Yes - I tried a glazed carrots recipe and nobody in my family liked it at all. We all loved just plain canned carrots, and pickled carrots (although I'll use less sugar next time) but the glazed ones, not so much. I'd be willing to bet that this has happened to everyone. :-)

Made watermelon wine years ago. was told it would taste like Japanese Sake. After a year, tried it and it was more like Sake that was mixed with the whole football teams gym sock! YUK, all got tossed.

A BIG 35 pound batch of red, hot, wet sawdust. It was supposed to be pepperoni. Tossed it out crying..

We can all learn from our mistakes, and some mistakes we can learn from, or do again, obviously by accident.

Sure - pumpkin pie mix way back when it was allowed. Smelled like...well it got dumped. And lots of limp pickles over the years. And then there was the great lima bean exploding jars fiasco of 1968! Never forget that one. ;)

Most recently was Mrs. Wages Spaghetti Sauce mix. Not at all impressed.

Dave

Thanks! You all made me laugh (especially the exploding lima beans). I have since tested a few of the pickles that didn't make it into the jars and I don't HATE them, they're just not something I'd eat every day.

I just got so frustrated at the thought of all those home-grown cucumbers (and time) gone to waste.

Nice to know there are people who understand.

Green tomato chutney, yuck. Sour orange juice, yuck. It is hard but it gets dumped in the compost.

How about the sparkling burgundy. They require inverting the bottles and partially freezing to help prevent carbonation loss, but also to remove the spent yeast sediment out the cap. That step takes 2-5 months of careful tip, and rotation Didn't think they would freeze solid (alcohol?), but later, all 10 big bottles were in bits and pieces and purple frozen wine was the color of the inside of the whole freezer! Dad was not happy that day either as he had just got the months supply of frozen veggies in there. Never made that again.

I pickled my limas as they were just too 'old and tough'. No boom yet, but have not tasted any yet either. Made them last summer.. Cant figure out what to do with them now, but might just add to compost and be done with it.

Vidalia Onion relish ... discovered I like 7-Eleven's better.

Ken, as for the sparkling burgundy, you only freeze about 1 - 2 inches of the neck. When you remobe the crown cap the CO2 in the bottle blows out the frozen plug. Top up with a bit of the wine from another bottle and ram in the cork.

Made ant threw out pickeled eggs and pickeled onions. I won't say what they tasted like, but, I usually flush.

Yes, that ws the original intent. I didn't think teh whole bottle would freeze in 2 hours, but they all did. It was i winter and the basement temp was at about 45 degrees. so it had a good head start. I figure I must ahve made about 40 bottles of different wines. My best was blueberry. The most beautiful color and tast of any I ever did. Later on, I got out of it due ot health reasons. My dad would smuggle a bottle out once in a while for the drunken neighbor. Then the guy would visit wearing a long lose trench coat with many pockets. Need I say more? Only got 2 apples left, dated 1979.

Not canning, but I did try a French preserved fruit in sugar syrup and vodka (Bachelor's Confiture from Patricia Wells). To make a long story short I put the liqueur in a bail-stoppered jar. Opened one a few weeks later and spewed the most gaseous fruit liqueur all over myself, the garage, the canning shelves and my car.

Apparently I created some kind of French liqueur Molotov cocktail. I later learned, though I generally have very good luck with Patricia Wells, that the instructions were fatally flawed. Poor editing? Who knows?

I made a salsa verde I hated. Dumped that. Same with the Peach salsa posted here. Others like it; I don't (except fresh). I also dislike the red pepper paste others rave about.

I made a peach chutney loaded (fatally overloaded) with ginger that was repulsive. Now I'm more experienced and would recognize immediately the recipe was unbalanced. And I made a peach-rum preserve. (I posted it here somewhere.) Everyone I serve it to adores it; I loathe the stuff. I've discovered rum and I have a total aversion.

It takes all kinds. I figure it comes with the territory; try new recipes and take the risk. Some I like, some I hate. Some are so-so, good enough to use somehow but not worth the effort of making again. Not necessarily bad recipes, just not my-cup-of-tea.

Then there are those recipes I like and DH doesn't. As far as he's concerned, there's one pickle, one relish, a couple of jams. Not that the others aren't OK, but those are the things he's fixated on and mightily irked if we run out before next season. So some things I make a little of to suit me and other things I make a lot of to suit him. The ones he monitors the numbers of to make sure I don't give too many away, like some obsessive hoarder.

He gets nervous and worried if he thinks it's likely we'll run out of Virginia Chunks, Pickled Beets or India Relish.

Carol

Turnips..BLAH.. I love turnips but those things are just vulgar when canned.

I made a chili sauce just recently that was WAY too sweet when I tasted before canning. I canned it anyway, hoping that the heat will increase to balance out the sweet. If it doesn't, I'll probably see if I can still use it as a base for soup. I'd been hoping to use it to replace Heinz Chili Sauce (which is mostly a spicy ketchup) in recipes.

Fig pickles.

Turns out that boatloads of figs and a jug of vinegar should not be interpreted as a call to action at the peak of my summer canning lunacy.

I have made several batches of dill pickles that have been just awful. I keep trying to convince myself that I'll chop them up to use as relish, but since I make my own relish and love it, I'll probably just end up chucking them some day when I want to can something and have run out of jars.

I followed a recipe for what was purportedly British Pub Onions, and they were nastily squishy. After peeling all those small boiling onions too!

I know it's frustrating to put time, energy & money into a batch of something and have it be inedible, but one learns from mistakes. I look at it this way...if I took a class to learn something, I'd pay money and not think about it. So my bad batches are my "tuition". Gosh knows what I've learned from them has been more valuable to me than an awful lot of what I learned in college (and paid considerably more for)!

sadly, the first thing I ever canned was something I didn't like. It was deepest winter in Canada when I decided I was determined to try it (the eventual idea being to can the next summer's tomato harvest, but I wanted to practice and see how I liked it, etc.). So I hunted around for canning recipes involving citrus. Found one for clementines, which I love. It was a (I realize now) an unusually complex recipe, and spent two days peeling & pithing them, cooking them in spiced syrup (for which I had to score the neighbourhood for the whole allspice berries the recipe called for) & then fishing them out and cooking them in some other concoction, which of course in my totally amateur hands ended up a mishmash of clementine goop. So I pitched it without canning and started again, taking much more care, and eventually ended up, after four days' solid effort, with several pints of clementine sections in a spiced syrup that I DID NOT LIKE the taste of.

The sad thing is, I tasted the syrup when cooking both times, and didn't much like it (I prefer citrus stuff as unadulterated as possible). But somehow I imagined it would be magically transformed by the canning into something delicious as the recipe described. LOL!

I wasn't too keen on the next thing I canned, either---a garlic jelly---but then I tried a cranberry butter, which was AMAZING. By the time strawberry season came around and I started to make homemade jams with fresh, in-season fruit, by which time I had has some pracice with the proceses, I was hooked.

I've had a few other disappointments---I don't much care for the apple pie jam that many here love, and I made something called pear honey that is just WAY too sweet for my taste. And I've learned that for me it's not worth the trouble of canning summer fruit unless it's really ripe, fresh, and tasty---some peach-pineapple jam and a batch of blah apricot jam made from fairly blah apricots taught me that. The previous batch of apricot jam I'd made, from some excellent apricots, was fantastic. YEah, it seems pretty obvious that if you start with good ingredients you get good results, and that if a recipe includes stuff you don't much like (likethat spiced syrup), you won't much like the results. Duh. But hey, some of us are slow learners! ;-)

Good luck finding a pickle that works for you.

Zabby

This thread is just too funny....Sorry, but I'm having trouble getting past the pickled figs! I tossed out quart jars of a too-cinnamon, too-wet apple pie filling once, a recipe I had taken from a TV show (looked good on camera).

