Canning: Not just for little old ladies anymore

Heather and Chad Nikoncyk are a hip, earthy couple that live in Eastway. They work in Charlotte and help run the Winterfield Community Garden in their free time.

They started canning six years ago due to something I have never in my life experienced: They had a surplus of vegetables. Heather explains, “We were harvesting a ton of veggies from our plot in the garden. We started canning pepper jelly (Chad’s favorite) but still had so many peppers leftover that we had to get creative.”

Here’s the insane amount of vegetables they had when I visited their house last week:

Once they had enough pepper jelly to last them 10 years, they started experimenting with other recipes like hot sauce, barbecue sauce and pickled banana peppers.

The Nikoncyks have also canned their own eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes and probably other vegetables that I’ve never even heard of. And by the way, there’s no secret to their canning recipes. They find a lot of them on Pinterest.

But what if I live in an apartment and have no garden? Can I can produce that I buy from Harris Teeter? The answer is yes. But Heather suggests sticking with organic produce.

About seven minutes into our conversation I had to move away from lame vegetables and onto pickles. Heather and Chad have a TON of pickles. And they don’t just pickle cucumbers. They pickle radishes, green beans and even jalapeños. I tasted a pickled green bean and it may be the best thing that I’ve ever tasted (besides ice cream and cake other stuff that’s obviously better).

Heather does something called quick pickling (which sounds oddly sexual) where she pickles items in under an hour.

Here’s Heather’s recipe for quick pickled banana peppers:

(1) Boil the banana peppers in vinegar and add a little bit of sugar, salt, mustard and celery seed.

(2) Take out the peppers and cut them up into rings.

(3) Put your peppers and some smashed garlic into a jar and then pour the boiling vinegar on top.

(4) Let the mixture sit for an hour and absorb the flavors.

Apparently for real pickling you have to leave pickles in the fridge for 5-7 days, which seems like way too long to wait.

So this sounds great and all, but the whole time I talked with the Nikoncyk’s all I could think about was botulism. I’m under the impression that any dented can in the grocery store will kill me, so I imagine canning your own food can be a risky process.

Also, did you know that botulism causes your muscles to weaken so you can’t chew or swallow? This is basically my worst nightmare.

I asked Chad about the risk of botulism death and he gave me a very straight up answer.

“Just smell your canned food before you eat it. You’ll know.”

Clearly Chad and Heather don’t spend their evenings Googling the symptoms of botulism like I do.

My final question to the Nikoncyks was this: What’s the oldest canned food that you’ve ever eaten? Heather answered, “We have a jar of pickled green beans from Chad’s mother that’s dated June 21, 2012.”

If you haven’t already figured it out, Heather was referring to the same pickled green beans that I had just stuffed my face with.

Interested in canning? Here’s what you need to get started:

(1) Canning jars and lids  

Heather and Chad get their jars at Renfrow Hardware but you can find them at Food Lion and Walmart.

(2) Jar lifter, canning funnel, magnetic lid lifter

You can find all three of these in one pack.

(3) Pectin (if you’re making jelly)

Fruit has natural pectin (so it thickens into jelly) but if you’re making something like pepper jelly you’ll need to add it in.

(4) Food coloring 

Some foods need a little oomph on the color. For example, jalapeno pepper jelly can come out greyish so you’ll want to add red or green food coloring to make it pretty.

Have your supplies? Here’s a run-down of the canning process:

Before you start canning you have to sterilize the jars and lids because, botulism.

Heather and Chad boil their lids and use the magnetic lid lifter to get them out. They usually just run the jars through the dishwasher.

Once you’ve prepared what you want to can, scoop it into a jar and close the lid. Don’t close it too tight since the lid will tighten once you heat it up.

Place the entire jar in boiling water for 15-25 minutes. Pull the jar out with the special jar lifter tongs. (You can try it with regular tongs but unless you’re a professional tong-user you’ll probably drop the jar and burn yourself.)

As the can cools you’ll hear the lid pop, which means it’s sealed. Now you can enjoy foods like three-year-old pickled green beans and not die from botulism!