While I will not mislead you all and say that I never shop in a grocery store I admit that I maintain an extensive pantry always. This pantry consists of dry goods such as flour, rice and beans, dehydrated foods and spices, and an extensive number of home canned fruits and vegetables as well as 2 freezers. This does not count the 6 or so months of the year that I eat fresh from my gardens and fruit trees.
When my gardens are not producing and we continue to consume from our jars I end up with lots of jars setting empty on my shelves awaiting the next gardening harvest. Never to waste space and since I have to store these jars anyway I may as well fill them up with something. So throughout the winter I watch for sales.
Sales on carrots and frozen sweet corn recently resulted in my canning of carrots last week. And those frozen bags of corn were put into pint jars and pressure canned just like fresh corn.
Dried navy beans became barbecue beans in pints. The beans were soaked in boiling water to swell them just until soft then I added browned ground beef, onions, tomato sauce, brown sugar, a touch of maple syrup and ground mustard. Plus I ran across a pack of cocktail sausage that I threw in there too. Then I pressure can at meat times. Pints at 75 minutes and quarts at 90 minutes. I end up with a pint of barbecue beans which is perfect for 2 people beside a burger or barbecue chicken and when I add a small salad we have a meal. Just like opening a can of Bush beans or pork and beans. Convenience food at it's finest.
And I ran across some more chicken bones so while I had the pressure cooker going I canned 3 quarts of chicken bone broth.
So with snow flying last week I spent my time indoors canning and filling those empty jars. I do this throughout the winter months as I run across sales and bargains. Regardless of whether those sales are in the meat case, the frozen vegetables aisle or the produce department when I find them they help to keep my jars full year round. And in a few months the gardens will again be producing and there will be more jars to be filled with garden harvests and the cycle continues as it has for many years past. And my tally last week 33 pints of carrots, 12 pints of corn, 14 pints of barbecue beans and 3 quarts of chicken bone broth. And until the next round of sales.....
Blessings from The Holler
The Canned Quilter
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Congrats! We are on spring break this week, and I was planning to get chicken broth in jars...haven't done it yet. The week's not over, though!
ReplyDeleteWould you kindly share your recipe for the beans? I have wanted to start canning my own baked beans instead of buying them. My kids love (when they are in charge of lunch) to cook some rice and add a can or two of baked beans so I keep buying them but I would much rather can them.
ReplyDeleteI will post. It is so much cheaper to can your own also.
DeleteHow much frozen corn did it take to make the 12 pints? And what is the consistency of it after its canned? I never thought to buy frozen corn to can and I never thought to make my own baked beans to can. Thanks so much for the ideas!
ReplyDelete4 bags 2 pounds each frozen
DeleteCQ, I have a question unrelated to your post. In the past, you've said that you pull up your zucchini plants when they start to look ratty. I was planning to do that this summer, but then I'm not sure how I will get seeds to save -- don't you have to let them stay on the vine for a long time to get mature seeds?
ReplyDeleteI succession plant squash and zucchini meaning I do not plants all my plants at one time but rather plant a hill every 2 or 3 weeks. So when I pull up a ratty zucchini I usually have another hill or two somewhere else getting ready to harvest. This helps me to have a harvest throughout the year. The last plants of the year are the ones I collect seeds from.
DeleteI find that old ratty plants draw squash bugs. Also keep the plants cleaned of dead leaves and such as that helps too.
Thank you, CQ!
DeleteI'm going to try the barbecue beans next week. Thank you for the recipe.
ReplyDelete