My sister went through a phase years back with her first husband where they tried to do without many modern conveniences - she was making their clothes, cooking all from scratch (even hot dog, hamburg buns), growing most of what they ate. She spent uncounted hours making and canning chicken soup (beginning with live chickens) and by the time she was done, couldn't stand the sight of it. When they built a new mega home with totally gourmet kitchen, she left the jars of soup in the root cellar of the old one.

I've still got a case of flat homemade root beer in the cellar. never carbonated....

Rootbeer? BOOM! My uncle made regular and lost 100 bottles in a hot summer week. The place smelled like hops and yeast for many months after. If that root beer is flat, you can try to revive it by pouring a chilled bottle of it into one of those metal seltzer bottles (remember Clarabell?) and giving it a CO2 charge. It will recarbonate the drink, but has to be consumed in a day or two.

Carol, what was it you didn't like about the peach salsa? I'm planning to make that tomorrow because I love fresh ripe mango salsa. I don't really like the texture of canned peach slices...is the salsa like that?

I've actually made a lot of products that I didn't hate, but just never felt like eating. I made way too much green tomato relish that I expected to turn out like green tomato pickle cubes, but was too mushy...for a while I used it as the vegetables in Indian recipes but it was too sweet. It was good on fried green tomatoes but I couldn't find other uses for it.

I don't use much jam so I've thrown out blackberry-peach, spicy blueberry, and peach-maple. I never remember to eat all my applesauce, and when I open a jar it becomes less appealing once it's cold in the fridge. I like the firm texture of store-bought canned tomatoes so I haven't been using the ones I canned. My cucumber pickles are never just right (Linda Lou's turned out right but were too sweet for me). I made pickled asparagus but had never eaten it before and was too scared to open a jar (I don't like overcooked asparagus). Spiced apple rings tasted good but I never seem to cook any meat they would go with. Apple peel jelly was a colossal waste of time for two years after I was exhausted from canning applesauce, so no more of that, ever!

After a couple of years of this I resolved to focus on making things I really love, like Annie's salsa, raspberry jams, and pickled vegetables like dilly beans, garlic, and carrots. But I had fun making the other stuff too, so I don't mind too much that it didn't work out. For me it was freeing to take them out of the closet and clean out the jars rather than feeling obligating to eat them later.

Melissa

I probably shouldn't say out loud, fearing that it will happen again. The first year we were married, my DH made fermented dill pickles that took forever to be "done" - 42 days. But, they were just delicious and crisp and perfect. I didn't know he had experience canning, being newly married, so I was impressed. He thought he would repeat it the next year. We were busy building a house and those crocks didn't get skimmed quite often enough. Well, the sight of big fat maggots in the brine was too much for me so I ran outside yelling to him on the roof that "critters were eating the pickles" while I felt like heaving. The totally puzzled look on his face I would have given a million for a picture of. I haven't let him make his famous dills since. Eueww! That was 7 years ago so I may let him try it again, well, maybe someday.

Nancy

This is a really amusing thread!

ANd interestng. I'm fascinated to read Melva say

> I never remember to eat all my applesauce, and when I open a jar it becomes less appealing once it's cold in the fridge.

because I find I like it much BETTER cold---I don't go through applesauce as fast as I think I will, though I like it, because I never think to put a jar in the fridge to get cold BEFORE I open it. (If I lived next door to Melva it would be great---she could always start a jar and then give it to me to put in the fridge and finish! lol)

>> After a couple of years of this I resolved to focus on making things I really love [...] For me it was freeing to take them out of the closet and clean out the jars rather than feeling obligating to eat them later.

You go!
This is my attitude not only to canning but to my garden. I do it for ME ME ME, so I concentrate on what I like.

But, like you, I do find it fun to try new things sometimes, and rarely regret doing so whatever the result.

Zabby
P.S. Also love the pickled figs. And the poor sister with all the chicken soup!

Oh heavens, Nancy. I don't think I'll ever get that image of those pickles out of my mind. Thank goodness I'm not making them this year.

