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| The reason for the season |
And here it is late September and what drives me back to blahdeblah is a series of photos from yesterday's adventures in homesteading for the carrot harvest was substantial (by my standards) this year, and I couldn't bear to think of them going to waste but nor was there room in the freezer for them.
So, though I have never in my life thought, "Gosh, if only I had a jar of carrots" and have more than once thought "A pressure cooker is bound to explode and kill a person," I ordered up a pressure canner and set to work.
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| The terrifying pressure canner in situ |
It turns out that canning vegetables using a presssure canner is about a million times simpler and easier than making jam. (Oh, I'm not sure we won't die of botulism eating our home-canned vegetables, but that's beside the point.) You clean and chop up your vegetables so they'll fit in your clean jars that you've had in simmering hot water, you pack the vegetables into the jars, you add salt and boiling water, you put lids on the jars, and you process them in the pressure canner for 25 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. Needless to say, the actual working with the pressure canner was Scott's department.
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| Jars being carefully placed in the pressure canner |
The results are slightly less vibrant than the raw vegetables were, but presumably they'll be fine used in pot pie, stew, or soup in the dark winter months.
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| Jar of carrots, ready to go in the canner |
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| Last-minute jar of beans, ready for canning |
When I realized that we had room in the canner for another jar I declared that we might as well toss in a jar of green beans. (Scarlet Runner, I think; they may have been self-seeded, but it's the one bean crop that has been prolific. They're great sauteed in olive oil and red pepper flakes, topped with a squeeze of fresh lemon, but one can eat beans only so many nights in a row, you know?)
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| The first production run, cooling on the counter. |
