November 25, 2007 
Earlier this year I taught myself how to can. I made lots of Eden’s Zucchini Pickles, (waaaay to) sour pickles, stewed tomatoes, kosher pickles, and spaghetti sauce. I tried to get both a bath canner and a pressure canner off Freecycle a number of times over the summer but was unsuccessful. Beverly was nice enough to give me her bath canner in order to make this process easier (and cheaper).Today I splurged and bought a pressure canner so I can can soups and stews. Freezing them is all well and great (and will take up space in the freezer chest) but it’s hard to give away frozen soup to people. Canning them makes it so much simpler as far as gift giving goes.
It’ll take a week or so for my handy dandy new pressure canner to come in. I’m very excited!
Congrats on the canner! Let me know how you like using it.
FM: I have turkey soup in the freezer waiting for the pressure canner to come in. I froze the turkey soup in the pot I made it in because I didn’t have enough containers to freeze individual bowls of it.
Later this week I’ll be canning up some apple pie filling and some spaghetti sauce. It’ll be a busy week!
I freeze stuff now, but it sure does take up a lot of room! And we have a mini sized big fridge. I have to check out this freecycle place. Sounds like a great resource.
Erikka: Freecycle is the bomb! It’s hit or miss though: either you get what you want or you don’t. I’ve been trying to get snowshoes for three years now!