The pasta sauce ones should all have a slightly raised bump in the cap. After cooling, those bumps should be flush or lower than the rest of the cap. That’s the sign you’re pulling a vacuum inside the jar. If you can click the cap, you didn’t get a seal.
The Mason jars don’t need that. If they are unused, they will seal.
The tops will pop down. The mason/ball jars also have a flexible dome situation it’s just less obvious.
I wouldn’t reuse those pasta sauce jars. They aren’t meant for reuse, the glass is thinner and they’re not as resilient to thermal shock. As far as the caps go the presence of a rubber or wax gasket isn’t the issue. It’s whether that seal is intact enough to form a seal. You aren’t even supposed to reuse lids on mason jars for this reason. The wax or rubber is a one time use thing. Though you can get away with it if they’re in good shape.
I’m also not sure if the seals in those will soften enough in boiling water, as commercial products are usually processed at higher temps.
I’ve seen people do it, I just don’t know if it’s wise.
Fancy jars aren’t neccisary. Standard Ball jars are less than a buck a piece, used ones are easy to come by and replacement lids are like a quarter.
The pasta jars will be fine if you just store them in the fridge without processing them.
my mother and i have picked up dozens of ball and kerr canning jars in a variety of sizes at garage sales and estate sales for anywhere from 10-25 cents a jar. i even ran into a situation once when i noticed a box of assorted jars were stacked next to a trash can at a garage sale. the owner gave me a discount on a stack of books i bought for hauling the “trash” off for him.
I have some from the 50’s and 60’s. They’re the ones my grandmother used to can vegetables back in the day. My other grandmother is still packing her pickles in jars her mother purchased in the 30’s.
Before they were carried by every hardware, big box, and grocery store we mostly got them at yard sales as well. That’s even easier now that they’re popular again. My aunt just sold 50 jars for like $3 at a yard sale. She doesn’t even can, just piled up from people giving her jam and pickles.
All sealed.
(although the lid buttons are still up in this photo, 'cos they were still hot; they all sucked their clicky bits down as they cooled)
Beautiful! I love the color!
My most commonly made cake is a carrot cake with cream cheese icing:
Karel, the nice old hippy neighbour, likes cake. She’s going into hospital for a bit shortly, and cake would be a useful morale booster when she gets home.
However, she is violently intolerant of dairy, so cream cheese icing is a no-go.
What’s a good non-dairy icing alternative? And while we’re at it, anyone got any good simple and cheap cake recipes? I should expand my repertoire beyond just carrot cake…
i have two possibilities if the brands are available in your region. i have no problems with dairy but i do occasionally cook vegan recipes for coworkers.
daiya makes a coconut milk-based product called “cream cheeze” that has a decent texture and the flavor is pretty good. it works well in sweet applications and if you can get it that would be my first choice for icing. tofutti makes a soy-based product called “better than cream cheese” with minimal soy flavor and a good texture. that would be a close second.
What a kind neighbor you are!
I always recommend the recipe for “Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake” that’s on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa tin.
It was also recommended recently by @marence here—it was her grandmother’s “secret” recipe 
It looks like I’ll have some green paste tomatoes unless they ripen soon. I have plans for chutney and mincemeat, neither of which I’ve ever made before.
My usual go-to method for ripening the end-of-season dark green tomatoes was learned from my old neighbor - wrap each in newspaper, and put them into a shallow box. Some kind of magic usually happens that ripens about half of them. The ones that have any kind of color will ripen on the windowsill, as @DukeTrout and @Ryuthrowsstuff have mentioned.
Sounds good! It has dairy, though.
So, this isn’t cake, but I love this recipe for chocolate cherry fudge brownies. I bring it to family affairs and dream of the day in the future where I’ll go all soylent green on them and reveal: it’s beans! The fudge brownies are beans!!! And with that image:
Chocolate Cherry Fudge Brownies
12 oz choc. Chips
3 T coconut oil (or substitute)
15 oz black beans (either canned, or dry but soaked and cooked)
3 eggs
1/2 C maple syrup
1/2 C rolled oats
2 t baking powder
1/2 C pecans, finely chopped
1/4 C dried cherries, diced
(Nuts and fruit are totally optional, but yummy.)
Melt the choc. chips and oil in double boiler. Put that in a blender or food processor and add everything else EXCEPT the nuts and fruit. Blend until smooth, then stir in the fruit and nuts. Pour into a greased 9x9 pan and bake at 350 F for 30-35 min., or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean.
If using, it looks pretty to keep a bit of fruit or nuts aside to sprinkle on top before baking.
ETA: to make sure @Wanderfound sees.
Wacky cake is pretty good and easy.
That looks good! I love chocolate cakes that use a bit of vinegar. That was my first thought, too.
A pair of loaves of a multigrain bread called Dakota bread. Not much oven spring, which has been an issue all year, but nice.
You can also just roast those green tomatoes along with the peppers and throw in some onions. Just oil, salt, pepper…when done roasting just blend into a simple garden salsa base.
I have small freezer bags of it to add to soups, stews, or use as a dip.
I just used some to coat some nice steelhead fillets as a base for onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, salt and pepper, then 2 hours in the smoker at 225 F. No need for lemon with the Kewpie on there, and it adds just a little fat to otherwise lean fish like steelhead or sockeye salmon.
It turned out really well!
From what I recall it uses yeast extract instead of MSG and adds sugar rather than following the Japanese recipe.
Seems a bit pointless to alter the recipe for the American market given the American interest is in the Japanese product.
