Crazy Dazes
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Favorite meals to can?
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Favorite meals to can?
What’s your favorite meal in a jar? Or your favorite ingredient to can? For me I love having canned ground beef on the shelf. The convenience of not having to remember to pull meat out of the freezer (or use the stuff in the fridge before it expires) is huge. I’ve been scratch cooking on a regular basis since about March of 2020 and canning very occasionally since Jan of 2021. I’d like to know what everyone else is canning ahead of time for shelf stable homemade meals.
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100 Replies
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We can chicken. When we make our trip to Sams (2x’s a month) we pick up 5 rotisserie chickens at 4.79 each. We bring it home debone it and can the meat. We the use all the bones plus celery, carrots, onions and garlic to make stock and then we use that stock for the canned chicken. What ever stock is left over we can that as well. ❤️
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I do something similar, but then I also use the bones in the end to make bone meal for the garden. Saves a ton of money.
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Bone meal homemade. Hmmm thanks for mentioning this. I’ll go research this. 👍
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Absolutely save those bones for making bone meal. If any of you or your husbands dispatch animals, save their blood and bake it to make blood meal, too. Especially wild game like deer or your chickens, rabbits. I usually cook mine over an open fire outside so I don’t have that smell in the house.
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😍 Great ideas!
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How long do you process the chicken? It sounds very good.
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We love canning chicken! We started canning pork as well.
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How long should you pressure can cooked chicken?
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I love to can meat also. My favorite meats to can are pork butt and pineapple chicken. I can just add BBQ sauce to the canned pork butt for pulled pork. The pineapple chicken is prepared with rice to make a great meal. I use the juice from this to make the rice and sometimes add more pineapple tidbits with it. Both really make super easy meals.
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Good morning Faithful Acre. Do you have a recipe for your pineapple chicken? It sounds really good. Also, do you can the rice? I heard somewhere that we aren’t supposed to can grains, but I’m. not sure if my information is accurate.
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Hawaiian Chicken
2 lbs. boneless chicken
1 can pineapple chunks
1 cup pineapple juice (from the pineapple can) – add water or apple or orange juice if a bit short
⅔ cup sweet peppers (different colors for a bit of color) cut into pieces
½ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup soy sauce
1 tsp ginger
optional – 2 chopped green onions
Canning: (LEAVE 1 inch headspace!)
1. Cut up the chicken into 1 inch squares and distribute between 5-6 pint jars.
2. Divide the pineapple chunks between the jars and also
the sweet pepper chunks and any onions.
3. Mix the remaining ingredients and divide between the jars.
4. Cover solid ingredients with chicken broth as needed, leaving 1 inch headspace.
5. Process at 10 lbs pressure (or local pressure requirement) for 70 minutes or as you would
regular chicken in a pressure canner.
When opening canned recipe, simply heat and serve over rice.
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Thank you so much!!!
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That looks yummy!
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Thanks. Just turned off the canner full of Asian Chicken, for fried rice meals. Will try the pineapple chicken soon! Sounds yummy!
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Please share your recipe for the Asian Chicken, if you’re willing and have time! TIA!!!
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Sorry I see that request was for the asian chicken 🙁 but I think I did figure out the document part. New stuff, ahhhh…
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That recipe should be in the document area so we can grab a copy when we are ready to do it! Great looking recipe, and I would also do that with rabbit as it is lean also.
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@Hebrews12v2 help me find the Document Area, I can’t find it and would love to!! TIA!!!!!!
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This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by Stitchinglady.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by
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Please, how do we find the documents area? I’m sure it’s a treasure trove. Thanks!
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YUMMMM! Thank you so much for sharing!
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Glad you liked it!
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I canned nine pints this week. It’s great! Thank you for sharing this recipe. I also had some fresh pineapples, so I canned them in 1/2 pints using the same recipe. Who knows if times get hard we might have pineapple squirrel or rabbit! Lol
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That sounds wonderful
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Thank you. I have been looking for a tried and true recipe.
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Thanks for the recipe! That sounds delicious! I’m going to try it this week and if they like it, I’ll can some next time!
