We'd have those vegetables during the winter when it was not as easy to find fresh vegetables in the stores at that time. It was the '60s. I'd love to take your course. I've been thinking of getting a pressure-cooker so I might be able to can vegetables.

Many people don't realize that, besides canning fruits, veggies, jams and jellies, you can also can soups, stews, baked beans, stocks (chicken, beef, veggie and fish), marinara, juice, salsa, just all kinds of things. If you can't find a local class, a really good book is "Ball Blue Book guide to preserving." It gives you all the science of when you should use a boiling water bath and when you should us a pressure canner plus it has some great recipes.

If you get a pressure canner be sure it's a pressure canner/cooker, that way you can use it for regular cooking as well. Pressure cookers were what we used to prepare foods quickly before we had microwaves. The difference, of course, is in the taste. One should be used for heating up foods while the other is used to actually cook foods by infusing steam which infuses flavors back into the foods.

My mom only used a boiling water bath to can stuff. We'd listen for the Mason Jar tops to "pop." Meaning they were good to go and store. Mom's canned green beans were better than anything you could get at a grocery store. Also the pickles cured in earthenware crock pots.

#1: Kittens
#2: Catlets
#3: Cats

I don't know if you remember me posting about my latest adoptee, Alaska. She made instant friends with one of my older cats, Erica. Well, Ms. Alaska is growing like a weed and is now bigger than Erica but the relationship hasn't changed. Erica still protects her from my Alpha Female cat, Duchess and still bathes her regularly. 'Course then Alaska thanks her by doing a dive bomb onto Erica from across the room wherein they roll over in a big kitty pile. We refer to that as the "Alaska Avalanche."

Better yet, a video of the dive bomb!!!

I really am fond of Food In Jars' small batch urban preserving recipes. Her strawberry jam is wonderful and doesn't use pectin (small batch, wide pot). And it's so fast and easy to do that I can do a batch while cooking dinner.

Her blueberry jam is also amazing!

I tried a no pectin jam recipe for the first time this year with some blueberries. My jam ended up like a hard fruit roll-up. We had to chip it out of the jars. LOL! Our grandmothers and great grandmothers put up tons of jams and jelliesall without pectin and they came out just fine. I really need to learn how to do that. Thanks for the reference.

My edition is older but Ball still sells the book on their store site: http://www.freshpreservingstore.com/blue-book-guide-to-preserving/shop/229696/

Ball also has lots of recipes on their web site: http://www.freshpreserving.com/recipes.aspx

When we had a good garden, I canned green beans, red potatoes, and anything else that was appropriate that we had more of than we could eat before it went bad. The green beans didn't last long, the potatoes were great - just the right consistency to heat up for a side dish, add to a stew at the last minute, or make a quickie potato salad.

The only preserves I ever made were apples butter - simple to make and it was a great way to use up the damaged apples and the trimming from canning apple pie filling. I used the cores and peels from the slices, hacked up the apples that didn't make the grade for slicing, and threw them all into a giant pot. Stewed everything until soft, ran the mess through my hand cranked food mill to get out all the solid bits, then seasoned and sweetened to taste. No added pectin needed, the peels had enough in them to make it jell.

I canned three gallons of apple butter that year, gave away a lot of it, and made hundreds of peanut and apple butter sandwiches.

I should do that again sometime - it was easy and really good. But our apple trees no longer bear fruit - we had three, two for the fruit and one to pollinate them. Two have died and the other is not healthy.

Have fun with your classes, and BTW what other ones did they suggest?

Possibilities: Basics of cooking, Cooking from Scratch, Baking Pies were the three I can remember. All interesting possibilities but I think I'm probably going to focus on the canning classes for the moment as I don't want to get overwhelmed.