Preserving Caramelised Onion Jam | Water Bath Canning | Vevor Dicer | Lug Lids | Off Grid Australia

[@judithmaurer7622]

Hi Nyssa, my daughter got me on to your channel and I'm going through and watching all of them. I'm learning so much from your videos. Tip: After cutting the onions in half I always give them a quick rinse under water to wash off the juice, works every time for me. Try a bowl of water at the bench to dip them into before dicing, should work for you. Thank you for all you do!!!!!

[@willow1141]

I’m surprised that your channel has it taken off more than it has. Hopefully it will continue to grow and grow. There is money to be made on KZbin. With the family of six and building a homestead that would be so beneficial for you. Thank you for sharing such a valuable lessons.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I'm already surprised by how quickly it has grow already and every little bit counts here :D

[@anaoliveira8928]

What a beautiful helper does she want to come over to England Kent 😂😂😂 helping me out with my canning jars 😂😂😂 bless her ♥ she's learning how to do it.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

She is one of my most avid kitchen helpers, hopefully she'll continue to enjoy it and learn! :D

[@tawanajackson5545]

I so saved this video as I do a bunch of your videos so I can watch when I do it 🌞🌞♥️♥️

[@sallyhostetter2820]

Caramelized onion jam. Awesome looking.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It's so tasty!

[@laurakaszuba6785]

Love watching your channel! You go into great detail and give us lots of information. Very educational. Watch you from central Texas USA!

[@OurSmallFootprint]

Thankyou, I try not to ramble too much! :D

[@rrenda1]

I know this is an old video but just a little onion tip. The acid in onions is attracted to moisture. That’s why your eyes water. Keep a wet wash cloth on your cutting board when slicing onion and it will absorb most of it.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I will give that a go! :). Thankyou :)

[@alisonshanahan9529]

The frogs sound wonderful, they like a clean environment.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I love the noises we get!

[@marcellahicks3984]

Thanks for taking us along. Sonnet did a great job with the onions. I am so sensitive to onions, as I age they seem to be more powerful. But its worth the tears. This reminds me of baked beans. These would taste so good with beans and smoked sausage or bacon, on rice. With a piece of corn bread. I can see how this would be nice on Pizza's especially with that smoked chicken. Yum. I can see why this is a staple on the shelf.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It's super versatile for adding to just about anything, Just a great flavour booster to have on the shelf! :D

[@ShellL]

Beautiful. Looking fwd to making it soon. You’re a great teacher.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It is a firm favourite here, definitely worth making!

[@Rosie_The_Border_Collie]

Thx for the video. I like the name of your channel :)

[@OurSmallFootprint]

Thank you :D.

[@christinelove4966]

Hello from Smithlea, Texas, QLD thank you for sharing

[@OurSmallFootprint]

Welcome! :). Thankyou for watching :D

[@ZedsVice]

Hello from the Sunshine Coast! I’d love you to do a video going over what type of canner you use and how you use it from start to finish! Thanks for all the videos Nyssa I love watching you and your crew!

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I need to make my cowboy candy this week! I will be sure to go over in depth my canning equipment etc while I do it and share! :D

[@KarenShady-l4b]

These look amazing Nyssa. I cant wait to make some. I am going to buy one of those Vivor dicers too.. It looks like it would make life a lot easier. Thank you so much.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It is so super tasty, so good in so many different things! A must have for the shelf in this house! :D. The dicer definitely made things quicker, so long as you didn't mind that it was diced instead of like strings!

[@KarenShady-l4b]

@@OurSmallFootprint thanks again for taking the time to reply. I actually prefer dices to strings. They are much easier to eat in my opinion.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

@@KarenShady-l4b potentially more versatile too I reckon, and they spread better I love to put a layer of this with my pizza sauce on the base of pizzas!

[@KarenShady-l4b]

@@OurSmallFootprint ooh.. thats a great idea. Onion is my husbands favourite food group haha.. I am definitely going to do that. Thanks again x

[@susanedwards9473]

Going to make this for my family! It would be great on roasts and grilled out burgers! Thanks fo teaching us!😃

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It is so good on so many things!

[@rosaliesemrau1293]

Tip for preventing tears from slicing onions, have a fan blowing a cross wind to blow the fumes away from your eyes. Works great. Also if your eyes are burning from onions go close up and look into running fan or high above open flame from stove to get rid of burning of eyes. Works wonderfully.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I’m summer I always have a fan in my kitchen I’ll definitely give that a go! Thankyou :)

[@rhondaboggs5539]

I've also been told to light a candle and sit it right by you when you're doing onions. Don't know if it's true or not, I always forget to try it lol

[@courtneybailey1841]

I love carmelized onions and onion jam even more...yummy!

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It just adds such a pop of flavour to so many things so easily, we go through it far more quickly than I realised lol, I will probably have to make a few batches a year!

[@rhondaboggs5539]

Hi Nessa, as i was watching your video,it sounded like you were sniffing. Girl, I hope you're not getting sick again. That would suck. As i have gotten older, l love using onions in just about everything I cook. And the carmelized onions looked really delicious. I need to try making that.