Melissa, I like that peach salsa fresh quite a lot. But for me once canned the texture is too soft. The peaches and also the red onion which loses its crispness. The other thing (just my personal opinion) is the pepper overwhelms the peach. I don't think as a canned product it holds up that well because as it sits on the shelf I've found it smells and tastes more of hot pepper than anything else.

But other posters really like that recipe, so it's a good example of the kind of difference in taste people will have.

I do think for the reasons I've mentioned it's a good idea to do a "test run" with a small batch to see whether you enjoy it or not.

Carol

"A mishmash of clementine goop"Zabby!

Yaaag! I wouldn't have thought that maggots could infest pickle brine!

I forgot all about my watermelon rind pickles! I'd never tasted one in my life, but something about using the rind from watermelons instead of throwing it out appealed to my thrifty streak.

We ate more watermelon that summer than we ever had, and I put up quite a few batches of the stuff, with different spice mixtures. Some with Lime, some without.

The problem is, I found that I didn't care for watermelon rind pickles. I mean, they're more like candy than pickles, really, and I don't have a sweet tooth.

Luckily, my husband sings with a Barbershop Chorus that has quite a few members of the generation to whom watermelon rind pickles are a bit of fond nostalgia, so I had plenty of takers. I think I'm finally rid of them all.

Thanks Carol, that's exactly the information I needed. Maybe I'll process half of it in small jars and reserve the option to freeze the rest. Too bad all my other recipes for today require the pressure canner or I would just process one jar before committing.

And thanks Rachelellen for the watermelon rind pickles review! I thought they sounded appealing too, but I didn't realize they'd be really sweet. Maybe they're not for me after all.

The more mistakes I make, the more I learn to predict how the recipe will taste. More sugar than vinegar is not a good match for me.

Melissa

Oh yes, this is a great thread, LOL.

Let's see, I made some completely tasteless corn and black bean salsa, the beans just seemed to absorb everything and it tasted like eating paste or cardboard. Anyway, it was a bad idea.

My pickles are always soft, except Linda Lou's sweet pickle chunks. And, as Readinglady pointed out, everyone doesn't like the same things. I don't care for dill or sour pickles at all, but Dad loves 'em, so I make them. One batch, every year. The remainder of my cukes become sweet relish and those sweet pickle chunks that I love.

My worst canning experiment wa the mincemeat. Yes, the real stuff with beef and "2 pounds of suet". It was mincemeat like Dad remembered all right and every bite would coat your mouth with that lovely layer of tallow. Ewwww. It was awful and I could feel my arteries slamming shut.

I've never made a spaghetti sauce that my girls liked as well as they like Prego, but that's them, LOL. I think the roasted red pepper spread needs some hot peppers, it's too bland without them. I made some really good kumquat chutney but can't figure out how the heck to use it all up, it just doesn't "go" with a lot of things.

Then there was the dandelion wine.....

Annie

Pickled peaches. Didn't like them and they were a pain to peel and pit; all that work! I made some Zydeco Green Beans a few years ago (it was either a Ball or Kerr recipe) and they ended up tasting like soft, vinegary green beans, and not spicy at all!

Come to think of it, I'm not so sure I'm all that hot on pickles in general, which doesn't explain why I make them every year!!!!

Crazy I know!

Oh I completely forgot to add that I tried Chase's dills last year and they were a huge, fermenting, stinking mess! I guess fermented pickles in Florida (where it's 85° in Feb/March) doesn't mix. The smell was horrible.

Oh, and the time I made Key Lime rubber/spackle. Ahhh...the memories.

Annie, here's a recipe I love that includes fresh kumquat marmalade. If it's close to your chutney, you could try it on pork.

And reporting back on peach salsa...I played it safe and left 1 pint in the fridge raw, froze 1 pint raw, and canned 4 half-pints. There was also some left cooked but uncanned and I thought it was still good at that point. With the tartness I don't know if I need firm peaches. I was surprised the recipe didn't call for salt but I didn't think it tasted like it really needed it.

Melissa

Here is a link that might be useful: roasted pork tenderloin with kumquat-jalapeno marmalade