Canning, Canning, Canning, Keep on Pressure Canning, Rawhide! My grandmother canned like the Apocalypse was coming. (Indeed in her depression era mind, it probably was.) Even when she died there were at least another four years of peaches, pears, applesauce, and Lord knows what else in their basement. I'm not planning on going that far, but I have realized the immense amount a pressure canner can take off our monthly food bill.

My tax return became a pressure canner which meant that my kitchen became very, very sticky. A pressure canner is an amazing household appliance, but not one to jump into lightly. There is much more than meets the eye with a pressure canner. I did not know this.

The upfront is about $100 for a middle of the road canner. It is all the average household needs. Ours is a Presto, 23 quart canner and will be more than enough for anything we could ever need. The jars are about $10 dollars a dozen, and can be reused forever. The hidden secret is that it is A LOT of work. If you really mean to use it, you are going to be spending much time in the kitchen and much time cleaning. Then you will be spending much time figuring out where to put all the cans you have now created because they are too heavy for most shelving.

On the plus side, your food will taste much better than anything which comes from a store can; you will know what is in your food causing your sodium, high fructose corn syrup, modified food starch, and trans fat ingestion will diminish greatly; and you will save a significant amount of money if you plan your canning with the seasons and sales.

Canning chicken stock was a bit of a whim when local, never frozen, all natural chicken went on sale for .99 cents a pound. Our freezer is very small as our fridge is a 1950's avocado green Westinghouse. We've never had a lot of room to keep foods frozen and always just bought as we go. Though a chest freezer has been discussed, the energy to keep it running would basically negate any savings; let along where would we put it? This has meant the single largest food cost we have is meat for dinner.

Though chicken stock has been something I've made and frozen in smaller batches, large scale stockpiling has been out of the question. We now have 21 quarts, nicely labeled and put up. This will last us a nice long time and whittled away at least 30 dollars from a few months of our food bill. Even better, it was so easy.

Unfortunately, water bath canning can't work for meat so a pressure canner is necessary. Fortunately, many years ago canning was a standard in the household so if you ask around your grandmother, aunt, mother-in-law (etc.) might still have one laying around in the garage or basement. They last forever and with a replaced sealing ring (only about 10 dollars) can be reused over and over. So, ask around, it may not be as out of reach as you might think.

All you do to can chicken stock is prepare the stock normally and pour into the jars. I used quart jars as they just seemed more reasonable for a family dinner. I strained the stock and put the chicken into the jars first, then pouring the hot liquid over the top. Leave 1 and 1/4 inch head room at the top. Since it is a liquid, you don't need to worry much about bubbles being stuck inside. Glance at the jars, give them a little shake, and call it good. Also with pressure canning, the sterilization of the jars isn't as important. If they have been kept somewhere gross like an old attic, garage, or something it probably is, or if you have just purchased them from the store and not washed them, but clean shelved jars can be filled and placed in the canner without the added heating step. This is because you are pressure canning them and the inside of the container is going to get excessively (read explosively) hot. Trust me, they will sterilize themselves! If you still wish to be extra careful, go right ahead, but unlike water bath canning it isn't a complete necessity.

So the jars are filled, now you need to wipe off the rim of the jars so that you can insure a proper seal. The only thing keeping bacteria out and goodness in is the fact the jars are sealed air tight. Broken seal equals nasty insides. Yuck! Due to the fact that chicken stock is greasy, use a bit of white vinegar on a rag to wipe down the rims. This will cut the grease and be completely harmless. Place the lids, screw on the rings and fill up your canner!

They need to be processed for 25 minutes and 11 pounds of pressure. Be very careful that the pressure valve has fallen before you open up the canner, and that you lift the lid away from you as there will probably be some steam inside. Remove the jars with either tongs or a ovenmit and set them aside to cool for at least 12 hours.

Now you have chicken stock which will last for years (usually around 3-5 at the longest) without the need of a refridgerator, freezer, or much of anything! We use ours for burrito filling, enchiladas, soup, casserole, and pot pies. Just about anything that contains shredded chicken can be made from the stock at a fraction of the cost.

If stock isn't something your family would use much, you can also can just the chicken. When the sale continued an extra week, I went to purchase 2 more packages of chicken to be cubed up and canned by itself. This is even simpler than the chicken stock as all you have to do is boil the chicken till it is mostly cooked, yet still slightly pink. Cube it up and pack it tightly into pint jars. Then pour the chicken water over the top till you have 1 and 1/4 inch of head space. Pressure can for 75 at 11 pounds of pressure. One pint contains 1 and a half chicken breasts.

Though I used to be a coupon clipper, I've realized once you start buying most of your food in bulk and making it from scratch, coupons don't really cover that. What they do help with is canning food. Now by looking at what is on sale, I can go buy a couple dozen cans, hit the grocery store and spend a couple days in the kitchen. This will allow the coupons and sales to last much longer and save us significantly more! All together 17 dollars worth of chicken yeilded 21 quarts of chicken stock and 6 pints of chicken. This was well worth two days of canning!

