I’m up past my bedtime canning green beans, and that’s gotten me thinking about why I do it. Here are my top five reasons:
1. It makes winter suppers easy. Some January afternoon when it’s freezing cold outside, I won’t have to run to the store; I’ll just pull a few cans out of the [...]
Recently, while working on a magazine article about canning vegetables, I interviewed a woman named Deborah Lewis from Muncie, Indiana, who’s been growing vegetables and canning them for years. When I asked her what she likes most about canning, she said: “I love how canning requires you to slow down; you just can’t be in [...]
You can only eat so many cucumbers. With the rest, make pickles!
Summer is winding down but in many places, there are still fresh cucumbers to be had. If you’ve never pickled before, I promise it’s easier than it sounds. And you’ll never buy a jar of pickles at the grocery store that will [...]
The summer vegetable harvest is slowing down, and the days without fresh squash, tomatoes, and beans straight from the garden are getting closer. But with just a little effort, you can preserve some of summer’s bounty and eat it all year long. Canning and pickling may seem daunting, but anybody can use a freezer (open [...]
If you use pressure canning to preserve fruits and vegetables, don’t forget to take your canner top in for an annual checkup before you start using it this year. Think of it as a pap smear for canners — nobody wants to do it, but it could save your life. Seriously.
If your pressure canner [...]
