Thursday, October 8, 2009

My new TOY!! Well, really it is work , but FUN work!


Last Thursday this All-American pressure caner was delivered to my door. I am in canning HEAVEN!!! This baby holds 14 quarts at one time!!! LOVE it. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!! (no this is not a paid endorsement! :) I just LOVE it!! )

I waited TWO years to take the plunge... finally dove in and ordered what I know will last me a lifetime. Spending large chunks of money has never been my thing, but I am very pleased with my decision.

So far I have canned apple sauce and venison with this baby. Canning meat is NEW to me, but I just have to say that we really like it. We have decided to can some of the meat with every deer we get. Talk about EASY meals.... fast soups, stews, meat and gravy, beef and noodles, pot pie..... I'm all for SIMPLE!!!! When I canned the meat I added onion powder, garlic powder, salt and white wine vinegar. The vinegar takes away all 'game' flavor. This canned meat tastes just like beef.

She will be busy again tomorrow as I can up the last bushel of apples I have to process. Do you can?? What is your favorite thing to 'put up'?? For some reason seeing the beautiful jars lined up on the basement shelves brings me such incredible satisfaction and sense of accomplishment.

Have a BLESSED day, BE a BLESSING!
Heather

5 comments:

tammi said...

Very cool! I really need to get myself a coil element stove again so that I can make better use of the canner I have (which I can't even bring to a boil on my flat-top!) and maybe someday branch out to pressure-cookers! (I have to admit, they scare me a little. My mom's told me some nightmarish stories about HER mom's pressure cooking experiences!)

I've looked on Recipezaar for meat canning recipes and directions, but they all only give directions for pressure canning. How long do you think you'd have to process in a hot water bath?

More than Survival said...

Tammi,
Hello!
I understand about being scared of pressure caners ..... Even though I grew up helping my mom (and we never had any issues) I still was scared... until THIS caner. It has a gauge to let me know what is going on! I have a flat top, too... I have no problem canning on it. In fact my new pressure caner comes up to temp way faster than my water bath caner because you only have to put a few inches of water in it!!

You can NOT water bath can MEAT! It has to get to a higher temp than you can get with boiling water since it is not acidic. You have to pressure can it at 10 pounds pressure for 90 minutes!!! Do you have a kerosene cook stove or a LP deep fryer?? You could use those to can on.

Heather

warren said...

We can too and we got an All-American (a smaller one) canner last year. It's so much nicer than the cheaper ones. We can fruits and veggies...my family cans meat, but we don't for some reason...

Jen said...

I've been thinking about a presure canner for sometime. What brand is it? I love to can all sorts of food. I've done tomatoes, chili sauce, spaghetti sauce, relish, pickles and many types of jellies. But this year our garden was a huge disapointment! But next year I'm praying for a good harvest.

Margaret said...

I too have been thinking about a pressure canner but I'm not all that keen on canned veggies. Then...soups, meat and broth came to mind, so now I'm saving for one and hope to buy one next year.