By the time I get the freezer cleaned out, hopefully it will be time to start putting up food from the garden though thinking about it, I think mostly I freeze dry the food from the garden – peppers, tomatoes, asparagus, okra, garlic, rhubarb . . I can’t think of anything in the garden I will can other than maybe pickled asparagus. I may make sauerkraut but that’s fermented and neither canned or freeze dried.
It makes me crazy when I have to run a canner that’s not completely full. It seems like a waste of gas and a waste of time so I was thrilled that I had just enough jars (14 quarts) to completely fill this big canner today. When I used it earlier this week, I only had 8 quarts – one too many for the smaller canner and six too few to fill the canner but I had to use the big canner to get 8 quarts processed. I was happy with exactly 14 quarts today.
There are 9 quarts of roast beef and 5 quarts of bone broth. The bone broth is amazing. I roasted the bones in the oven til they were nice and brown, then put them in the slow cooker with onions, celery, carrots and a bit of garlic. I had to add water several times but cooked it on low for about 48 hours, then canned it at the same time as I canned the roast beef.
For sure I’m taking the weekend off from canning.
Sarah F. says
I would be interested in your thought on freeze dried rhubarb. How you cut it for freeze drying and then how you use it. I live rhubarb and can’t seem to grow it in my part of Texas.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
My favorite way is to cut it into fairly small pieces and soak it in a simple syrup for several hours, then drain it and freeze dry it like that. It’s so good just for munching! It’s also good to drop a few of those crunchies into salads or oatmeal or even cereal with milk.
I will also freeze dry it in pieces the size I would use for making pies or anything else. It’s hard, maybe impossible, to grow rhubarb in parts of Texas. I tried!