Please Pass The Butter…

Thinking of learning to put up some butter in the pantry? If you are interested in learning how to do just that, come and spend a fun evening at Sherry Harmon's home on Thursday, March 12th. All you need to bring is a stick of butter, the salted kind is best, and we will have a jar for you. You will go home with a jar of butter for your pantry shelf, and the information to do more.

We will also be demonstrating how to vacuum seal in Kerr/Mason or Ball jars for things like brown sugar, chocolate chips, nuts, and lots of other items that you would like to keep longer on your shelf. If you have a jar, a lid and band, and something you would like to vacuum seal, just bring it with you and we can show you how. Come on March 12th and learn more about how to “Be Prepared”. Class will start at 7:00 p.m., there will be no nursery. 

Look for sign-ups in Relief Society, Primary and Y.W. or call Sherry or Emily to put your name on the list.

Chicken Into Jars…

This was pretty fun. Leigh came over yesterday for a personal canning class and we had a blast. Well, okay, we had the most fun you can have while you wait 90 minutes for your chicken to process in a pressure canner. Here are some pictures of Leigh getting her chicken into jars and then the processed jars (still boiling) after coming out of the canner. We also did some pinto beans as the processing time is the same for chicken, and I wanted to fill the canner. Wide mouth jars are the easiest to pack meat in. I like regular mouth jars for small stuff like beans. You don't have to get your hand in the jar to pack stuff like that. It takes about 2 pounds of chicken for a quart jar and the canner will hold 7 quarts at a time. Pints hold about a pound, and again the wide mouth is best. The canner holds 8 pints at a time. If you watch the sales, you can save a lot on your meat purchase, even freeze it to do another day if you are busy with other things that week. I bought 55 pounds of chicken to do before Christmas, and I just barely got it all into jars. I saved over $100.00, so feel pretty good about that. If you just want to do a little at a time, that's fine too. It all works. The directions for doing chicken are in the post after this. I would love to do this for anyone interested, so don't be intimidated by canning food and come on over to learn. I can all the time, and even though some of my kids think I'm sick, I really enjoy it. They like to eat the food well enough. I have canned applesauce, pie apples, pinto beans, white (northern) beans, chicken, top sirloin, green chile, ground beef, tomato mix, tomatoes, peaches, pears, BBQ sauce, vegetable beef soup, and salsa. I am getting ready to do carrots, ham and maybe some green beans. If I haven't done what you want to can, I'll find out how to so you can do it.

After the chicken is in the canner, we had time to visit, play solitaire, and we had fun. I enjoyed getting to know Leigh better. She is the bomb!

Bottling Chicken

If you have a chance to attend a canning class at Shar’s Kitchen, you should go and learn some of the tips and tricks. She charges a ten dollar fee, but you will sample lots of amazing food. It’s always good to attend with questions about the things you want to do. Even if the teacher may not know, someone in the class will have an answer or a source. Classes are always fun.

I use boneless, skinless chicken breasts to get the most meat into the jar. Everyone likes white meat, so I don’t bother canning anything but breast meat, but you can bottle the whole chicken if you want.

Prepare jars.
I like to rinse off the chicken in cool water and I cut the breasts into long strips, maybe 3 strips per breast. Fit raw chicken into jars leaving 1 inch headspace.
DO NOT PRECOOK • DO NOT ADD LIQUID
Add 1 teaspoon salt to each quart, 1/2 teaspoon to pints.
Salt is optional, but I strongly recommend it.

Close jars with prepared lids and bands according to manufacturer's directions.

Process in a Pressure Canner…
Exhaust air from canner following manufacturer’s directions.
Once weight is in place, bring to 15 lbs. pressure.
Maintain pressure for 75 minutes for pints, 90 minutes for quarts.
When time has been reached, remove from heat and allow pressure to fall on it’s own. When there is zero pressure, remove weight. Carefully lift off canner lid and lift jars onto a towel on flat counter and allow to cool. Jars should “ping” and should not be disturbed for at least 12 hours. Remove bands to clean jars and replace if you want. Keep rotated as meat should not be kept much over a year.

Enjoy in many, many recipes.