The Spicy Barracuda is currently sick with Jules and I fending it off. Today was a day of snuggling on the couch, watching movies, and taking it very very easy. Barracuda is allergic to most all over the counter kid's medicine due to a filler that is commonly used. Rather than hives and vomiting on top of being sick, we resort to using herbal remedies. (Jules would like me to rephrase that - nasty herbal remedies.) I'm a big fan of not using the chemical products, but since most herbal remedies need to be used when you first feel the onset of sick coming, they are hard to use with a child. If the Barracuda had told me a week ago he was starting to feel like he might be getting sick, we wouldn't really be here right now playing catch up with battling viruses. I must say, however, at four and a half he does remarkably well with the whole feeling icky and taking medicine thing.

Our household uses horehound when we are sick with colds. Horehound is an herb that has been prescribed from as far back as the Greek physician Dioscorides in 40-90 AD. He advocated a concoction of horehound for tuberculosis, asthma and coughs. The herb is an effective immune booster. It is quite nutritious, containing vitamins A, B, C and E, essential fatty acids, iron, potassium and marrubin (an expectorant). Mainly, Horehound has proven to be effective in loosening phlegm and mucus in the bronchial tubes and in the lungs, however it will also relieve coughs and sore throats. The German government's committee of herbal experts, known as Commission E, has sanctioned horehound for use against bronchial problems, including laryngitis.

Footnote: Information and recipe acquired from A-Z Health and Beauty
http://health.learninginfo.org/herbs/horehound.htm

Horehound works really well for us, but I will warn you it tastes terrible. There is no getting around it. Jules and I create a fowl tasting (and smelling) tea by using 1/4 cup of Horehound and letting it boil on the stove till it is the color of hardwood stain. By condensing it this much you only have two swallows to get down, and only have to ingest it about 4 times. Though it will not make you feel amazing, it will prevent you from becoming full blown sick. Having the Barracuda try this, however, would be completely useless. So, he uses a cough syrup.

Horehound Cough Syrup
1/4 cup dried horehound
2 cups of water
3 cups of honey

Put horehound and water in a pot and heat until boiling. Let steep 10 minutes and then strain. When cooled add honey and mix well. Bottle up for use later.

Originally I wanted to grow it in our garden, that is until I got a look at the plant. As much as horehound is a wonderful medicinal herb, it isn't going to win any beauty contests. Also, it is related to mint and will take over. Hard to kill and a glutton for punishment, the plant will grow most anywhere and is very difficult to get rid of. Well, that killed the garden idea. Now, we pick horehound up our at a local herb shop and it is very reasonable in price when purchased in loose leaf bulk. It can be purchased at some natural stores in cough syrup already, but when I purchased it this way for the Barracuda at Whole Foods it was almost 10 dollars a fluid ounce! So, we kept the jars and now I make it.

In our house sick also means it is time to start defrosting the chicken stock from the freezer. Whenever chicken is on sale, I usually buy at package or two for the sole purpose of making chicken stock. Usually it is chicken quarters or thighs, but it doesn't matter. Whole fryers work as well, they are usually just more expensive than a package of pieces.
Chicken Stock
Ingredients
2 chicken quarters
5 celery stalks, tops too
3 carrots
1 onion
1/2 stick of butter
4 garlic cloves
3 rosemary sprigs
4 thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Cut the veggies into large pieces and then dump everything into a giant stock pot and heat on high until boiling. Boil about 5 minutes and turn down to low/medium heat. You want it to simmer all day, just below a boil. Stir frequently and check the water level so that the ingredients stay below the water level. After 6-8 hours, use a strainer to drain the liquid into another bowl. At this point the chicken should have fallen apart off of the bones. I separate the chicken (as best I can) and dump it in with the liquid and freeze it into tupperware containers. The murshy veggies then go to our compost pile. These become the bases for soups, sauces, and casserole all month. It stretches one package of chicken a long long way. I'm sure the same thing would work with veggie stock if your household didn't do meat.

To turn the chicken stock into soup all you need to do is re-add some onion, carrot, a clove of garlic (due to being sick), and some noodles. This means our family can have home-made chicken soup in about 10 minutes on the stove.

It works out really well for us to readily have the chicken stock all made up. I can either defrost it the night before or pull it out and microwave defrost it if I forget. By using a day off to make up three or more Tupperware containers, I don't have to bother with the extensive cooking during the times when life is so crazy I can't think about it or when I feel just as yucky as those I'm cooking for.

When we make stock, we turn off the heat and let the warm smell of the soup fill the house. The Spicy Barracuda and I snuggle up on the couch and he read a book to me while I knit. We have great conversations, watch a movie together, and just enjoy each others' company. In this way, soup and stock are great ways to not only nurture your body but each other as well.