I grew up with a mother who canned every summer. For years, she processed her quarts of green beans by water bath canning, which consisted of covering the jars of fresh beans in water and then boiling them for two hours. This method created a lot of steam and took a lot of time. Fortunately, she had a stove in the basement that she used to do her canning. However, once she started, the walls in the basement would be dripping with water and the rest of the house would have a stuffy, hot feel. In the end, my mom spent the entire day removing the finished product and adding more beans to the pot until she canned several dozen quarts.
In recent years, mom moved on to pressure canning as did I. I like this method because it's not as hot and steamy. The process yields seven quarts at a time. The trick is keeping the pressure at 11 pounds for the 25 minutes it takes to process the beans. My pressure often fluctuates anywhere from 12 to 15 pounds, requiring heat adjustment on the stove. Despite the fluctuations, I never had any issues with the final product. The jars have always sealed and the beans have been cooked to my liking.
And while I often think it would be easier to buy a .99 cent can of green beans at the store, in the end canning offers a multitude of perks that you can't buy.
1. I spent time with my daughter preparing the beans, the jars and the canning supplies.
2. I know exactly what's in the beans I canned. They came from my garden. No pesticides were used.
3. I'm carrying on a family tradition. And that feels good.
4. My beans are truly canned at the peak of freshness.
5. When the snow flies, I have a little piece of summer to serve at dinner time.
Later this summer, I have even more plans for the canner. The tomatoes will be getting ripe soon. If you've never had tomato juice canned from a backyard garden, you don't know what you're missing.
Have you ever canned veggies from your garden? What's your favorite vegetable to can? Leave me a comment. I'd love to hear from you.
No comments:
Post a Comment