What Are You Canning Today??

[Midnightmom]

3 hours ago, Jeepers said:

I was mainly talking about seasoned taco meat. Seasoned and fried. I was thinking if I added broth then it would be too soupy for tacos?

I'm pretty sure you would still have to add a liquid of some sort - for the heat distribution. Pack the meat in as tightly as you can then add some water or beef broth (probably the broth for better taste). When you open it to heat it up let it simmer for a while to reduce the liquid, or add a thickener to the mix as you are reheating it, or turn it into a pot of taco soup! You could always add some dehydrated refried beans and let them soak up some of the liquid as the mixture reheats. You can probably think of other possibilities too.   (Like DH onions maybe?)

Edited July 25 by Midnightmom

[Jeepers]

Really great suggestions! Right now I just want to get the meat in the jars. I saw one recipe that said to use tomato paste. I don't have any here. Maybe I should get some but that sounds more like sloppy Joe's.    I think I need more onions. I'm going to have just a couple of hours free tomorrow. 

 

[Midnightmom]

1 hour ago, Jeepers said:

Right now I just want to get the meat in the jars.

Best bet, and most versatile for future use, is to just cook the meat and add broth or water to can it.  You can always season it the way you want to use it when you open it up.  

[Jeepers]

I got up early and got some of the meat cooking. That big wok is a big help. Mostly because it's deep. I only filled 6 pints because I ran out of taco seasoning mix. If the movers come and go quick enough, I'll run to the store for some more. I only want about four more. Seems like I'm always getting delayed.

 

[Littlesister]

Jeepers, I know about the delays and interruptions. It seems to be the story of my life. I still have 3 Boston Butts to can. I decided to cut them up a bit later today and tomorrow I can them.  It will be a bit easier on me. The butts are big ones, and it takes a long time to get them cut up and off the bone. I need to get off of here and run to the store to pick up an RX. So, since there is a new sale, I will look around to see what I am low on before heading out. All the baby food is done for a good long time. I need to teach my GD how to can but right now with certain foods giving her morning sickness, I decided to wait till she gets past that stage. Right now, she said no salmon or tuna. So I will wait on that one. 

[Littlesister]

The 2 Boston butts I bought first turned out to be pork shoulders they marked as Boston butts for 99 cents. The pork shoulders were not on sale and the price was 2.99 a lb. So, the butcher mixed them up. There is a lot of fat in a pork shoulder, so had to put in slow cooker to cook down in order to get the fat out of it. There was a lot of meat on them, but the fat ran all through it. Hard to get that out of an uncooked port shoulder. Those will up just fine, but just cooked part of the way through to get the fat pulled out. So will be a while before I get those canned up.

[Midnightmom]

4 hours ago, Littlesister said:

Those will up just fine, but just cooked part of the way through to get the fat pulled out.

I hope you are saving the lard! 

[Littlesister]

I saved the fat for lard from the 2 Boston Butts but not from the shoulder. I raw packed the Boston Butts and the shoulder I put in the slow cooker and part way cooked it through, but that fat was not what I would want to use for lard.  But glad that job is done and now moving on to carrots and then dehydrating celery. 

[Littlesister]

All the meat is canned and all sealed.  Then I finished up the potatoes I still had left from making baby food. So that got done. Tomorrow I will start on carrots. Need to can for both the baby and me. I must say making baby food is very time consuming as you have to cut everything up very small. It doesn't have to be pureed but does need to be very small pieces. So far, she is loving everything I have canned. That child will eat anything that doesn't eat her first. She is just like her mom on that one. Although mom didn't like butterbeans. Other than that, she ate everything. 

[snapshotmiki]

A food processor will really  cut down on work and  time  @Littlesister. Does for me. 

[Littlesister]

Miki, I do use my food processor a lot. With arthritic hands, it would be hard to cut up carrots and such. I did 10lbs of carrots and that was a lot of carrots. So baby is now set for a couple of months in baby food. Both meat and veggies. So won't be making baby food for about 2 months I hope. Boston Butts are canned as well as beef, corn, broccoli, green beans carrots, butter beans and a few other things. 

Went to the store to pick up more canning jars and I bought a couple of big bags of frozen corn. Came home the other day and canned that also. 

I did inventory on my jars, and I need pints, half pints and 4 oz jars. So, need to start hunting down sales or look for the cheapest place to buy them. I need to do that before I can start back on the freezer canning. 

[Jeepers]

I'm glad to be home. Ohio home. I hate that trip more and more. They erected two additional toll booth areas in Ohio. It's nuts. There is no exit at either one of them so they are easy to miss. No exit or entrance. Just go through and pay your money. Twice now I have forgotten to buy an EZ Pass so I don't get stuck going through them. I nearly miss them because...they aren't my exit. They spent billions of dollars on them, (four, two on each side of the road) when all they had to do was raise the toll if they needed the money that badly. Crimony. Gas in Indiana is $4.19 a gallon of regular. It's $3.59 in Ohio. 