[@lisaburns235]

Great recipe and Nessa got a great workout there 😆

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It's so worth making!

[@countrymousesfarmhouse497]

Yum, I made it for the first time a few months ago . Weve eaten it all . I use it for some of the things you do and I add to some casserole or stews after I've served the youngest as she can't tolerate onion. Its so delicious. 🤩

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It's so versatile! and it just adds that 'umami' to everything hehe.

[@lynnebrown-hardy1566]

I have never canned before but just bought a couple of canners. Will definitely try this one. My daughter makes caramelized onion jam and we use it in burgers with Boursin (cream cheese butter mixture with garlic and herbs. Oh so good

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It adds such flavour to so many things! Super handy to have on the shelf, a fave of ours :D

[@Tinachimneycreekfarm]

Very interesting! I’ll have to try that myself one day…

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It's so worth doing, it can be added to so many things to bump the flavour profile :D

[@ANNtique]

Looks delicious!

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I really need to do another batch, we've run out and D and I love it on so many things!

[@christinelove4966]

Thank you. You explained every step really well ❤️

[@OurSmallFootprint]

This is a favourite of ours! :)

[@kyladalton2830]

Great recipe. 👍 Looking forward to trying it!

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It’s totally worth trying :D

[@sharonburling2262]

Hi there from Tasmania. We are going off grid soon. Do you have solar or generators? We are going solar with a wood stove for heating, cooking and heating water. Great to find an Aussie off gridder and canner.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

We have a large solar array on the roof, but a few issues with trees shading in the late afternoon as they've grown since we've been here! We have a generator that we run every few days to top up the batteries during showers when the water pump is running, we'd like to figure out a way to avoid that, but for the moment it works :). We have a wood stove for heating, but we use gas predominantly for cooking atm, we will transition to more wood cooking as we can, but for convenience atm we pay for gas bottles :)

[@wanderingtheusa]

Wonderful! I would love to know what light you are using I'm assuming rechargeable

[@OurSmallFootprint]

This one is a plug in one, but it can just be plugged in anywhere, it has a little shelf above it and a usb port! so I can use it to charge my phone out there as well, it was a clearance item at bunnings, really really low wattage LED light this one! I have a variety of rechargeable lights, but my biggest issue is they never seem to be charged when I want to use them! :D

[@jaleonar63]

have 20kg or more of farmers onions, need using they going to seed, was going to do them in my sunbean slow cooker that also fries food too, best thing I purchased in a while, removable non tick bowl too, knew I would not be able to water bath with out vinigar, so that part I had right, will give the jam ago this after noon. It raining in tassie and nothing better to do .

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I have pressure canned straight caramelised onions, it is so yum too, but so much more time required to process and we discovered we quite like the jam ones as well! it's not overly pickled flavoured its still got that roundness of the caramelised onion flavour, we really enjoy it.

[@talkingjoseph5582]

Very educational channel. Thank you so very much. I've access to lug lids only because I leave in West Africa. I also noticed you pressure canned with lug lids. Can I can meats as well? Thank you so much

[@OurSmallFootprint]

Yes, you can pressure can in lug lids, you just want to make sure the jars are adequate for it, which most things you buy from the supermarket in jars like tomato products etc has been pressure canned already, so is fine :). I prefer to use the canning jars for pressure canning, but that's because I have access too them, when I run out, I will definitely be using the lug lid jars :)

[@talkingjoseph5582]

@@OurSmallFootprint thanks allot for taking the time to answer. Going to give it a try right now. Will let you know how I did.

[@talkingjoseph5582]

UPDATE. It went well. I can chicken, it was delicious and soft. My chickens are free range and fend for themselves around the cows and tend to grow really slowly. It's a local breed with tough meat. Thanks allot. Another question, is it shelf stable if so for how long?

[@marieparks5674]

Yummy

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It’s well worth the effort :D

[@tawanajackson5545]

Yay I found it lol I'm wondering could I use frozen onion's? I have a bunch in my freezer from last year vaccum Sealed

[@OurSmallFootprint]

Yop, I have. Just take a little longer to cook down because of the water content

[@tawanajackson5545]

@@OurSmallFootprint I think I will let them thaw and screeze them out in one of my flour sack cloths. I need to take my happy butt to bed it's almost 2 am here lol. 🌛🌛😴😴

[@eckankar7756]

I was looking at choppers, I see them where you don't have the handle but I assume you lift it up and slam it down. How do you like your chopper, are the blades interchangeable? It would help out my old arthritic hands, I've been canning over 50 years now

[@OurSmallFootprint]

There were multiple models in this one, some with interchangeable blades and some static, I just went with a static one because I feel like it was a good universal size for me! It works wonderfully but it is a bit of a pain to clean, the feet aren't quite far enough apart for a good size bowl to go underneath either, but with a little adapting it definitely helps with the hands and cutting!

