How to clean canning jars

Going to bed after a day of canning is so rewarding, but the job really isn’t done.

Your jars should really be cleaned before heading into storage.  At our house, we have hard water so our jars always have mineral deposits on them.

 

Plus there is always the possibility of food or liquid residue from fluid loss.  I have more of a problem with this when it comes to pressure canning.  I rarely lose fluid while water bath canning.

 

If you don’t take the time to remove your lids and wash the lids and jars your likely to have a moldy mess in no time!

To clean the jars we find it is easiest to fill a sink of soapy water and put on some music.  This might take a while!

We wash the lids first, paying attention to each and every one.  All the ridges are perfect for holding sticky stuff that will get moldy!

 

We air dry the kids for a short time.

 

 

Air drying isn’t enough though.  Our lids usually rust before they dry thoroughly so we towel dry each lid.  The rust makes it much harder to use the screw top next time.  They just don’t spin on as easily after they rust!

 

Next up we wash the jars.  This water isn’t too hot and as long as all your jars were properly sealed this shouldn’t cause any problems.

 

 

The jars are air dried for a bit and then towel dried and after labeling, they are ready to be stored!

 

The feeling of all the sealed jars on the counter after a day of canning is wonderful, but it’s even better when the counters are cleared and the jars are stored away.  Then the job is really complete!

Canning Cabinet Organization

 

The canning cabinet was only semi-organized.  Basically each batch that I canned was put in the cupboard in order, but when I had two batches for tomato sauce, they weren’t necessarily near each other.  This has been driving me crazy because I wasn’t sure exactly what and how much I  had left.  I woke up at 5:30am on Saturday and decided that if I couldn’t sleep I might as well use the time well.

 

Here is everything laid out:

 

This is what fit on our 19 cubic foot freezer.  I completely forgot to count how many cans we have left.

 

This is the “toss” pile.  Some of this will be repurposed, like the cider jelly that never set (BBQ sauce in the future?) some I chucked because they were experiments that did not taste very good (Bread and Butter green beans do NOT taste nearly as good as dilly beans!)

 

 

And here is the overflow:

 

Once arranged and organized I was able to fit everything in one cabinet.  This saves me two whole shelves in the cabinet next to it!

I hope the organization will help us to use everything more efficiently.  I love opening the cabinet door to see all this hard work from the summer

Waste not want not

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!  I decided to spend the long weekend with my family rather than worrying about blog posts and we had a wonderful time.  I can’t believe it is Monday already!

 

I hope everyone who cooked a turkey on Thursday has saved the bones because there is certainly much more food to go around after Thanksgiving has passed.  We spent Thanksgiving at Jon’s parent’s and my parent’s house.  One had an afternoon meal and the other an evening meal so it worked out great!  As everyone was packing up leftovers, I was requesting the carcass.  Everyone thought I was crazy, but I had great ideas in mind!

 

My first task was to strip the carcass of any remaining meat.  There was still A LOT of meat on the bird.  The thighs and back hadn’t even been touched yet!

 

Next up I added the carcass to a large stock pot (I used my 20 quart stock pot).

 

 

Now for extra flavor I added celery, onions and carrots.  The onions I peeled and quartered, the carrots I washed and cut the stem ends off and the celery I washed and cut into thirds.  I did not peel the carrot of remove the leaves from the celery.  That’s where all the flavor is!

 

 

To season the broth I added salt, pepper (whole peppercorns), garlic, basil and parsley (dried from this year’s herb garden).  I also added a sprig of rosemary off of my indoor rosemary bush.

 

Once everything was in the pot I filled it with water and simmered it for 8 hours.  You could certainly cook it for less time, but I was baking 4 batches of cookies and I had plenty of time to spend in the kitchen.

 

Once the broth was finished I strained out the bones veggies and spices and refrigerated the remainder overnight.  The next morning I was easily able to skim off any fat around the top.  I removed the fat and put the broth back on the stove to boil.

 

 

I turned the fat into a little extra gravy.  No need to waste it

 

 

Once the broth was boiling I prepped my pressure canner and got ready to can the broth.

 

 

When all was said and done I ended up with 7 quarts of delicious broth and I made soup with the remaining stock because I didn’t want to run the canner a second time.

I’m very happy that I asked to take the carcass after dinner, while everyone thought I might be crazy (I still might be) I was really being resourceful.  We have taken what would have been garbage and turned it into numerous meals!