I am still alive

Hi everyone.

When I started this blog I figured that I would still come up with ideas to post in the winter. Some how that did not happen. It is snowing pretty heavily at the moment, and my canning blog just does not seem that interesting. I am sure that once I start planting in spring, I will get back into the mood of blogging. Blogging actually turned out to be fun and my readers really seemed to like it too. Thanks for all the wonderful comments, and I look forward to spring.


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A Canning Jar Story

I don't know what made me think of this story. I also don't suppose it really fits into this blog since it isn't about preserving food, but what the heck. After all canning jars can be used for more than just preserving food.

My Mother (who was born in 1923) said that when she headed out to school each day, her mother would give her a canning jar full of cold soup and some bread and butter.


The teacher would put a large pan of water on the stove that was used to heat the school. She would put all of the kids jars in the pan. By noon, they had hot soup to eat.

Prior to when she told me that, I didn't think of kids at that time even having hot lunch at school

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Home Canned Chili

Having Canned Chili on hand is nice for those times when you want a quick meal. Make a big batch once and you have several meals that are just heat and eat.

Some jars of chili that can be heated in a small crock pot in a dorm room are also a nice gift for a college student who is missing Mom's cooking.

Although tomatoes are somewhat acidic, the overall PH of chili is high enough that it must be processed in a pressure canner.


Fill hot jars leaving 1 inch headspace. Add lids and process in a pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure. Process pints for 75 minutes or quarts for 90 minutes. For altitudes over 1000 feet use 15 pounds pressure.


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