In the Kitchen with Linda

I’m going to start doing this a little different this week. I’m going to share my kitchens adventures for the past week, and this weeks menu in one post.

I’ve been on a roll with canning the last couple of weeks. I wanted to get some beans canned up. Since beans take so long to cook, canning them is a real time saver.

On Tuesday, I canned four quarts of kidney beans and two quarts of pinto beans.

On Wednesday, I got an earlier start, so I was able to run two loads through the pressure canner. I canned 7 quarts of mixed beans, pinto, kidney, great northern, and lima beans. These will make a easy, delicious bean soup.  A quart of beans, a can of diced tomatoes, some seasonings. Homemade can’t get any easier than that!  This is the mixed beans before they went in the canner.

 

In this picture, the mixed beans are on the left, along with the rest of the beans I canned that day. One quart of kidney beans, 3 pints of lima beans, and 4 pints of great northern beans.

While I was canning beans this week, I experienced a first. I broke 5 quart jars while filling them. I was so disappointed. They only thing I could figure out was that the water had stopped boiling, and the jars were fresh from the oven. The water must not have been hot enough.

On Thursday, I made vegetable stock from vegetables I had in the freezer. I had some peas, both the kind with the pod and the kind without, and some asparagus that came from my mother in laws freezer along with some frozen yellow squash from our garden last year. I  added a couple of fresh onions and boiled for a few hours. I then strained it through several layers of cheesecloth, then canned it. I canned eight pints. I also have a quart jar and a pint jar in the fridge to use this week. I remembered that I didn’t take a picture after I had put the jars in the cabinet. So I sat on the floor to take a picture. lol It seemed easier than taking the jars back out. lol You can see some of the chicken broth from last weeks canning on the bottom shelf.

Then I ran out of canning lids! The store didn’t have any lids when we went grocery shopping, so I’m going to have to order some online. I have some garbanzo beans to can! And lots more chicken broth, I hope.

Saturday night, we had our oldest daughter and her husband over for dinner. I made cupcakes to celebrate her 25th birthday. It’s always nice when they come over to visit. The cupcakes just made it sweeter. lol

 

Now…. to answer the question that I get asked about a hundred times a day……….

What’s For Dinner?

 

Saturday – Sabbath- Make ahead meals- – Tacos with all fixings, including homemade taco sauce, sugar snap peas

Sunday – soup & sandwich day – Leftovers

Monday – chicken – Baked chicken, rice, green beans

Tuesday – pizza/pasta – Wild Game Dinner at church, yuck, lol, I’ll eat whatever I can find here, lol

Wednesday – super simple – Bean Soup and homemade bread

Thursday – beef – Crockpot deer, potatoes, onions and carrots

Friday – Sabbath Dinner – Chicken, stuffing, corn on the cob