The Harvest

We went to the local pumpkin farm today, the place was jammed packed with pumpkins and squash of all types.

Lid Lifter

The magnet is strong enough to pick up three or four lids at a whack.

Steam coming off of the boiling water.

Damaged lid used for demonstrating this technique - it was this or throw it away.

Dh came up with this idea it's a strong magnet attached to my tongs it does a nifty job of removing lids from the hot water w/o getting burned. He bought the magnet at Radio Shack back in the dark ages, circa 1982, for a whole fifty cents.

Canning Chili

I forgot to bring my camera to the kitchen so the in progress pics are limited this time. I made up my favorite recipe of chili x 10 and put it into hot jars, it'll be processed for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure in the All American. I under estimated on my recipe hoping for 40+ quarts but will be getting 28 quarts instead. These jars have yet to be processed.

I started with ten pounds of ground beef and 4 pounds of dried beans, 2 pounds kideny beans and 2 pounds small red beans. I used one #10 can of chopped tomatoes, one # 10 can tomato sauce, one # 10 can of pureed tomatoes, and one #10 can of Mrs. Grimes Chili with Beans. To this I added 2 very large minced Onions 2 cups minced garlic - comes in a jar at Sam's Club - spices, honey and mole. I browned my beef with the onion, garlic, and spices added. I browned all 10 pounds at once in my 23 quart BWB pan! I added the tomatoes and chili sauce to the browned ground beef etc., and simmered for about 4 hours. I turned the heat off and let it sit overnight - I was bad I left it on the stove and it was still very hot this morning at 6 am.

The beans were soaked overnight, drained this afternoon and added to the simmering pots. I divided the chili meat sauce between two BWB canners 24 cups per pot, approximately, and added the beans dividing them up equally which ended up being approximately 12 cups per canner

Chopping Green Beans

Dh's hand is next to the knife blade so you can see where it is at. The knife is longer than the width of the box. For the frozen beans a serrated bread knife works best.

End view of the box the box holds about 4 gallons of fresh beans.

To simplify this process we use a green bean board! We bought frozen beans for

our soup, they came unsnapped so dh chopped them into bite sized pieces.

Canning Potatoes

And dealing with all of that starch! There are very few things I remember from Home Ec, taken from 1981-1984 and this was one of them!

Cube your potatoes and rinse, you may have to rinse them twice, drain.

Place potatoes into a container and cover with COLD water, I used a 2 gallon bucket.

To this add 1/4 cup of vinegar.

If you use a smaller container then reduce your vinegar.

The potatoes will have a clearish look to them after soaking. I soaked mine for 4 hours but overnight yeilds the best results.

Layered Chicken Vegetable Soup

1 Cup Chopped Potato - we used Russets

Fresh Chicken Broth made from cooking the chicken hind quarters.

1/4 Cup Cooked Chicken

1 Cup chopped Carrot.

2/3 Cup. Corn

2 T. Chopped Roma Tomatoes

2/3 Cup Chopped Green Beans

A tablespoon of chopped onion is added to each jar. Dh wanted to know where the garlic was???

Each jar gets half chicken bullion cube which is placed in the jar first on the bottom.

We experimented with the layering trying to find one that was visually pleasing.

In the AA and ready to be pressure canned - 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.

Layered Chicken Vegetable Soup Recipe

Wow this is very popular so here is the recipe and the next post will be pics of what we did.

The potatos, carrots, tomatoes, and onions were raw (I soaked the cubed potatoes for four hours with a bit of vinegar) The corn and green beans were frozen.

Amounts are approximations for a quart jar:

1c cubed potatoes
1c sliced/cubed carrot (depended on the diameter of the carrot most ended up cubed)
2/3c corn
2/3c green beans
1/4c cooked chicken meat
T Onion
2T chopped fresh roma tomatoes
1/2 Chicken bullion Cube

Cover with the broth you made when you cooked the chicken meat. PC 90 minutes.

I arranged it in layers so that it would be pretty!Potato, carrot, green bean, chicken, corn, tomato, onion.

Chicken Vegetable Soup

We put up some chicken vegetable soup today, in addition to the meatloaf. Last night all I got done was the chunky applesauce I still have chili and apple pie filling to get canned, along with more chunky apple sauce. I'm hping to have spiced apple rings canned up by next weekend and that will be all for apples this year!

Canning Coleslaw

Shred the cabbage using a kraut cutter or mandolin, be sure to keep your fingers out of the way!

Mix carrots and onion in with the shredded cabbage and then sprinkle salt over the mixture and allow to sit for an hour.

Slaw after sitting for one hour with salt.

Slaw in jars ready for the syrup to be added.

Syrup for the slaw is ready, make sure you completely melt the sugar and the syrup is clear.

Syrup added to slaw. The slaw starts to wilt as the heat from the syrup settles in the jars.

Remove bubbles using a canning stick or spatula.

Slaw after 20 minutes of processing in BWB.

Dh decided to experiment with this batch and added the slaw to the jars and then added the syrup - the end result was floating slaw! Next time we'll add the slaw to the syrup and then to the jars!