Let the fun begin!
Melanie
June 16, 2010
Canning. I won’t lie and say this doesn’t intimidate me one bit. The thing about canning is, if you do it wrong, you can seriously make someone sick, Not a little sick either, I’m talking you don’t want to even talk about it sick. Not only that if you say don’t have perfectly clean utensils, or use the wrong ones, you could end up with purple pickles, or black peaches, or cloudy relish. If that doesn’t turn you off, I bet mold would.
Even though Canning sounds (to me anyways) hard, everyone I’ve pounced on with hundreds of questions waves me off saying once you get the hang of it, it’s nothing to worry about. Though I will worry my little head off and most likely hid behind a corner the first time to avoid having something blow up in my face. One lady laughed at me, saying “Your afraid of an explosion of pasta sauce?”
Ummm. Yes? Aren’t we supposed to be afraid of that? Or is that just me?
Her response, ” Stop your belly aching and do it before you chicken out.” So on I went to buy my pressure canner!
Meet “Bes” She will be my new best friend in my kitchen. Isn’t she just shiny?!
She is my new pressure canner, she’s been owned and used for over twenty years. For one thing, she aged pretty darn good! This is a weighted gauge canner, vs a canner that has a dial gauge on it along with screws and fancy smancy stuff. This is the one I picked after reading many blogs and even the instructions to the canner itself. Biggest reason? This one has been tried and tested throughout generations of familes as not only practical but a sure fire thing that never let’s a family down.
Not saying the new fancy ones are bad, but I can’t work with them. They are commercially built as in, twenty pounds PLUS! That’s not including adding the water, then filled jars for the task. Can you imagine lifting about fifty or sixty something pounds just to make a corn relish? Really? Is it worth breaking your back for? … Ok, Maybe if it was some pretty awesome relish, but still it’s not practical for me.
Let’s get on with Bes. She came with her original booklet which I flew right through and turned inside out. The neatest thing inside was a form where you would write to a Person <— Person, an actual person with a full name. Not, Mrs. Or Ms, or Mr. Just a full name to write to if you had any troubles. Get that?! No customer service or anything, she was the customer service! This lady must have had her hands full, I doubt if I wrote to her now she’d even be working but the thought itself delights me 🙂
Now if I can just figure out which side the rack is supposed to face down in Bes I could start canning….
Anyone else can? Mind sharing with a newbie?
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