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Do you cook your pork butt before you can it, or do you raw pack it?
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I just bought 2 pork butts on sale. They have a good deal of fat on them. From my limited experience canning meats so far, it has been recommended to trim off as much fat as possible & then cube, then can with only a tiny bit of water + salt – as the meats create a good deal of their own liquid. What would your advice be for cooking/canning my 2 pork butts??? Thank you in advance!! I look forward to hearing what people recommend for me to do with this meat.
When my son invites us over to partake of his freshly smoked pork butt – it is such a feast to be sure. He thinks canning it would just turn out all mushy?? I am not sure what to do. I don’t want to use the freezer space for this, but would rather can my meats. What do you all think? 😕 Blessings!
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You can cut it up into a bit larger than bite size chunks and pressure can it raw, adding 1/2 teaspoon of salt to a pint or 1 teaspoon of salt to a qt (salt isn’t required but it does enhance the flavor of the meat). Know that if you can meat raw it will stick together in the jar! We often season/oven roast or cook it on our outdoor rotisserie meat and then cube/can it WITHOUT adding liquid (our choice). Another thing that we do is can beef or pork chunks (usually pork loin ’cause it’s cheaper here) with Beef Better Than Bullion and then when we want stroganoff we open a jar, heat the meat and add it to cooked noodles w/sour cream. We have canned smoked pork butt that my son smokes but we get the meat before he adds bbq sauce to it ’cause we’ve found that the bbq sauce scorches when it’s in the canner for the required amount of time for meat. We just add the sauce/heat before serving.
We LOVE having canned meat on the shelf and keeping freezer space available for when we get a great deal on something and don’t have time to can it right away!! ENJOY canning everything that you can get your hands on!! 🙂
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Thank you so much for all this helpful information!!! Where do you get you “Beef Better Than Bullion” – I have never hear of this before! Sounds great!! 😊
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Not sure if this has already been answered since it is an older post. I find “Better than Boullion” at Walmart or other groceries in the regular Boullion section.
I have also found big jars of powdered boullion in the ethnic Spanish food section. I believe it is either Knox or Knor brand and comes in beef, chicken, & tomato flavors. Easy to mix to make a broth and tastes pretty good. I like using the tomato (to save my homemade dehydrated ground tomato powder). I have added tomato Boullion instead of plain water to some of my ground beef that will be used for spaghetti sauce or other recipes needing tomatoes.
GOYA brand (in the Spanish Ethnic section has a PORK seasoning that is FABULOUS to use with cooked pork you are canning instead of plain water. I also use it to vacuum seal with my dry beans to have some kind of flavoring if it gets to the point you don’t have any PORK to use in hard times coming. Have also used it when I stir-fry greens. That has become my fav & QUICK way to cook greens instead of cooking them what seems like forever on top of the stove. I chop my greens into small pieces, melt some butter in a big fry pan, add some minced garlic (or fresh garlic) and onions & let that sautee’ til the onions are translucent. Then I pile on the greens. The pan will be almost overflowing but keep stirring and folding them over in the pan and in no time they will all be wilted. I then add a packet or two of the Goya Pork seasoning with some water, put the lid on (to kind of steam the greens some) and in minutes you will have the best full flavored, tender greens ever! The only thing I miss doing it this way (to save time) is the pot liquor. But when in a hurry, I will sacrifice my greens pot liquor & cornbread.
I also dehydrate LOTS of greens and the above recipe will also work to stir-fry your dehydrated greens. Just have to add a little extra water to help rehydrate them a bit more since they are dehydrated.