[@HomeLifeAus]

Hi Nyssa , greetings from Melbourne Australia 🇦🇺. It’s so nice to watch your videos. I’ve recently started learning about fowlers preserving I haven’t tried to attempt yet . Can I ask what I can use this onions caramel with thanks 😊

[@OurSmallFootprint]

Welcome! :D. We use it with everything! on our pizza bases, in quesadilla's, stirred into pasta sauces, mixed through my pork when I'm making sausages, on crackers with 'cheese'. It is super tasty! :D

[@HomeLifeAus]

@@OurSmallFootprint Nyssa thank you …

[@patkov2823]

Hi, I was wondering, do you use those one-piece lug lids for pressure canning? In my country we do not use 2-piece lids and I don't feel like ordering them from abroad. Thanks and have a nice day!

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I haven’t much because I’m lucky to have the two piece lid style jars, but I know plenty of people who do very successfully! My intention is to use them if I ever get to the end of my other style jars with no qualms at all. I think they look great on the shelf too!

[@patkov2823]

@@OurSmallFootprint Amazing, that's very helpful, best wishes 🥰

[@sharonburling2262]

Sorry to keep annoying you with questions, but where did you get your big preserving unit?

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I was super lucky! I got it second hand on marketplace for $300 a massive score, I just had to buy a weight and a new seal etc for it.

[@kimwalter1269]

Hi Nyssa Just wondering if you could tell me about the jars and lug lids you used for the onion jam. Im totally new to canning and know only about the popular jars Kilner, Ball, Aussie Mason, Weck etc Its so hard to find jars here in Aus, are these jars only for water bathing? Thank you xx

[@OurSmallFootprint]

These jars are from Cospak, you can also get them from Plasdene, Pack My Products and Green Living Australia in various quantities and prices! A lot of people pressure can in them as well, I never have but that's more because I have plenty of Fowlers Vacola and Ball Mason jars, so I tend to use them for all my pressure canning and use these ones for water bath canning, but if I ever get to the point of needing to, I feel comfortable giving it a go because I've seen plenty of people do it! :D

[@kimwalter1269]

@@OurSmallFootprint thank you so much xx Could you tell me what the jars are called if I look at those places you’ve suggested and what size did you use for your onion jam? In your video you have bulk lids in a container, do you buy them from the same places? Thank you for answering my questions xx

[@OurSmallFootprint]

@@kimwalter1269 food jars they’re generally called and I used 250ml for the onion jam and they have lids in bulk too yes :) these are a 63mm lid

[@kimwalter1269]

@@OurSmallFootprint cannot thank you enough for your time Nyssa, you are amazing xx

[@traceyTibbles07]

What non-dairy sub can I use instead of ghee/butter? Would love to make & try canning.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

A bit of oil would be fine, it’s basically just a little fat to help get everything cooking without burning :)

[@helenaurelius-haddock4695]

New lug lid each time, or do you reuse?

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I have reused some of my lug lids depending on how they look/were stored when they were removed, but it does depend on what I canned and how long it was on the shelf. I hate the thought of fails, all that effort to have a lid fail, and that is more likely reusing them. But if I’m doing a small batch of jam or cordial etc then reusing lids isn’t such a big deal, if it fails I can just throw it in the fridge and use it before it goes bad :)

[@helenaurelius-haddock4695]

@@OurSmallFootprint That makes sense - I am sending OH out shortly to look for rosehips to make syrup so I could try it on that - effectively foraged and free and some sugar Thanks!

[@naturewoman1274]

Hi Nyssa where did you buy the onion chopper from please

[@OurSmallFootprint]

Vevor.com.au :). I see Amazon has the same brand too

[@laurakaszuba6785]

Any restaurant supply store will carry them.

[@sharonburling2262]

How do you work out the altitude ratio to canning time?

[@OurSmallFootprint]

There are charts around, so if you are 0-1000 ft above sea level its standard, and then between 1000-3000 you add 5 minutes to processing time in most cases :)

[@sharonsmart3984]

What types of things do you use your onion jam

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I love it mixed into my pizza sauce on the base of a pizza, we eat it mixed with mayo on our bagels as well, and I put it in my meat mix for my sausages! Sourdough open sandwiches with mayo/onion jam and fresh tomato and salt is superb too :D

[@suzanneford2434]

What do you use it for

[@OurSmallFootprint]

Anything and Everything! :D. Its great on pizza, or for like a caramelised onion tart with fresh tomatoes. With mayo on a bagel, open sourdough sandwiches. I put some in my meat mixes for sausages as well, and a couple of dollops in a soup adds some great flavour too :D

[@James-tz7pe]

Bet that would be good on hamburgers

[@OurSmallFootprint]

It’s so good on hamburgers! But it’s pretty good on most things heh

[@anaoliveira8928]

If you wiling to try add a couple of spoons of salt and the onions will reduce and caramelize much quicker, in the beginning of cooking the onions.

[@OurSmallFootprint]

Thank you for that, I'll give it a go! We've run out of jars of this and I badly need to make more lol.

[@frenchparents]

Refrigerate your onions 24 hrs and you will not have the tears when cutting. 😊

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I'll give that a go! If I have room at the time heh :D. Thankyou

[@brewingman56]

Talk slower...

[@OurSmallFootprint]

I've tried, it doesn't work :). This is my standard pace.