My inspiration:

As I learn new skills that seem so normal in my gardening life, such as canning- I always get comments about how I am such an old soul (I have heard that all my life). Let’s be clear, it’s not ‘old soul’ as in I have a deep appreciation for older music, fashion, or style. Nope! It’s ‘old soul’ as in I am a millenial with the mindset of a Great Grandma – haha! I have always gravitated towards a life of penny pinching, gifts are better when they are handmade, DIYing things I see sold at the big famous décor stores, and really don’t feel the need for fancy things as a whole.

For some it may be offensive, but for me- it’s one of the highest compliments! There are some really amazing things we could learn from older generations, and I feel we don’t typically get an appreciation for those things until we reach our 60s! Well I definitely started early, and hope to master some of these skills so that I can have a lifetime of benefiting from them! I mainly mimic things I have seen my Grandma do over the years. (Pictured below holding my youngest child)

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One of the traits she has always had that I strive for is to be less wasteful. I talk about it a lot in my blog – but one

of the specific things I was always impressed with from her was her ability to reduce food waste by using things several times throughout the week. If there are extra leftovers on Monday – she will save them and find a way to incorporate them into a new meal before the end of the week. This way she is using all of it. It seems so small but how many of us actually do this? I definitely don’t. But one day- i’ll be better!

In the meantime – I have decided to reduce my food waste by learning to can my extra foods. Foods from the garden, foods from a big sale, maybe even just foods that I see are going to spoil but I could use in future recipe. They are all fair game and worth saving!

Finding the right pressure canner for me:

It took me a lot longer than I expected to pick a canner. There are just so many options! I even bought one and had to return it for a new onecause it didn’t work on my stove. Here are a couple of things that I learned and concidered when picking out my canner:

  • I did learn that it’s not safe to can in your typical pressure cooker, but you are able to cook in your pressure canner
  • If you have an induction stovetop- be sure your canner is compatable
  • Size: Really think about the sizes of batches that you could be making, if you plan on getting a smaller size you may be limited when doing future batches after you are comfortable
  • Be sure that your canner fits in the space between your stovetop and your hood. Mine is pretty tall and barely clears the space when I am removing the jars.

I ended up with a 23-quart induction compatible Pressure Canner from PRESTO (pictured above). I bought it from Amazon, but I am not currently seeing it listed. I’ll keep checking back and add a link once it is available again.

My first couple of batches:

PSA: Be sure to take time reading the manual of your canner. There are a lot of safety precautions that you need to be taking and do not want to cut corners on. This is for your health and the health of anyone that eats from your batches of canning.

My first batch was an excess of carrots (recipe I used). My husband and I just kept buying them without looking if we had more. We typically don’t use a large amount of carrots so I knew they would go to waste. I decided to just can them in small batches so that we can throw them into pot roast, corned beef and cabbage, or other crock pot dinners. It is really perfect! It was a stressful first round as I read the book over and over again making sure I did each step correctly. I promise this does get better as some of the small steps are just second nature after your 2nd or 3rd batch.

My most recent batch was French Onion soup (recipe I used). I looooove onions. But my husband hates them so we don’t typically use them in cooking. I recently was gifted a LARGE batch of onions and knew the best way for me to use all of them was to do a huge batch of soup, which I completely love for lunches. Can you imagine me crying my way through the process of peeling and cutting all of the onions. I also caused tears from multiple family members who unknowingly walked through the kitchen at a bad time (sorry yall!).

I cannot tell you how thankful I was for the mandolin cutter my mother bought me. (Similar to this one) Without that.. the cutting {and tears} would have lasted all day!

It was easy to can, and now I have French Onion soup for lunch that could last me long into the winter if I don’t eat them all in the next month :).

I am going to keep gaining experience from canning and writing down tips as I go. I definitely plan to report back!