remember for batch canning. You will not need a magnetic lid lifter, a constant replacement of lids, a band tightener or any other special items.

Price comparison: This is the jar I used for making sliced peaches. The Weck 742- a 1/2 Liter open mouth, straight sided jar. It is fabulous. No issues filling and you can make the peaches stack beautifully with little effort.

742 - 1/2 L Mold Jar - $18.40
Includes: 6 Jars, 6 glass lids, 6 rings & 12 clamps
Height: 4 1/8" Opening: 3 7/8" Volume: 19.6 fl oz

Ball® 16oz Wide Mouth Pint Jars are about .47/Liter

Set of 12 for $12.99. 

Obviously the cost of Mason jars is much better per unit. $12.99/12=$1.08 per jar

The Weck Jars are $18.40/6=$3.06 per jar

Additionally, you have to add shipping costs for the Weck. 

Additional products offered from Weck: The electric water bath.

This beauty is my favorite thing in the whole wide world (domestically). My kitchen is nice but it is not huge. I also don't have a ton of stove space thanks to an overhead microwave. Canning was always cramped and took way longer than the time I had available to do it. Solution? Electric canner. This beauty lets me sterilize and process jars wherever I have access to an outlet. The cord wraps away nicely and it has an optional juice maker to sit on top.  I did not buy the one with the tap in front (no longer available) but I wish I had. It is the little things. For the price, it was a splurge but thankfully it has gotten every penny's worth of use this year alone.

Another slight hiccup in switching brands: the language barrier.

You have to be creative to find Weck recipes and help. It is a German company but the Dutch seem to have the majority of information online. If you use the Google translate there are lots of fun recipes online for things we would never think of like pine cone juices. There is a serious darth of information in English for using their equipment and for recipes.

Overall review?

1: Access to ready supplies- Ball wins for sure. Anyone every heard of Wal-Mart?

2: Cost per unit- Again, Wal-Mart? Ball

This is my storage are so far this summer.
A few more months to go! It has a nice mix
of the two brands. Preservationists will cringe at my stacked
jars. I know. I need to move the rest of my cameras
out of the way so I can properly store them. 
The bands are loosened so not to ruin the seal.
That is another win for Weck, no problems there. 
(NEVER STACK JARS)

3: Ease of use- Actually Weck wins. Great seals that are visible to check. No rusting bands and have their own storage lids once opened.

4: Personal preserving preference- Weck. They look good, feel good and leave me confident in their health. I don't worry that the BPA has been replaced with something equally disturbing.

Having written all of that, what do I use the most? Mason jars. (sheds a little tear)

One of the great parts of canning is sharing. I don't like giving away money and Weck jars are an investment. I tend to make my personal supply of foods in Weck and a few in Mason jars for gifts. The problem with that is making sure there is a nice supply handy. So, when I got the opportunity to make huge amounts of something, I need the jars fast and I need lots of them. I head to the store and buy flats of mason jars. In the future, I would love to keep investing in Weck. Someday I will also rule the world and my cats will clean their own cat boxes.

As for the lid chemical problem? I just have to take my time and switch my collection over or invest in the alternative lids, mixed reviews aside.

In the end, my canning closet is filled with a mix of the two. I prefer the Weck but I can afford the Mason jars. I use the Weck canner the most of anything and it works with both brands. That seems to get the gold star above all products in my home. 

Allergen free vacation planning

Going on any trip requires planning. Having multiple food allergies and a gluten intolerance takes NASA level planning.

My sweetie and I flew to Montreal to kick off fall with some leaf-looking and a little peace and quiet. We met up with my parents there and had a culinary delight day after day with a little extra effort. Montreal is quite wonderful in the fall. You aren't yet freezing to death and you are not surrounded by tourists. No lines for tables or events, no crazy prices set to pad the lean months.

When planning for our trip we had to get creative about how we were going to stick to both our very petite budget and  our diet. Our son is severely corn allergic and milk allergic. I am gluten intolerant. I nurse him so that means I am temporarily allergic to corn and milk as well. To save the stress of playing twenty questions at every restaurant after reading a dozen menus just to find one that seemed even semi safe, we booked a hotel with a mini fridge and a microwave oven. We checked that it was in walking distance to the grocery and started putting plans in place. Add to the mix the language. Now my husband, the dapper lad that he is, speaks a little French leftover from his school days. I butcher the language like only an American can. If we were in Italy I would be good to go....this is no Francophile momma. 

First step: How to get our breakfast made without having to cook on a pan or pack oils.

To solve this we bought one of the microwave omelette makers. Totally cheesy but effective. 2-3 eggs whipped up in a bowl with our packed salt and pepper, nuked for 2 minutes and served. We also found safe turkey at the grocery so we planned for making egg omelettes with turkey and spinach. The spinach came from the salad mix we bought for lunches. 

As a optional breakfast, I pre packed baggies with gluten free oatmeal, corn free brown sugar and microwave directions. These also make a nice midnight snack and meal for the day of a flight. 

Total cost: $4 for the omelette maker, $8 for the eggs, $5 for the turkey. =$17 for breakfast for 3 for a week on vacation.

Lunch:

For lunch we relied on packed safe snack foods and the local grocery store. The best part of being in a foreign country that is French leaning is the marvelous foods. Our grocery store had pate, soups, individual olive oil packets, etc. We loaded up on delicious meat spreads, soups and drinks. It was a bit pricier than making lunch at home but still less expensive than eating out every day and dealing with the stress. I packed containers for taking food to go. I have a slight confession: there are many hiding places in my house for Bento containers. I am obsessed with them. If I put them all together I would see how many I have and not be able to justify a single future purchase. In all honesty though, (and an attempt to justify hoarding) they all serve different purposes. Some are the Indian style metal containers which don't get dishwashered, are only good for cold foods and can't be heated. Some are the Japanese style which are precious, can be microwaved but are not liquid safe. Additionally I have Japanese soup containers which are also great for berries and roll ups. ...but I digress. See my problem? I love those things.

Dinner: We only planned a few dinners in because I feel strongly that half of visiting a foreign place is eating. Seriously. If you aren't going to eat the local flavors, why bother? That is the proof of heritage for a people. You can see their manners, culture, customs, history and social movements all on your plate. For Montreal, it is an experience. We went to the store and enjoyed the French appreciation of offal and the cuts of meats that Paleo people can only dream of. The local no fuss grocer had chicken hearts, livers and other parts mixed right in with all the others. To make this corn allergy momma happy, none of the packages had cornstarch packaging to sop up the liquids. The beef selection included tongue, tail, etc. It was beautiful to see rabbit cheaper than chicken. Actually, we were surprised that chicken was the most expensive. When we thought about it, it isn't exactly ideal chicken raising climates in Canada. 

Once out, we ate gluten free with no problems. Corn free was a bit easier because the American reliance on fake ingredients was minimized. The only issue we had was that sauces were often thickened with cornstarch to reduce the gluten in restaurants. 

Overall- this vacation set me at ease. I was frightened of taking my son out of our area. Next time I will pack more snack foods and also rely less on hotel dinners. Finding a cut of meat is easier than feared. Breakfasts were a good cost savings and so were lunches.