Several years ago Vince used an old pressure canner and made it into a vacuum chamber. I prefer vacuum sealing freeze dried food in jars and never expected to use larger than a quart jar.
We have plenty of half gallon jars and, considering that I can use one lid with one half gallon jar, or two lids with two quart jars, and I can pour out what I need and re-seal the jar, with lids hard to find, it makes sense to use the half gallon jars but I didn’t think they would fit in this short canner. I got out my big Presto canner to see if the lid that’s set up for the vacuum pot would fit on the bigger canner and it would not. Vince came out and wanted to know what I was doing. I explained it and he offered to turn the big Presto canner into a vacuum pot since I don’t use it for canning any more but I had told Chad he could have it and didn’t want to mess it up. Vince said he could always turn it back into a pressure canner but I didn’t want to take a chance.
Then I started thinking . . are the half gallon jars really too tall? I got one out put it in the short pot, put the lid on and it worked just fine. All these years I’ve wished, for different things, that I could vacuum seal those taller jars and I could have and didn’t know it.
I can only vacuum seal three half gallon jars at a time because that’s all that will fit in the smaller canner but it only takes 3 – 5 minutes to pul a vacuum.
There’s three half gallon jars and two quart jars of okra. I don’t know why I didn’t put the cut okra in the half gallons too. Mostly I use the whole small pods of okra in beans and might use 10 – 12 pods so a half gallon jar of those will last a long time. In fact, three half gallon jars will probably last all year.
We also like to munch on the whole okra pods for snacks so I’ll continue to freeze dry as much okra as I can get my hands on.
Phyllis V Sisk says
Not related to this post but I made your okra and tomatoes for dinner, minus the meatballs. Previously only had eaten plain okra and tomatoes. Decided I really like it both ways. Thanks for all the new things you introduce me to.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
You make me wonder what’s different from my okra and tomatoes, minus the meatballs and “plain okra and tomatoes”. I’ve only had it the way I make it for the meatballs though to me, plain okra and tomatoes is the same as the meatball recipe – minus the meatballs. 🙂
Sue says
Do you ever pickle okra? My mother loves it, but I don’t remember you mentioning that you pickle okra.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I do not because I cannot seem to make decent pickled anything, though I do love pickled okra. I’m happy with storebought pickled okra so I usually just count on buying that and then freeze drying or canning what we grow here.