Swine Flu Update

Well I'm recovering, finally, from the swine man swamp flu!  I still have a cough hanging on.  The canning came to a near screaching halt, John took 4 days off from work but the reality is 1. I'm more organized than he is, which isn't saying much btw, and 2. there was way more that needed canning than one person could do alone!  He did get a dozen or so pints of pear butter put up and a dozen or so quarts of tomatoes canned.  I'm feeling better but not by much, a simple drive across town  and back still wears me out and I need a nap just to recover from the experience.  To make matters worse I have a show coming up this weekend and I"m no where near being ready for the event.  More later from the kitchen!!!

French Onion Soup

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~!

Canned Butter

I used the recipe that was in backwoods home magazine, the one written by Jackie Clay, and the butter turned out wonderful! I used unsalted sweetened butter for my first batch, I will add that it only made 9 half pints and I used three pounds of butter, I should have come up with at least 10 half pints.

Pint and a Half Canning Jars

Seriously I"m not kidding pints and a half! I have eleven of them in the pressure canner right now! My mother had hundreds of them and if I make it back to Illinois, if the price of gas goes down enough so I can make the trip, then I'll be brining them back with me.

Here's the probelm though, every canning books gives times for pints and quarts, but not pints and a half (which lie in between a pint and a quart). I have a headache!