Canning Beans and Pork

Note: That’s different from Pork & Beans! 🙂

Yesterday morning we woke up to the power being off. I figured it was going to be a fairly short outage but once Vince brought in a generator and I was able to get internet, I read that a squirrel had caused a fire that burned a transformer and it might be up to 24 hours before power was restored. My first thought . . I wish I had canned more of the food in the freezers.

This is a handy chart for knowing what to keep and what to toss if the power has been out and things in the fridge and freezer may no longer be safe.

Chad had been buying canning jars for me at auctions so when I was in their town week before last, I went by and picked up four big boxes of jars. There were a few jars that were not canning jars (pickle jars, etc.). Even though I won’t pressure can in those, I love to vacuum seal freeze dried foods in those kinds of jars.

After about three or four hours of having no power, Vince began getting generators ready to run the freezers if the power was out more than about 8 – 10 hours. Since we’re using solar generators, that need batteries that need to be recharged during the day, we plan to have the generators on the freezers during the night if needed.

Before Vince got everything out and ready to hook up the freezers, the power came back on so that was good. This is the note from the power company.

Poor squirrel!

But, that little incident got me back to trying to get more food in jars.

Saturday I took out a pork loin and this morning it was still a bit frozen so I soaked it in cold water for a while. I cut it into chunks (raw), packed it into 6 pint jars, add a bay leaf, chopped onion and chopped garlic, along with salt and canned that. Most often, I will add a bit more seasonings, add a jar of black beans and serve this over saffron rice. I also sometimes shred the pork, add part of a jar of enchilada sauce (green is my favorite) and make enchiladas or tacos.

Next, I had a ham in the fridge and wanted to make more ham and beans. Saturday evening I put 6 pounds of great northern beans on to soak, then parboiled them yesterday morning with four whole onions and maybe 6 or 8 cloves of garlic. Then I fished all the onions and garlic out and got the beans in the jars – 16 quarts. I left space in the jars for the ham, got that added and got them canned.

This wasn’t canned yesterday . . it’s chicken broth from the chicken that I roasted a few days ago. If you ever make homemade chicken broth, you’ll never go back to store bought.

This week, I would like to can:

• Ham broth – the ham simmered in the electric roaster overnight. I’ll get that canned today.
• Red beans and sausage – the beans will soak tonight. Ground beef and sausage are defrosting so I’ll can that Tuesday.
• Beef stew – several roasts are defrosting in the fridge. That will be canned on Thursday.
• There’s at least one bag of pork fat (leaf fat) that needs to be rendered into lard. Maybe I’ll do that on Friday.

We’ll see if I can get all that done!