The fruits of my Labor (day)

My canned food pantry is nearly filled back up, and boy does it look pretty!  Ok maybe I’m biased.

Last year I canned tomatoes, peaches and some pickles with a water bath canner.

This year I decided that I would be a little more ambitious and invested in a pressure canner to be able to can low-acid foods safely.  I canned 35 pounds of hatch green chiles (carried home from Whole Foods very slowly on poor Robert’s rack),  15 quarts of tomatoes (so far),  4 pints of spicy pickled green beans and 8 pints of cooked heirloom beans. Canning tomatoes is much easier using the pressure canner because you don't have to hot pack (cook the tomatoes first). 

 I use a lot of cooked beans,  but I often don’t use a whole pound batch at once,  and don’t have the freezer space in my tiny fridge for the rest.   I’m excited about being able to can my own, adding flavors and spices and then pull them off the shelf whenever I need 2 cups of chickpeas…