Taters Precious!

"What's taters, Precious?" Golem queries Samwise over a bubbling pot of rabbit stew in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. This line, one of my favorites in the series, spawned a tradition in my family. We no longer call them, as Sam would say, "PO-TAY-TOES." They are taters precious.  Boil em', mash em', stick em' in a stew, they are taters precious. And man do I love potatoes. Love em'! I make some fabulous potato dishes all year round, but I am known for my potatoes of awesomeness come Thanksgiving and Christmas, but that is another blog. This is about the spuds themselves and how to preserve them, namely through my favorite preservation method, canning! I didn't know you could can potatoes! So I was just dying to try it out the moment I read about it on my favorite canning site www.sbcanning.com.

Now according to experts, the best spuds for canning are the same as the ones you would use for mashing. That would be your russets and yellows. I love Yukon Golds for a good mash, so I used those. Now you might be concerned about the potatoes taking on too much water. Certain kinds will, others won't, which is why the two types I mentioned are ideal for this method of preservation. This recipe will yield 7 pints minimum. However, using it, I had A LOT of potatoes left over, so I would maybe cut back by one five pound bag next time, but I did use what was left for a great potato soup. I am posting the recipe as I found it though.

You will need:

20 pounds of potatoes
Kosher or canning salt
Ascorbic acid (to prevent browning)

Method: Pressure canning

First thing's first, prep all your tools, wash your jars. For pressure canning there are some different steps than water bath method canning. Fill your pressure canner with three quarts of water and two tablespoons vinegar. Fill your clean jars with clean water and set in the canner, adding water to them so they don't float if need be. Turn to high and bring to a simmer and keep it there until needed. Also, get a big pot of water boiling for the potatoes. Next, peel your potatoes. I like to put a plastic shopping bag around a bowl to catch all the peelings. This certainly makes clean up easier!

Once peeled, give your potatoes a good wash. This was done in batches to make it easier.

You can can the potatoes whole, provided they are small enough, but with larger spuds like these, I opted to chop them up in about 1 inch chunks.

Plop the potatoes in water containing the ascorbic acid. Follow the directions on the label for the water to powder ratio. Ascorbic acid can be found in your local grocer's canning section.

Drain the potatoes of the ascorbic acid water.

Place in pot of boiling water and boil for two minutes. Do not over cook them and watch for those tiny bits! They will cook first and mush! Note: Your camera lens will fog up from boiling potatoes.

Remove the jars from the pressure cooker, pouring out the hot water. Use a jar lifter to do so as it is easier and safer than hot pads. Drain potatoes. Add one teaspoon kosher or canning salt to each jar.

Pack the potatoes into the jar. Leave a good inch of space from the top of the jar. The handy dandy canning funnel is great for measuring head space.

Top off the jars, maintaining the one inch of head space, with fresh hot water.

Run a plastic utensil around the edges to release air bubbles.

Cap the jars and screw on bands until finger tight. That nifty gripper there was a recent find in Wal-Mart's canning department. It keeps you from burning your hands on hot jars, and grips them tight while you screw on the bands.

Place jars in the canner, making sure they don't touch and have a little space between them and that they have a good three inches or more of water around them.

Place the lid on the canner and process at 10 pounds of pressure for weighted, 11 for gauged, for 40 minutes.

Once time elapses, turn off the heat and let the canner drop down from pressure on its own. Once that occurs, remove jars and let sit on a towel somewhere where they will be left alone for 24 hours. After that you can take off the rings, label and store them.

Note: Don't panic if the water becomes cloudy. Its just the starch from the potatoes leeching into the water.

Now I have my taters precious ready whenever I have need of them! If I want to pop some in a stew or mash some up, all I have to do is open up a jar of my very own canned spuds. If I want to mash them, I just pour them into a pan with some water and boil them until tender. So easy! I was so glad I found this recipe. I'm also glad Danyale didn't mind coming over to help me peel 20 pounds of these golden babies! This is a pretty big task, so I HIGHLY recommend having a friend come over to lend a hand or two! I think even Golem would be impressed these beauties!

Brightest Blessings!