My potato patch before round three of mulching - we mulched it just before it started pouring!
Greens patch: Lettuce, chard, beets, turnips, radishes, carrots, and parsnips. 
The hail and tornados missed us! I'm so very grateful for this!!! At present I have no way to protect my tomatoes. John has an idea and we will set it up sometime this week.
This is what we had for dinner and it was delcious. I substituted out Italian flavored Pork Sausage for the turkey sausage and yams for the sweet potatoes which were outrageously over priced ($4.97 a pound~!) The Kale was exceptional in this recipe, it reminds me of a soup I've eaten before down south.
I forgot to put the sherry in the soup - oh well makes it less calories this way ;-) It doesn't look all that appetizing in the pan this way does it? Good thing it tastes much better than it looks.
We didn't have any of the fancy cheese so we used the three cheese pizza cheese on top of the soup - it turned out to be a most excellent choice! That's a slice of toasted whole wheat baguette you seen in my bowl.
A close up.
Six pints of French Onion Soup for future dinners~!
Black bean soup most excellent on a cold snowy day.
John's bowl of black bean soup, over corn bread.
Cranberry Applesauce over corn bread, this is royally delicious!
Black Bean Soup with fresh hot Corn Bread and Cranberry Applesauce.
Soaked black beans that have been drained and rinsed. Partially cooked pork butt roast - it's ok to partially cook as it will be pressure canned for 90 plus minutes under 10 +/- pounds of pressure which yeilds a very tender meat.
I love this old jar it unfortunately had a chip in the rip and I didn't catch that so the jar didn't seal. I guess I have no choice but to take it to my studio and store buttons and beads in it now!
Fill the jars half way with black beans. I soaked the beans for two days, draining and rinsing them once a day.
Add cubed pork to the jars, about a half cups worth more or less.
Got pork?
Top off with pork broth, I had broth left over from roasting the meat, or just warm water.
Black Bean Soup ready to be pressure canned.
We had left over pork so we canned it up in quart jars (made two quarts) and canned it along side the Black Bean Soup. In retrospect I should have put the meat into pint jars. Oh well it'll make excellent bbq pork!
Black bean soup with pork - canned at 10 pounds of pressure for 110 minutes (I forgot to shut it off in time). Canned pork (from a pork butt roast) NOTE: It is better to store your jars with the rings off, one removing them ensures that the jars are indeed sealed properly and two the rings cannot rust to the jars which is a common problem esp. in humid areas.
The remainder of the the leeks and my potatoes ready to be sliced thin.
Leeks and onions ready to be sauted with a little butter.
Some russett potatoes, I used six for this batch of soup.
Slice your potatoes thin. 
Saute leeks and onions with three tablespoons of butter for three minutes - I actually saute them for about six minutes.
Take a taste and see if it needs more salt and pepper, I added more because we like it peppery.
Onions and leeks have been sauting for about three minutes and I've added more salt and pepper.
Chicken broth left over from last nights chicken canning session, I didn't strain the stuff out but no one will know it's in the soup when all is said and done.
Add potatoes to the onions and leeks.
Add salt and pepper to the potato broth mixture.
Cover in chicken broth and cook until potatoes are fork tender, about 20 minutes. 
When potatoes are fork tender blend everything using blender or food processor, I used my kitchenaid stick blender.
Add 2 cups cream or milk slowly to the potato stock.
The cream being blended with the blender stick, the heat is off so the cream doesn't curdle.
Blend cream/milk thoroughly and your ready to serve.
Add a few bacon crumbles to the soup for a bacon flavor - my husbands favorite part!
Well I misread the directions and used only 1/3rd cup beans when in fact I was supposed to fill the jars 1/3rd full with beans. 
1 Cup Chopped Potato - we used Russets
Fresh Chicken Broth made from cooking the chicken hind quarters.
1/4 Cup Cooked Chicken
1 Cup chopped Carrot.
2/3 Cup. Corn
2 T. Chopped Roma Tomatoes
2/3 Cup Chopped Green Beans
A tablespoon of chopped onion is added to each jar. Dh wanted to know where the garlic was???
Each jar gets half chicken bullion cube which is placed in the jar first on the bottom.
We experimented with the layering trying to find one that was visually pleasing.
In the AA and ready to be pressure canned - 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.