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I’ve just recently started to dive into this realm. My first ever full meal-in-jar was chili. I ran across an amazing sale on ground hamburger and learned some things – mainly that we don’t like ground beef cooked plain and canned. Then I tried taco seasoning for that next sale I found, and that was ok but limited my use. This last I cooked up with peppers, onions, and garlic and while I love it I made the mistake of using pint jars instead of quart. Heh. I’ve also made some chili verde with pork which had been a big winner. Now I have like 4 different meats in the freezer to thaw and can in different ways. The seal on my canner gave out so I had to freeze the meat while a replacement seal was located – now I have to try and remember what the plans were… heh
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I can ground chuck in pints and I use bullion cube to make a broth and use that instead of water in jar, most things I use ground beef for requires 1 pound of ground beef (for 2 people 1 meal) at the price of meat now you don’t want to waste any. I can add that pint to a jar of spaghetti sauce, a hamburger helper type meal, make sloppy joes, add the meat to a can of mushroom soup and serve over toast. If you have more than 2 people to cook for you might want to can in Quarts. A pint will hold about a pound (before cooking) of ground hamburger, so a quart holds about 2 pounds so can for what you need.
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That’s a great perspective. I only cook for 2, so this is perfect advise. Thank you!
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I find the pints for meats is good. My husband would eat a lot more if I served it – but I think it is important to stretch the volume of meat in the new meals I am making. The prices are outrageous & only going to get worse. The volume in the pints also encourages me to utilize more of the veggies I have on hand or should plan to have & use. A Win/Win situation!! Thank you all for sharing your discoveries & thoughts. Sounds like we are all on the same quest to be as wise as we can be in all this. I am so encouraged to see so many responding & seeking to learn & apply the suggestions of others who have tried or currently utilize these skills. 🌻
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Greetings – I have canned a number of veggies & next am wanting to can ground beef & then chicken. I am looking for suggestions as to what to cook with the ground beef? I have heard to can in pints & then others say qts. What might be the advantages of each other than volume? Then the same questions for further help planning the chicken. If rotisserie chicken is used – by the time needed for the canning process to complete, won’t the chicken texture be totally mushy? Thank you all for help on this! 😋
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Good evening Patriot-Forever, the size of your canning jar depends on how many people you’ll be feeding. Since it is just my husband and I, I use pint size, but keeping in mind that if we have family over for dinner I can always open two pint jars.
When I cook plain chicken, I use bouillon and salt and pepper. I mainly cook soup or chicken stew so the vegetables add flavor and bulk. When I cook beef I am heavy on the bouillon and then add pepper.
Try to mentally go through your favorite meals and make larger quantities and can them (if all the ingredients are safe to can).
I hope with helps a little.
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Thank you so much – Great ideas. Appreciate you sharing!! Can’t wait to try this out! Blessings to you!🌻
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Since there are only 2 of us at home now we can our meats primarily in pints, which is still generally a pound of meat. We cook/drain the ground beef without seasoning so we can flavor it for the meal when we use the canned ground beef, then pack it into pint jars and pressure can for 75 minutes. It’s great to have on the shelf to help make quick meals (tacos, hamburger potato casserole, ground beef stroganoff, enchiladas, add to chili, etc). I think that you’ll truly enjoy having canned ground beef on the shelf!!
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Hi- I can boneless chicken breast raw pack with a little chicken stock. They are great for chicken salads, but just a tip I prefer wide mouth jars.
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I have tried several recipes over the years, and I have discovered the family prefers plain (with maybe salt) meat canned, and then I add flavours later. I find a lot of seasonings go bitter when they are pressure canned (I find the same with crockpot cooking). So now we can plain beef, plain chicken and plain lamb.
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I do this as well. It leaves me with options. Chicken, beef, pork raw pack. Hamburger partially cooked with the fat/liquid.
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Good morning, I can chicken, pork (chunk and ground), beef (chunks and ground), turkey and beans. My husband calls it farm fresh fast food. Canning these things make me feel extremely satisfied! I cleaned out our freezer last fall and canned everything in it. When pork butts and shoulder on sale I bought and canned all I could. I feel very fulfilled doing all the canning I can. God bless y’all and have a blessed day!❤️
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Interesting that you said you cleaned out your freezer & canned everything you could. My husband just suggested I do that too! WOW! I feel like I need to rethink how to go about dealing with the supply of meat. Start with what I already have on hand & then go from there! 🌻
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I had 3 freezers I cleaned out & canned this past spring. I had lost a freezer of meat that had mistakenly gotten unplugged while cleaning the utility room. MAJOR WAKE-UP CALL for me to lose ALL that meat, especially at today’s prices. I had a lot of veggies & meats of which some I canned alone and some I combined to make soups to have for quick meals. I added some gnocchi (potato dumplings-Dollar Tree $1.25 a pack). I cut the gnocchi into small pieces (usually quartered them) and added to the soup. WHAT A FABULOUS, DELICIOUS change to just plain soup!! I pressure canned the leftover 8 quarts and so far, we’ve eaten two jars and no ill side effects.
