Saved by the Pressure Canner! A deep dive into the freezer produced some pretty darn old chicken, something that might not be so tasty roasted and served up on Sunday. What to do, what to do? I know just what we can do- Can It!
My husband, being the absolutely fantastic cook that he is (I used to be thin) and having a bit of time on his hands (during this slow down in the construction industry), went to our local extension office and had the canner tested. It passed with flying colors!
Into the pot went the chicken, boiling until soft and tender accompanied by celery, onions, bay, salt and pepper. Soon the stock was complete. Next he strained the stock and skimmed any fat off the top.
The chicken was deboned and back into the stock it went with carrots, celery, onion and spices.
Jars were prepared.
The chicken was added.
The Pressure is On!
It's Soup! A basic chicken soup, add noodles, rice, dumplings, you name it, you can add it! As a bonus, he chopped and canned the leftover carrots.
We ended up with 9 pint jars of chicken soup cooked under pressure at around 10 pounds for 75 minutes and 10 pints of carrots canned under 10 pounds of pressure for 25 minutes.
Onto the "grocery" shelves downstairs!
11 comments:
I love canning. It's good therapy and the results are always much appreciated in winter when things are out of season. I don't have a pressure canner - when I did can it was a pretty labor intensive enterprise, but there's such a sense of satisfaction when you line up those Mason jars that it's worth it. The soup looks good!
How cool. I will have to show you how my mother and I can tomato puree at the end of August. It's a family tradition that goes way back to the old country.
Good for you. I have a pressure canner and I think I've used it once. It scares the heck out of me! I do need to break it out again. I guess the more you use it, the less scary it is? Right???
The only thing that scared me is keeping the pressure up to the right setting since ours is manual and you have to adjust the flame, not much, but a little. It wasn't hard but if it falls below the required level you have to start all over. Ours seems pretty safe. If you have a really old one you might want to upgrade it.
Wonderful post!
Good for you - we NEED to post more possitive information about pressure canning and cooking! I LOVE my pressure cooker/canner and would be lost without it! I've canned soup too, only beef barley vegetable. Blessing from Wisconsin!
The funny thing was leaving my poor, ever suffering wife alone with it while I ran down to visit my Mom. Last I saw her she was perched on the edge of a stool, which she'd dragged over purposely for the occasion, staring intently at the pressure gauge, ready to leap into action in the event of even a minor deviation from the norm. I returned 45 minutes later and the poor girl was still there, stiff but resolute in her mission, determined to protect hearth and home from any threat of depressurization.
She's my hero!
Your soup looks delish! I have officially decided that I MUST HAVE a pressure canner. I'm running out of room in the freezer, and I would love to be able to have items like soups and beans ready to pop open whenever I feel like it. Thanks for sharing this with the Homestead Barn Hop this week!
Thanks. We're doing zucchini relish today with our first harvests. I'll be post that later.
Inviting you the Carnival of Home Preserving on my blog every Friday. Hope to see you there. Laura Williams’ Musings
The most recent edition - http://laurawilliamsmusings.blogspot.com/2012/06/carnival-of-home-preserving-13-come.html - open until Thursday 6/7.
Thank you! As soon as we start up I'll join in
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