Uses for Hot Canning Water

Don't let your canning water go to waste. You can blanch green beans or other fruits or vegetables for freezing in boiling water bath canner water after you remove the jars of, say, tomatoes or fruit from the canner.

Have vegetables ready (washed, cut up, etc., as needed) before canner time is up. Put the vegetables in a metal colander into the water in the canner for about 3 minutes to blanch them, remove, and immediately immerse them in a sink full of of icy cold water. This saves the energy (electric or gas) and the time to heat up a large volume of water and "kills two birds with one stone."

Washing dishes with the canning water recycles the hot water too, although be careful not to remove a large canner of hot water from the stove or try pouring it out until it cools enough so you won't get burned. Dipping hot water out with a saucepan might be safer.

Also, the water can be used for a second batch of canning but don't plunge cold jars into extremely hot water as they could break, so the water should be allowed to cool or be diluted to a warm but not scalding hot temperature with cold water before adding jars.

By Judy Stahl from Valley City, ND