Saturday, August 02, 2008

I did it... twice in one day.

Pressure canning that is.

Today was the day I faced the pressure canner and figured it out. I started with some black beans that I'd soaked and cooked and then finished the day with 9 pints of chicken broth.

Yay me!

10 comments:

Lisa Zahn said...

Awesome! I just got my pressure canner.

Hey, did you see I gave you an award? You can choose whether you want to accept or not, but find out about it on my blog...

Lisa in MN

Anonymous said...

Attagirl.

Pocket Farm Liz asked me recently why I pressure canned tomatoes and I forgot to mention the one upside of canning in a pressure canner: less heat in the kitchen than boiling-water bath! Less energy used overall too. A good thing as we eschew A/C.

Angie said...

Ok. You've made me realize I need to get that pressure canner out and use it!

Danielle said...

Lisa, thank you so much—I'm honored and a bit humbled by what you said, and I very much appreciate your kind comments.

Lisa and Angie... and Cindy and Christy and all the other folks who were intimidated by pressure canning:

Just do it.

Seriously. El and Gina and all the others are right that it's really not nearly as intimidating as the warnings make it out to be. For me, the whole thing was getting past those *be afraid* warnings, but also it had a lot to do with my own difficulty with transitions. I tend to resist new things at first. lol

El, thanks for the attagirl. I'm just pleased as punch with my chicken stock. No more taking up room in the freezer or having to defrost/ melt it before using it. Wooohooo. That's gotta be a huge energy savings, and I agree that the pressure canner seems to use much fewer resources overall than water bath canning.

Madeline Rains said...

I have such a fear of canning, especially of the pressure canner I would have to learn it from someone. Did you teach yourself? I do want to put up pickles and jam. Everything else has been great frozen though this does of course use a lot of energy. Oh! I just saw your post here. you did teach yourself. Man. Well, alright then. I'll think about taking out a canning book from the library.

Carolyn said...

Congrats! Looks like you did a fine job!

Christy said...

I can't wait to hear more about it. I'm going to have to get a pressure canner and tackle this hurdle soon.

Anonymous said...

Congrats! It all looks marvelous!

Anonymous said...

Ok sign me up. Post about how many beans you soaked and how much you put in each pint jar and how much salt if any. How long did you process? Don't answer here, just do a thorough post...please. Yes I am still scared. I am in such awe that you did IT..and twice at that!
Cindy in FL

Christy said...

It looks from the picture like you used a separate burner to do the canning. I guess I'd need to use my propane burner.