When it comes to cleaning your freezer of meats, go ahead and can up what you have frozen. Thaw out what you feel you can fit in your canner. When it is thawed & you are working on packing the jars, set out some more meat to thaw (or keep it TOTALLY iced down in a cooler but no more than you can get canned that day). If you find sales on meats (like I recently found leg quarters for 58 cents a lb & got 100 lbs at that fab price), can up the fresh then get back to what is frozen. It took me 2 weeks to clear out my 3 freezers of meat, veggies & fruits. BUT I was thawing & canning almost constantly. I have 2 pressure canners so I tried to start them both at the same time so they would finish at the same time. That way I could grab a cat nap during the cool-down session. It was work but now my food is shelf stable and I don’t have to worry about losing any more food from whatever reason may occur…hurricane, power/grid down or whatever. Now I just keep a few meat or veggie items in the freezer to use when I have the time to cook a meal instead of dipping into my canned goods.
Once you get the freezers emptied, you won’t have to worry about having time to can any future bulk purchases of meat and your pantry will be very well stocked with shelf stable foods! WIN WIN situation! -
Went to my freezer today to try to fit in a good buy and a package of chicken breast fell out. Noticed it was starting to freezer burn so I took out another full pkg and canned it. Rotation room is important. Been canning meat on sale and also canning from the freezer. We are trying a jar of the different meal starters after I can something new, so I can do more if we like it.
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Thank you for sharing! How did you process your frozen fruit?
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The fruit that I had frozen were figs, peaches, pears, mango, blackberries, blueberries, huckleberries, scuppernongs & elderberries. I dehydrated the elderberries & some of the blueberries & huckleberries. I will make elderberry syrup & tinctures for cold/flu season with the dehydrated berries. I will use the blueberries & huckleberries when making muffins. Then I made some of the fruit with light syrup & jam with the rest of the fruits which were water bath canned. I usually save my fruits to can in the winter months as they all seem to be ready for harvest about the same time or back to back every year. It helps to warm the house by doing all that water bath canning in the cooler months. I thawed and smashed up the scuppernongs & made scuppernong champagne. Even tho I don’t drink, I have the champagne bottled up (gets much better as it ages) to give as gifts or to have for bartering purposes when SHTF.
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For ground beef – I cook the beef enough to keep it separated in the jar. (Not raw packed-different thoughts out there on raw/cook methods). The beef cooks the rest of the way during canning. Mine comes out with a light fat film on top. I also have added a bullion cube and/or onion & green pepper for flavor. To get comfortable, I recommend trying at least a jar right away. I’ve taste tested in sauces – without telling anyone it was canned meat. Typically no one notices any difference from fresh on the ground beef, stew beef, or venison. We are using more fresh right now as I’m working on our long term storage.
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Thanks for sharing how you can your meats! This is very helpful! 🌻
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A fav I’ve been canning lately is Beef and Chicken Fajitas. I will layer either beef or chicken (raw packed) in the bottom of jar then add julienne sliced bell pepper & onions. I have added Fajita seasoning to each and have not noticed any odd/off-tastes. I’ve also canned some without the seasoning added in case I want to use in other recipes.
I’ve also roasted whole turkeys in a roaster with added onions & celery (added extra water for more broth). Debone turkey, & either shred or chunk it up & put in jars, add broth with the added veggies. For a quick meal just make your stuffing and add a jar of the canned turkey with all the veggies and have a turkey/stuffing casserole. I did some in both pints & quarts to have for different size casseroles depending on how many people will be eating.I also can chili with beans. We love eating chili, even sometimes in the summertime. One of our newest fav’s is to make some spaghetti noodles and put the heated chili on top. Then top with a dollop of sour cream, add some chopped green onions (or sweet onion of choice) & cover with shredded cheese. We call it Chili-Spaghet and is a wonderful way to change up your meals from either plain chili or spaghetti with meat sauce.
