Who Knew???? Canning "Pineapple" from Zucchini

The theme of my A to Z Challenge posts this year is "Blogging Buffet." In celebration of recently posting my 1000th blog post, I am revisiting posts from the past.  This post originally published on Thursday, August 11, 2011.

I started this year's A to Z challenge with a post about artichokes, so it seems appropriate to end with a post about another vegetable:

Who Knew???? Canning "Pineapple" from Zucchini

Even with serving curried squash for dinner last night, we are falling woefully behind in our zucchini consumption.  These beauties brutes are obviously not the cute, gourmet size, but more along the baseball bat variety.  I haven't looked in the garden today.  I'm a little bit afraid to. 

Anyway, I can either let them sit in the fridge until they go limp (ewww!) and I feel guilty, or I can findsomething to do with them.  A million loaves of zucchini bread is out of the question, and my freezer gave up the ghost, so freezing is not an option either.  The National Center for Home Food Preservation came to my rescue with this recipe:

Zucchini-Pineapple

• 4 qts cubed or shredded zucchini
• 46 oz canned unsweetened pineapple juice
• 1½ cups bottled lemon juice
• 3 cups sugar

Yield: About 8 to 9 pints


Procedure: Peel zucchini and either cut into ½-inch cubes or shred. Mix zucchini with other ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes. Fill jars with hot mixture and cooking liquid, leaving ½-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process. See Table 1 for recommended process time for using a boiling-water canner.

Table 1. Recommended process time for Zucchini-Pineapple in a boiling-water canner.
		Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack	Jar Size	0 - 1,000 ft	1,001 - 6,000 ft	Above 6,000 ft
Hot	Half-pints or Pints	15 min	20	25

Sounds easy enough.  I'm going to use reconstituted frozen concentrate instead of the canned pineapple juice, as it was about half the price.  Hopefully it is good.  I've seen positive reviews on other sites, so I'm optimistic. 

Anybody else have ideas on how to preserve zucchini?