Canning, Canning and More Canning!

This year I learned to can. I know that James has canned jam in the past but I didn't realize you could can more than jam. So, this year I have learned to can peaches, tomatoes, salsa, chicken, chicken stock and am getting ready to learn to can pears (hopefully on Thursday).

Some may say that I have been a little out of control. I have a new canning buddy and we have gotten together on several occasions to can tomatoes, salsa, and dehydrate peaches. We borrowed a pressure canner, she had one and we bought one, so at times we have had three pressure canners going at the same time. It was AWESOME! At home I still have the borrowed pressure canner and have been known to run both canners all day. I have officially canned 100 quarts of tomatoes! The boys learned to blanch the tomatoes for me and did all of the blanching for the last 24 quarts. They are AMAZING! I also fell in love with canning chicken breast. Chicken has been on sale lately and I found that my freezer can only hold so much chicken. So, instead of buying another freezer I learned to can that chicken! It might be said that I canned about 100 lbs of chicken. Hmmm. . . maybe I am out of control!

I am now done with all of those item and am ready to do pears! I have my first 20 lbs and just need to figure out where to find more. We have run into some cold weather here, so gardening is quickly coming to an end. A local farm now has all of its produce on sale for $25 per bushel. I of course ran over and bought lots of apples, sweet potatoes and squash. Now I need to find uses for each of those things. Any great acorn squash recipes out there?

I think I have come to love canning so much because I feel like I am preserving food we will actually use. As much fun as it is to store wheat, oats and beans, one needs more variety in their life. So, now the goal is to go through the winter with a very low food budget. We'll see how it goes! Soup season here we come!