Canning season has begun!
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| The mother of all pressure canners- Presto's 23 quart giant. |
Some how I have managed to acquire not one, but two of the largest pressure canners on the market. The first I inherited from my grandmother, and the second a friend found at a garage sale for a mere five bucks. New, these babies retail at about $120, and I have managed to put out only the cost of replacement parts. Such a sweet deal.
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| We made these same pickles last year and they were amazing! |
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For some reason, I always end up starting this process much too late for common sense. It was around 9 pm this time. But, 12 quarts of pickles, 5 pints of green beans, and 6 pints of chicken stock isn't too horrible for five and a half hours, right? It probably would have been an hour less, but being a novice at pressure canning has its disadvantages. Fortunately I already had a replacement gasket and once that was replaced things have been rolling along just fine.
Thankfully, my wonderful husband helped me with the pickles and got me started on the beans, and then it was off to bed for him since he has to work in the morning.
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| It took forever to pressurize the cooker. hopefully they're not mush... | |
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Those poor green beans sat in boiling water for what seemed like forever while I figured out what was going on. I've always been rather reluctant to use the pressure canner for fear that it might blow up, causing one of those delightful geysers in my very own kitchen. I think I'd rather wait to visit Yellowstone for that geyser thing... Fortunately, it's starting to sink in that familiarity is all it takes to not blow anything up with a pressure canner.
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| pickles- 12 quarts, green beans- 5 pints, chicken broth- 6 pints |
The most exciting thing I tried this evening was my new Tattler lids. Who would have thought that somebody could make plastic reusable lids for canning jars? Well, that's just what the Tattler people have done. They've been in business for a couple of decades, and only now are many of their oldest customers starting to look for replacements for their Tattler lids. From what I've read, these things just don't wear out. A little spendy up front, but well worth it if you can often enough.
And now, I am very thankful I took a nap today. It is 3:40 in the morning, and I hear... my pillow... calli... zzzzzz
great! always good to learn new skills. only caution. don't live your life based on fear of what might happen. we live in a town that was the center of a lot of writings about how 2000 was going to be end of life as we know it, yet the heart of the gospel did not really penetrate these people here. they had many followers from states away, few locally.
ReplyDeletebe sure the planning for the "future" does not do it at the cost of relationships. those are the only eternal things. i have not reason to believe you are doing this. it's just a general caution after living thro' 2000.
Martha! Thanks for pointing that out. Y2K was definitely way over blown and a lot of people spent a lot of money trying to get ready for something that never happened. And then when they were embarrassed that they had prepared unnecessarily, they swore that they wouldn't be taken in by that sort of thing again.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the process of writing a post about why I think preparedness is important and will flesh it out better there, but I do agree that relationships are far more important than filling my basement with lots of stuff. Shutting ones family off from society is not the answer, nor is it going to convey the gospel to anyone.