Little Red Hen Monday

The canning season has hit! 

In some ways I am glad it's here, but in many others I wish it would go away tomorrow...hahaha! I have found some ways to simplify things by using my dehydrator more so that has made quite a difference. Today I have canned 19 jars of apple/peach butter, 11 jars of black bean and corn salsa, and five jars of tomato soup. I have two 5 gal. buckets of canning tomatoes on the way so this was an easy day!

Doesn't this look SOOOOO yummy??

Black bean and corn salsa...all of it came right from my garden, even the black beans!Oh, I know I only have 9 jars in the picture...two more were still in the canner:-)

Apple/Peach butter

Last weekend's food processing was much easier than this weeks...I only had to put up a bushel of corn:-) Easy! LOL! Well, this year it was "easy" so to say. This year I did it WAY different. All I did was shuck it, cut it off the cob, put it in the dehydrator, and whalla! All done!

My bushel of corn fit into a 1/2 gallon jar and one quart jar:-) You want to talk about saving space in both pantry and freezer??? THIS IS IT! Oh, the little bit of dried green beans you see there are about two gallons of beans:-) Those are super easy too!

If you want to use your corn (or beans) simply place the amount you want to use in a bowl, cover with water, let them sit at room temp until they are completely rehydrated, plump, succulent, and ready to cook for eating! The corn tastes just like you sliced it off the cob and the green beans don't have that AWFUL freezer taste or slimy canned taste! They just taste FRESH!

What's really neat about doing things this way is that you preserve the vital nutrients and minerals in the food. Now, some things have to be canned for "survival" food purposes, I get that, but if it can be dried, then by all means, DRY IT!

Since I'm about to wrap up the last bit of canning for today, I have a couple gallons of potatoes that I am going to turn into healthy dehydrated Instant potatoes! STAY TUNED!

Happy Little Red Hen Monday!