Canning Again

I canned 19 pints of corn yesterday and this morning. I love canning and even though it seems like a lot of work when you are cleaning your vegetables or cutting the meat up it is well worth it. It is kinda like childbirth......later you forget about the work and are glad and proud you did it. I don't eat corn anymore due to it being a high carb food. My husband likes it though so I like to have it in the pantry for him. I also can beets and carrots for him and they too, are high carb vegetables. I might grab a serving of one of them from time to time but not too often.

The last week here including yesterday I have been harvesting herbs that I grow. Right now I have sage, parsley (both kinds), oregano, lemon balm and red clover. It smells so good! You wouldn't believe how great it smells compared to store bought. I usually buy my spices and herbs at my local Mennonite market, Pine Ridge in Bainbridge, NY. It is fresher than the grocery stores and sold in bulk so it is less money. But believe me....nothing compares to growing and drying your own.

The time I spend canning our food is some of my favorite time. I feel like every jar is valuable. When we first moved here I already had hundreds of jars from our previous garden. So when my husband was in a very bad work related accident and we had no money coming in at first, we still had lots of food.

The difference between canning your foods and freezing your foods is that your canned foods last indefinitely. If you keep those canned jars clean and dry - especially dry, they will keep for years. I am very familar with freezing foods also, as for years that is what I did in my previous life. I am also very familar with throwing foods out with freezer burn or trying to find something in the freezer that is not there or that became unwrapped. I never have enjoyed my vegetables with ice crystals on them. Know what I mean?

Another aspect of canning is that you never have to worry about losing your food if you have power outages for a period of time. I hear so many people say that if that happens they will just can all the frozen foods! LOL Now come on! If you are in the middle of some disaster or something like that do you really think you will start thawing the food out to can it? Canning is a process that must be done strictly by the rules to make sure nobody gets sick from your canned foods. I don't think if I was in the middle of a major emergency such as hurricane, wild fires, blizzard or whatever that I would want to start canning my food. I can't even be on my computer or do much else in the middle of canning. My foods are canned and ready to eat, no fussing just warm them up. Perfect in emergency times.

As far as tasting good.....believe me that my husband is a very critical eater. He loves my canned foods as do I. We love the canned meats as they make my time in the kitchen when preparing our meals so much easier. Plus you know what you put in each jar. I look for foods without sugar and it's relatives and they are hard to find these days. I look for foods without words I cannot pronounce. Or for foods with ingredients that I know exactly what those ingredients are. Since I follow a low carb eating plan this is a very critical point for me......it is a matter of my health.

Have a great day!

katlupe