The Beginning of Another Canning Year

Canning Rabbit

Fall is such a busy time of the year for us with getting the gardens ready for winter and picking the last of the produce and storing.This is immediately followed by the busy holiday season and we fell behind. We still have  plenty of work to do catching up with the canning chores. There was frozen pork fat to be rendered into lard, pork to grind into sausage and bacon to be cured and smoked. All this was frozen in the freezer and awaiting it's turn. Not to mention the walnuts and pecans to be cracked,  shelled and frozen. And rabbits that had been butchered and frozen. I had taken a couple weeks to catch up on some sewing and needed to get back to canning.   

So in an effort to catch up with some of this frozen meat chores I took out some rabbit meat to can in jars. O Wise one had already soaked it out in salt water, cut it into chunks and deboned it prior to freezing it.  So all I had to do was defrost it and cut the pieces smaller, more like bite size pieces.  

Once they were cut smaller I put them back in a salt water solution in the fridge overnight. 

I had also found a bag of smoked turkey bones frozen. A leftover from Thanksgiving. These were just patiently waiting to be turned into broth. So I put the turkey bones in a pot of water with some spices and cooked down a nice smoked turkey broth. Rabbit bones make a great broth if you saved them from the rabbit. Cook them down just as you would chicken or turkey bones. 

This was cooled and placed in a large bowl in the fridge overnight also to allow any fat to come to the top and harden, later to be skimmed off and fed to the dogs on top of their dog food.  

The next morning the rabbit chunks were placed in about half a large pot of boiling water for about 3 minutes. You want the chunks about 2/3 cooked with the inside still just pink.

Then the rabbit chunks were drained in a colander.  

The broth from where the rabbit chunks were cooked is then skimmed (there will be a scum on top) and then strained through cheese cloth and added to the turkey broth. I put my rabbit chunks on a cookie sheet and kept them covered in a warm oven covered with aluminum foil until my broth was strained and heated back up.  

Then I placed the cooked rabbit chunks into hot quart jars. I like about 1/2 meat and half broth. 

Then ladled my turkey/rabbit broth combination over the top of the meat Leaving 1 1/4 inch head space.

Remove air bubbles.

Wipe rims clean

Place hot lids on hot clean jar rims and adjust two piece caps. Finger tighten only.  

(That second jar that is darker is a jar of smoked turkey meat that I got off those bones)

Place hot jars in hot pressure canner

I processed my quarts for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure. 

I now have 7 quart jars of rabbit meat to use just like chicken meat in soups, pot pies ,casseroles, noodles or any  recipe that would call for canned chicken. 

And another 7 jars of  broth to be used just like chicken or turkey. A mixture of smoked turkey and rabbit it is rich with a mild smoky flavor that would be great in gumbos and noodles. 

Maybe I'll call it Turbit Broth : )

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter