[Malaz]

Ok, I have left over stew and gnocchi with marinare sauce in my fridge. Is it safe to can leftovers with a pressure canner if canned within 2 or 3 days?

Has anyone done this before?

 

[birdman]

I don't know for sure, but I don't see why not.

The idea of the canning process is to kill the bacteria in the food after the container is sealed. What difference would it make if you made up the batch and canned it right away or if you ate some first and then went thru the same bacteria killing process...

Again, what the heck do I know...

Allan

 

[test]

If you have a pressure cooker, probably. Twice cooked food may not be as appitizing when it comes out of the jar though.

 

[Malaz]

I guess there aren't a lot of left overs that would taste very good canned, except for maybe chili.

 

[Macumazahn]

I certainly would not try it with anything that had been served. If someone put their fork in there would certainly be contamination.

 

[phoenixlink]

In one word "NO" reheated foods have a much higher chance of bateria developing. plus it is more likley to spoil faster.

only can your freshest, foods, leftovers are eaten or thrown, some food born pathagens can survive with out oxygen and wil release toxins that cant be broken down through cooking.

 

[FXjohn]

I certainly would not try it with anything that had been served. If someone put their fork in there would certainly be contamination.

huh? when you can you cook it all out. The leftovers would be cooked twice.
would it be worth spending the money to reheat the food and the jars?

 

[Macumazahn]

When you can you cook most of it out and depend on the anaerobic environment to prevent what little is left from multiplying.

the inside of most people's mouths is pretty nasty. there are all kinds of things growing in there. many things that can make people sick, like cold viruses, can not live in dirt for long. same for digestive enzymes.

bad things do not tend to be in the things you can. living plants fight off infectious materials just like humans do. that is why you can wash the outside of beans or fruit and eat them.

say someone with a cold is trying to spear one last tasty tid bit and fails a couple times to get one because they slip off the fork. now the contamination from the tip of the fork is buried inside those pieces. these are things that canning does not normally have to deal with. it is harder for heat of the canning to get at them and kill them.

sure... it is a numbers game. most of the time you will win. I would not risk setting up a cold virus to mutate in a can for a few years. nothing good could come of that.

 

[shag]

Heat breaks down the food. Nutrition is lost in the process. Even if all bacteria were killed, the fact that the food has been heated, slowly cooled then heated again means that a lot of the nutritional value of the food has already been lost.

Nutrition killers... heat, oxygen, water. The shelf life of the reheated canned food would be too short to warrant the effort. Fresh foods exposed to heat for as short a period as possible to kill bacteria then canned. It's the only way to do it.