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Fabulous ideas!! Thanks so much for sharing!!! The chili spaghetti will be one to try for sure – Also cooking up the turkey is already on my list to do. I really think we will appreciate having these ready to put together for meals. By the end on the day, I really have trouble with the energy & motivation to cook a lot, yet I really do love to cook – just not after I have had a full day of other activities. I need more simplicity at this point. Being able to schedule a day for cooking or roasting something then having some volume of meat to can seems to make more sense to me & would be a better use of my time. I believe I would really enjoy this & have some special ready meats to put together simple, quicker meals together at the end of a busy day!!! My husband will be happy!! I will be too! 😀
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I will have to remember to try canning the whole fajita mix. I just started canning peppers and onions for fajitas together in order to use those smaller onions that won’t store well. The meat in there too is a great idea.
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Looks like I’ll be canning fajitas in the future… yum! Thank you for the idea.
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It has been a lifesaver for me to have the fajitas in a jar. There are many days I am so busy with chores or projects around the homestead I am mentally & physically exhausted & don’t have the time or energy to cook a meal. You kind of get tired of soup & sandwiches when you’ve already had them a couple of nights already so I decided to try canning the fajita fixings that would be just as easy to fix as soup/sandwiches. I also keep flour tortilla’s in the freezer pkg’d for me & my husband’s meals. I usually vacuum seal them to help keep them more fresh tasting being in the freezer. Something else you can try if you don’t have flour tortillas (or when SHTF), you can make Indian Fry Bread and have an open-face fajita. I also have the Hoosier Hill dehydrated/powdered sour cream (for SHTF) that will work in a pinch, even tho it doesn’t taste as good as the REAL sour cream. Now I’ve got to figure out how to have some shelf-stable guacamole!! I have avocado trees growing (2 different varieties, one for early fruiting & one for fall/winter fruiting) but they may not be in season when I need guacamole. I guess you can’t prepare for EVERYTHING you like to eat for SHTF, but by dang, I’m gonna try! LOL!!
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Wal Mart sells packages of guacamole in the veggie case. Comes in a couple of sizes. It is really good & the way to not waste it. 🌻
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I make my own bread machine mixes and store them in 1/2 gal mason jars.
It is so handy to grab a jar, dump in bread machine then do other things then come back to amazing smell of bread 3 hours later.
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Great idea!
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Martha, would you please message me some recipes and ideas? I inherited a bread making machine with NO instruction book or information about how to use it. I would really like to be able to make bread, but have been too intimidated about it to even try since I’ve had NO previous exposure to this kind of device (and have never made bread from scratch either; please don’t judge me for that! I buy sprouted multi-grain, whole grain bread, but it’s really getting expensive). Thanks!
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That is Mart not Martha 😉
But you can find the manual online for your bread machine, just do a search for the name of your your bread machine and manual.
Let me see if I can find the link to my video ….
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Oops, sorry. My bad. Thanks for the tip on searching for the manual. I still would appreciate tips and any recipes if you’re willing. I need something to get me started (including encouragement). Thanks, and again sorry about the name, Mart.
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Link to my video the other tiny link did not work for me 🙁
https://www.brighteon.com/dashboard/videos/a889fc48-667c-4707-a82d-4c51595d3741
How to make Rye Bread machine Mix
Modified
In jar / container add then store.
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
4 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon pwd milk
1 tablespoon Moringa powder ( optional. )
Then when ready to make bread put into bread machine in this order.
1 1/8 cup warm water
4 tablespoons honey
( Jar of ingredients of list above ) 1 teaspoon active dry yeast our own bread machine mix from scratch.
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Much appreciated, thanks!
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And here is another good recipe that deserves to be uploaded as a document to the document area! Thanks for sharing!
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Thank you!
