In an earlier post I mentioned that all of a sudden, it seemed like I had so many empty jars. We use quite a few each week but I don’t really keep up with what’s on the shelves and because I have jars tucked where ever I can find a spot for them, there’s no inventory system. I try to keep all the canned potatoes together, all the canned ground beef together, etc. There could be the stack of canned potatoes, with a stack of jars of freeze dried basil next to it, and a stack of canned split pea soup next to that. Just so all the same things are together so I can see when I’m getting low. I can what I have to can. Say I’m running out of canned potatoes . . if I don’t have access to fresh potatoes, there’s not much I can do about it. I have an idea how much I want to can of everything. When I’m canning potatoes, I keep them separate from the other canned goods til I’m done canning and when I get the number of jars of potatoes I’d like to have on the shelves, I stop . . unless I run out of potatoes first. I canned 9 quarts of Brunswick Stew this week. I would like to do that again and have 18 quarts in the pantry. With 18 quarts, we can have it once a month, maybe a month or two, have it twice, and still share a bit with Chad.
Here’s what I canned or preserved this week:
- 9 quarts of Brunswick Stew. I have another pork butt in the freezer so sometime in mid-July I’ll can another 9 quarts of that and then I’ll be done for the year. I have a trip to Louisiana coming up so it will be after that trip.
- 16 pints of Corned Beef. I raw packed this and it shrunk way down. I’ll make corned beef sandwiches sometime in the next week or two. If a pint is enough for both of us, I’d like to can at least 16 more pints. Chad likes it and I’ll share some with him. I love corned beef with eggs, corned beef hash and reuben sandwiches.
- 22 half pints of BBQ Sauce. Except for using 1-1/2 pints of BBQ sauce in the Brunswick Stew, 22 half pints is plenty to last us through the year.
Here’s what I freeze dried this week:
- Carrots – Diced – 8 quarts
- Cheddar – Grated – 4 quartsBone
- Basil from the Garden – 1 quart, 2 pints
Canning plans for this week:
- Bone Broth – Tomorrow mid-afternoon, I should be able to strain the broth and can it. Then I’ll start the second run on those bones. Probably Thursday afternoon, I’ll be able to can it. I’ll see how rich that broth looks and decide if I want to make a third run with the bones.
- Rhubarb BBQ Sauce – It’s getting late in the season to cut and use the rhubarb but it’s been cooler than normal so I’m going to cut the rhubarb probably Thursday and make at last one batch of the sauce.
Freeze Drying plans for this week:
- Carrots
- Basil
- Sage
- Rosemary
- Elderberries – I still have elderberries in the freezer from last year. I need to get those freeze dried because the plants now have berries on them. It will be a while before the new ones are ripe but I should have had these berries out of the freezer long before now.
The carrots will take about 48 hours to complete a cycle. I’m hoping to have a full load (4 trays) of basil, then sage and rosemary can share a load. Those will all take about 32 hours each. I’m not sure how long the elderberries will take – can’t remember from when I did those last fall but the freeze dryer is going to be going almost non-stop this week.
I love having meals in jars on the pantry shelves. I try to make sure we’ve used everything within a year or 18 months but I did find a jar of taco soup the other day from 2014 and it was fine but that’s definitely not something I like to find . . something that’s been on the shelf that long.
I don’t even mind when I notice I’m getting low on canned chicken or canned roast beef – anything I have easy access to – because I love canning. If I run out of rhubarb BBQ sauce in January . . not much I can do about that until there’s more rhubarb to pick and use.
When there’s no fresh veggies to can and I don’t need to can any more meat, I’ll can beans – black beans, pinto beans, navy beans . . I love canning . . anything and everything.