Canning Kitchen

My kitchen is in perpetual canning mode right now. My boiling water bath is almost always on the stove top, ready to be heated up and go. I have jars ready and waiting. My box of rings is sitting in the corner, stacks of lids on the shelf. Sugar and vinegar are stocked up. Various spices, herbs and other miscellaneous things are at the ready.

It's the season of the canning kitchen. It keeps me very busy and it keeps me from doing other things, like posting here daily. Sometimes, after canning, laundry, housekeeping and kids I just don't have the energy to sit down and write something. But I'm trying to be better about that too :)

I never know when I'm going to get a great deal on produce, or when my garden is going to decide to have 15 lbs of banana peppers ripe all at once. I never know when my favorite farm stand (owned and operated by my Grandma and Uncle) will call and say they have _______ and do I want it?

Pretty hard to pass up free/cheap food if you ask me.

So for the summer months, we live around my canning supplies. That's ok with me, it means things are getting done.

Today, I canned peaches. I put up 12 quarts of sliced peaches (we'll probably can that many 3 or 4 more times if I can get my hands on the peaches) and sliced up enough for 2 batches of jam. Peaches are so delicate that you want to get them in and put up as fast as possible, or you are going to end up cutting away a lot of bruising and bad spots. That's just wasteful!

I'm slowly filling up my pantry....and cabinet space....and extra closet space....and under bed space. Filling our home to the brim with nature's bounty feel sooooo goood. It feels secure. It feels like a savings account, actually. I'm putting it by to have later, kind of like you might do with extra money. I never thought about it like that until just this very minute!

What are you putting in your food savings account? I'd love to hear!