While most of the year is slow in the kitchen, and busy in the studio, and you have a nice balance between home life and chair caning, Summer is entirely different, it can turn into a real juggling act.,
When the dog days of summer hit in August, so does the produce from most gardens around us. During good years when gardens are bountiful and people share what they have got, then the kitchen looks like a cyclone hit it, especially a small kitchen. The simple act of canning a canner load of tomatoes, or green beans, peaches, or pears, which is certainly a lot of work, but in the end what isn’t.
Winter comes and you are rewarded of all of your hard work and long hours slaving over a hot stove. You go into the cellar or pantry, look at all the jars of home canned goods setting there waiting for one of those very cold days. You have a virtual buffet right at your fingertips.
Now for me I have to work hand caning in and around all this canning, by nature I am a morning person, which means do I get up early like 4 am, and start the canning, then go out to cane, or do I start caning first and then come into can.
Usually for the most part the canning is the first thing, along with a pot of coffee, mainly due to the fact that the kitchen had been cleaned and prepped the night before, so you just go and turn on the stove and start cooking, have your first couple cups of coffee, and soon the canner is jiggling away, get two loads behind you and then go to cane, for a couple of hours, then take a break and can some more.
So far this year I have canned peaches, peach preserves, beef chunks and pork loin, next is spaghetti sauce about 30 quarts.
Well I guess that will end it for this post now, tomorrow will be a canning and caning day all over again.
Spaghetti Sauce
Peaches
Beef
Pork Loin
Chicken Thighs
Peaches
