Laboring on Labor Day Weekend

 I took advantage of the long weekend and did some food preservation.  I've really been wanting to pressure can some soups for some ready-to-go meals, and I finally got around to it.  I decided to use the last of our BBQed pork (more on that later) and made a pork and bean soup.  I ended up with 2 quarts and 6 pints (one didn't fit in the canner, so it's in the fridge) of soup, which will be great for quick meals. 

















David and I also bought a bushel of peaches, so I needed to use those up.  I canned some peach halves (8 quarts) and made a really great peach topping with cinnamon and sugar and nutmeg (3 half pints and 1 pint). I also dehydrated lots of them, and froze several gallon bag fulls. 

 This is where we keep our home canned goods, in the cellar part of the basement.  The shelves are filling up.  I really love to see canned things, because they just look so pretty.  The top shelf has 1 quart of applesauce, a couple quarts of stock, several quarts of pigeon peas, a couple quarts of venison, and several smaller jars of tomato juice.  The second shelf down has a couple half-pints of peach jam, 2 quarts of pickles, a couple pints of pickle relish, several smaller jars of jalepeno jelly, a couple jars of pickled jalepenos, some apple butter, cherry marmalade, peach topping, and halved peaches.  The next shelf down has the soup I just made.  Oh yeah, and paint, but we won't eat that. ;-)

I'd like to can up some more soups and stock, so they're ready to go when we're feeling lazy or in a hurry and need a quick meal.