Canning

Summer is here and so is preparing food for the winter.

I did something this week that I have never done before. I was pretty proud of myself when I thought of it so I am going to share with you my lovely efforts at homemaking.

We buy a whole steer for our beef for the year and that totally maxes out our freezer space, or over maxes it when it comes in so this time I solved a little of the problem. I cooked down all of the soup bones the day after I brought home our beef and then canned the meat and broth so it is all ready to pour into soups or noodles or whatever I need broth for. I am just thrilled with my efficiency. It took two days of quite a bit of labor and now I have 29 quarts of beef stock all put away and ready for a quick meal.

One day while the broth was canning we also made 9 pints of hot pepper jelly. Margaret chopped all of the peppers for me. Which was wonderful and Travis stirred the jam while it came to a boil.

Such helpers I have. We love hot pepper jelly with cream cheese and crackers for a light meal or snack. So I am excited to have all of those jars ready for later as well. In other food preservation news we have canned 14 pints of black raspberry jam this month. I am always very proud of ourselves with that one since we have to fight for every berry from the very prickly viney bushes they grow on that don't like us taking from them. Unfortunately we have already eaten two jars. At that rate we will be through it before winter even sets in.

We also had a visit from Travis' parents this week and they brought us green beans, corn and other treats from their garden. Monday we canned 21 quarts of green beans and put several packages of corn in the freezer, now our freezer is completely full!

We have done more canning this past week than I have done in several years. It is so exciting to use my jars again!.

Happy food preservation to you!

~Anna