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We’ve pressure canned pork (cubed and shredded), chicken, beef (cubed and ground), tomatoes, potatoes, broth, and pears. Raw packed the pork and pre-cooked the beef and chicken. The pork (both ways) and chicken are great. The ground beef always comes out a little “mealy” but tastes OK. We use the ground beef mainly in spaghetti sauce. The shredded pork makes excellent pulled pork when mixed with BBQ sauce. The chicken goes into various casseroles. All meals with the canned items are eazy pezy.
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I love having meals in jars for when I don’t feel well, which is all too often in winter due to autoimmune issues and just old age. I spend a lot of time putting up several things in quarts for the hubby and myself which is quite enough, along with cornbread or crackers or whatever. I worry about getting all the nutrition we need so try to be all inclusive with ‘food groups’. I’m a kind of ‘canning rebel’ since the usda or whomever does not provide my food and I grow my own, so my house, my rules- with food safety in mind nonetheless. I put up several quarts of Brunswich Stew, beef stew, Pozole, unstuffed cabbage roll soup, vegetable beef soup, chili. spaghetti sauce, celery soup base, chicken soup, tomato soup, mixed veggies for soup or pot pies, and many other things. My favorite is Pinto beans, and other dry beans, They are the easiest thing to can! In addition, I do pints and half-pints of single ingredient meats for quick use in various recipes. And of course, I have pints of green beans, squash, okra, peas, corn, and so forth, I do lots of tomatoes for tons of other dishes, Then I have my relishes, pickles, fruit butters, and jams/jellies. I try to have a minimum of 2 years worth of things ready to eat just in case of things like crop failure, shtf, or to help my family if need be. In over 60 years of canning, it has become a way of life for me and I know what is in my food. I really like some of the ideas given here, so will be increasing my horizons even more!
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We truly can just about everything from meat to milk! So far the only thing that we WON’T can again is orange juice (store bought pasturized oj) ’cause my grown daughter said it was HORRIBLE. I don’t really like oj, unless it’s fresh squeezed, so I didn’t even try it.
In addition to canning most everything, we dehydrate everything that we’re able to. We live where we can’t always get down the mountain + the closest grocery store is almost 20 miles away, so we really enjoy having a stocked pantry. ❤
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We canned tons of ground beef with salt, Tony’s, and a clove of garlic in each jar. Some we added chili powder and cumin to use in Mexican dishes. Great on a taco salad. Also we butchered meat birds and canned 8 of those with salt and Tony’s. These are great for making chicken and dumplings. If you have tortillas on hand you can cut up those to use for the dumplings to save time. We have made two batches of cowboy stew. And two batches of chicken tortilla soup. We love this when heated add grated cheese and crunch up tortilla chips for a topping. Also cut up avocado and add a dollop of sour cream if you like those. We also got some large cans of tomato paste for $3 each and recanned them in small jars.
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Just canned turkey and turkey broth. I will be canning more next week. Broth makes a great rice dish.
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I really wish we had Thumbs up & Thumbs down for comments/posts (hint, hint!). This would be a thumbs up from me, as well as most the posts shared so far!
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I second that request for a Thumbs up/Thumbs down for comments! Or a like button so we can acknowledge that we liked a post or comment. I don’t always want or need to REPLY. HINT HINT ADMINS, can this be a feature that can be added at some point during the BETA stage??
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Thumbs up!
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I, too, would like a thumbs up or down button to acknowledge all these great ideas & recommendations everyone is making!! thanks! 🌻
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Looks delicious and like you guys have been busy. Was that a home butchered turkey? Some filthy animal got our meat birds this year. We lost another layer last night. We are not in an area where we can shoot so we are trying to trap with a have a heart trap.
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All meats process 90 minutes in a pressure canner.
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Good Morning, Wanda, I have always understood that pressure canning meats are 75 min for pints and 90 min for quarts for both weighted & dial gauge canners. This includes both raw packed and hot-packed (pre-cooked) types of meat. Bone in poultry, turkey, goose, duck & rabbit is 65 min for pints & 75 min for quarts for both weighted & dial gauge canners. PSI (Pressure per square inch) is determined by your altitude & type of canner being used, weighted or dial gauge. Is this correct?
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