Home Canning with a purpose

Hobby or Preservation

People equate survival to extremist; this is not the case for most of us. There are people that "can" for several other reasons. We live in Florida. Everyone knows that it is the home of bad weather. Between lighting storms, hurricanes, etc. we are faced with the possibility of food supply storage on a regular basis. We need to know that our food will not spoil, when we loose electricity. We also need food easy to prepare without electricity. There could be a number of reasons that anybody could be concerned about their food supply. Whatever your reason, "canning" is a good alternative to accomplish you goal.

However, home canning can easily become a hobby as it has for Peepaw and me. Knowing that we have food on a shelf, ready to use makes canning more than a chore…it’s become a hobby. Once you began your canning, wait until the joy of eating or sharing your home canned products. I remember shortly after we were married Peepaw helped the first time…he was hooked. Now he enjoys it as much as I do.

Tell us why and how you became interested in canning, either by email or the comment section. We don’t care if you are just starting out or have been doing it for years.

Easy Beef Dinner

Easy Company Beef

3 lbs. Stew beef, cubed
10 ¾ oz. Can cream of mushroom soup
7 oz. Jar mushrooms, un-drained
½ cup red wine
1 envelope dry onion soup mix

1. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker.
2. Cover. Cook on low 10 hours.
3. Serve over noodles, rice or pasta.

Importance of Labeling

Labeling Jars

This may seem silly to you that we are even talking about labeling. Having a good labeling system can be very useful in more ways than you can imagine. Peepaw and I have had our system from the beginning. Basically we have three written lines on our labels;

1st Line: Our Name

2nd Line: The Content of the Jar

3rd Line: The Date

We put our name on the first line because we give so much away, and it’s nice for people to know when they use the product, who gave it to them. The second line will help because, ie. there are more than one kind of pickles and the label will let you know what is in the jar. Same for greens, they look a lot alike and without the label it would be a guess as to what is in the jar. Another thing about the second line is inventory, you can look through your jars quickly and know what is running low. The third line is important to know when you canned a favorite food, by the date, you can tell when that fruit or vegetable will be ripe and you can plan your next canning project. You can move your older jars to the front and help keep the jars from expiring.

The other day I heard a lady say that she puts a small number on the lower corner of the label. She numbers her cooking batches. This is in case a batch goes bad, she will only have to throw away the one batch. It is rare the a batch would go bad, however this would be nice to have if one did. We’ve never done this, we’re lucky that we never had a batch to go bad.

Were Back

Spring is almost here and it is time to start planning for the "soon to be here Canning Season". We are going to bring our Blogs back to life. We are going to start with an assortment of safety and general tips. The recipes will also start flowing - be sure to Subscribe to our other Blogs. This will get you a notice when we add content. And please don't hesitate to e-mail questions or add comments.