 

I had my computer, thumb drive, external drive and my Kindle in one grocery bag to take to Indy. It came up missing. Of course the first thought was movers stole it. Then I thought really hard about it. Now I'm pretty sure I picked up the bag with all of the trash I was throwing away and I think I pitched it. I'm pretty sure the movers weren't in the bedroom the bag was in. I'm thinking I did it myself. I'm certainly not going to accuse them. It was me. Sigh. So now I have to buy all new electronics and tomorrow get all of my passwords changed. The ones I can remember to change. 

 

Movers got everything's moved in. I don't know if anything got broken or not. I don't really care. It's done and paid for. $$$$. I have no idea where anything is. It's all packed in the 2nd. garage and out of the way. And hopefully mouse free. Note to self, buy more traps before fall. 

 

I dropped a fortune at Costco. But sons have plenty of food in the house now. Costco had some real peaches. Not the little rock hard ones like in a regular grocery store. Real soft juicy ones. It's been years since I had a real peach. Expensive but worth it for a special treat. 

 

I decided to finally paint my lamps. They look awful. LOL. I opened a previously used bottle of black paint and unbeknownst to me there was a film on top of it. I squeezed it and the paint shot out under pressure all over me. I still my nightgown on so I just rolled it up over my head and threw it away. I cleaned up my arms and leg and then I spotted it. Two globs of paint about the size of a quarter on the beige carpet. What to do what to do. Being a good prepper I ran to the closet and had 4 cans of carpet cleaner. I pulled off the paint with a dry paper towel as best I could and went to scrubbing. Miraculously I got it all off of the carpet. That stuff was amazing. It's Woolite Carpet Cleaner and it comes with a plastic brush attached to on top of the can. I can seriously recommend having a can of two in your cleaning arsenal. I had a royal mess and didn't even use one can. It took a long time of scrubbing and wiping with paper towels but it saved a beige carpet from black paint. I was panicking so much I forgot to take pictures. 

 

I had a great time with GS as always. Even though I had to jerk a knot in his tail for a smart mouth. He'll learn I mean business. He's a good kid but his mouth gets the better of him sometimes. 

 

I'll post some horror pictures later. They will make you all feel so much better about yourself.  

 

 

 

Yeah. My first day back and I put this in the wrong thread. Mod wanna move it? I couldn't find the right place to do it and I can't copy/paste on the phone. Brilliant. 

 

 

Edited July 31 by Jeepers
Wrong forum.

[Midnightmom]

2 hours ago, Jeepers said:

It's been years since I had a real peach. Expensive but worth it for a special treat.

Would you like some peach pits to plant in your new yard? They are Yellow Freestone. My apt complex has a small orchard for community use and these are some of the "bestest" peaches you will ever eat - IF you are able to wait for them to fully ripen on the tree. (Sometimes I eat a few when they are still "crunchy."  ) I have also saved pits from Santa Rosa Plums and Bing Cherries - also from the orchard. 

[Jeepers]

Thank you, but I saved 5 of the peach pits, so far, of the ones I have. They came 9 in a box. And I still have 3 to eat. GS ate the other one. 

[snapshotmiki]

11 pints of 4 bean salad. 

[Jeepers]

Oh my. That looks so good!  

[Littlesister]

That does look good. I like bean salad.  But I am not canning for at least a couple of weeks. I need a break after I canned all that baby food. Baby food is a lot of work as you have to cut everything up small for her right now.  But it does help them out and the baby is well stocked on supplies. My GSIL is very grateful for the food. He said it really helps out when they don't have time to cook a meal or something. Just pull out a couple jars of the home-made baby food and she has it made fast meal of meat and veggies and a fruit. 

[Jeepers]

I'm sure it helps with their food bill too. I know how that is. I took DIL to Costco last week. 

[snapshotmiki]

18 hours ago, Jeepers said:

Oh my. That looks so good!  

It is good!  Tried the one jar that didn't seal.

[Midnightmom]

Somebody, somewhere in this thread was talking about needing more racks for their canner. These look pretty affordable.

 

 

https://a.co/d/2JUIH1d

 

[Jeepers]

I think it was Littlesister talking about needing another one. Those are an excellent price if they are strong enough! I've paid more than that for just one rack. 

[Littlesister]

Yes, I was the one looking for a couple of racks, I have two pressure canners but if I wanted to double stack, I have to use the one from the other canner and that puts me down to only one canner. I did order a couple but those are the correct size. So, I will order those and use the two smaller ones in another pan I use sometimes for water Bath canning.

Thank you, Midnight Mom. I will be ordering those shortly. They are the same size as the ones that came with the canners. 

[Jeepers]

I've had to buy extra racks to stack jars before too. Let us know how you like them. 

[Littlesister]

Jeepers, I will let you know about them. They should be here tomorrow. Though it will be a couple of weeks before I can anything again. But I can compare them to the ones I have and see also how heavy duty they are. I will let you all know how they turn out. 

[Littlesister]

I almost forgot about the racks. They came and are good ones. Very sturdy and strong. Though I have not used them yet. I think these will be perfect for stacking jars in canner.