My Canning Journey 1 Year Later

A year ago today I started my canning journey like most research I would do, by asking Facebook.

I'm so glad that whatever/whoever peeked my interest in this did. Now I have some home cooked shelf stable meals on our pantry shelves for days when we don't feel like cooking or for my husband to have meals on the road.

What I've learned over this past year

Canning definitely has a learning curve. There's pressure canning, which many confuse with pressure cooking, and there's water-bath canning.

The difference between which one you do is basically if you're canning meat or acidic foods (now this is to my understanding). I tend to pressure can.

You don't have to use those big stove top canners you see everyone use. Most of the canners I see use the All American or Presto stove canners. I initially purchased a Presto but I have a glass top and from my research, there's been reports of people's stovetops breaking due from the weight of those canners. Returned to the store! Luckily they make electric canners! Yes think Instant pot on steroids lol. It's great for smaller batches and much easier to use for a newbie like myself vs the traditional canners.

You have to know your altitude. No matter which canner you use, you have a weight that is used and the size depends on your altitude.

You can can almost everything. I've canned raw pack chicken (saves me from buying canned chicken breast), beef stew, individual roasts, sweet potatoes and homemade beenie weenies. I even can leftovers vs freezing them like chili and certain soups.

One of the biggest things I've learned that is that you don't have wait til you have a garden to start canning. I thought I had to do it all to get started and I love that I could start where I was and not overwhelm myself trying to learn this and gardening. I do hope to get into gardening next year (fingers crossed).

Learned a New Skill

Proud of myself for learning a new skill. I learned that my granny use to can, never knew that, and my father in law did a little canning. You or I didn't see many people my age canning. I thought it was something they did "back in the day" when reality is there's tons of people who can; some my age, older than and younger than me.

I think it's definitely a skill we need to have in our skill set.

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