My Adventures in Canning Chickens

Here is a pic of my lovely new Presto Pressure Canner.


Here is a picture of the finished product, canned chicken meat:


How I got there? Ah you did have to ask, didn't you?

Well, I had these three kosher chicken in the freezer. Ralph's has been selling them frozen, so I've been picking one up when I think about it. We ran out of room in the freezer for my chocolate ice cream, and this is the Wrong Time of the Month for that crap.

So on Tuesday morning, I took them out and thawed them. (I DO have priorities, yah know.) On Tuesday in the late afternoon, I realized that the big meat pans were Somewhere in a box. My boxes of "stuff" are on the patio and in the garage. So, I located the two pans. Procrastinated. Surfed the Net. Finally boiled the chickens. It was 11PM when they were done. Cooled 'em and stuck 'em in the fridge.

Today was C-day. Cleaned and assembled the new pressure cooker. Picked the chicken off the bones and put back in the fridge. Made a big vat of broth from turnips, carrots, onions, celery, garlic, salt, bay leaves, parsnips and pepper.

Filled the pint jars with meat. Ladled the hot broth over them, cleaned off the rims and put on the caps.

Got the water boiling in the canner. Put the jars in the canner and tightened the lid. Got the whole thing boiling without the pressure controller on the pan, like the instruction manual said to do. Put the controller on, turned down the heat, adjusted in until the pressure was 11 psi. All good. Book said to keep on the pressure for 75 minutes. Cool.

Thirty minutes into processing time, I am in the living room eating lunch and I hear a "pop". I look up and streamy water is squirting straight up from the canner to the ceiling. Yeah, the overpressure plug blew. So, I got the canner turned off, the pressure released and the water mopped up. (BTW - a Swiffer mop with a towel works wonders to clean a ceiling. Darn it was filthy!)

The book, of course, said that you need a new plug. Try finding one in California. I ordered three on line. They'll be here sometime before my next birthday, I'm sure.

So, I go next door to talk to the neighbor, Lou. Lou is about 87 or so. He says to just try putting the plug back in and see if it holds the pressure. Dang, someone needs to tell Tom Dashle that old people are useful.

And it worked. Lou said it was probably just not seated correctly and blew out because of theimproper seal. So I finished up and can now do the other stuff I was planning before I cleaned the ceiling.

And I got out to yoga class at 6pm, too. Amazing.

Garden Pictures from June 16 ~ Updated today

These pictures have been updated so you can see the ripe cherry tomatoes and blueberries, which we will be enjoying on Friday night for Sabbath dinner.

I wanted to post the pics of the micro-irrigation system. These are okay pictures, but the garden is actually looking more filled in just in the past two week. If you look closely, you can see the hoses from the main lines for the drip irrigation system I installed.

We have eaten all the first two crops of lettuce, we're eating strawberries (a few) every week, snow peas every week and are awaiting our very first SLO tomatoes! There are 3 that just started turning colors - it won't be long now!

First, let's start with the fruits:

Here are the boysenberries:


A close-up of one of the boysenberry plants:


Pic of the squash and beans (since entirely eaten by the sowbug/roly polies:


Here are the watermelons along the fence:


And the tomatoes next to them:




Now, we'll scoot over to the blueberry bushes, from which Dr. Happy and I had our first nibbles last weekend:








Here's the view of the longer, fatter part of the garden:


Close-up of the strawberries on the right:



The cherry tomatoes:





The big tomatoes:


I think you can see the tomato peeking out:


Green onions and spinach, not the best growing part of the garden. I may need to add some more soil to this part:



Cantaloupes and honey dew melons flowering:


Hot peppers and green peppers:


Brussel sprouts sprouting:



Midget corn:


Peas and beans:


Peas on the end:


Moving over to the flower box that you can't see, here are herbs IN the flower box.
Cilantro:


Parsley:


Green onions:


Dill:


Basil:


Gotta go take the chickens off the stove to cook so I can pick off the meat and turn it into soup. I received the pressure canner I ordered, so I will be using it for the first time to turn those chickens into soup for the winter. I am so glad I finally cooked them, they were taking up so much space in the freezer!

More pictures when I get to them...