My Favorites to have in Jars

A friend has commented that her mom has recently started canning more than just garden veggies, jams and jellies. I was going to send her an email about my favorite things to have in jars but decided to make a post, which my friend will see, and maybe someone else will find helpful.

Before I get into the recipes, and I know I've said this before, but I try to can enough for two years on many things. That way if I don't grown enough of something one year, I have enough to get me through to the next year AND it's easier to make a large batch of something than it is to make two smaller batches. I do not mind at all keeping food in jars for 2 years.

 My very favorite for the past 10 years or so is Eggplant Salsa. It is super easy to make. Last year I ended up with so much eggplant in the garden and canned over 50 pints of it. I think I planted 6 or 7 eggplants. This year I planted three, knowing I don't need another 50 jars of salsa but I probably will can at least 25 jars. That way I can finish off last year's jars this year and have next year's eggplant salsa ready. When I'm ready to serve this, I use one large chicken breast, slice it into fairly thin slices, sometimes coat it in cornstarch (sometimes I just season it) and brown it. Dump in a jar of the salsa and heat it all up. We serve it over rice or pasta and it is so delicious. In fact, I may cook that today and use a jar of canned chicken since it's already after noon and I don't have anything out for lunch.

This website has so, so many recipes for canning meals. Some are her recipes and some are links to other sites.

Another thing I always have is red beans and sausage, which is from the website mentioned above.  All I have to do is make a pot of rice, make coleslaw, open a jar and heat it up! So good! 

Today I was canning beans and knew I wasn't going to have enough energy to cook dinner AND do all that canning so I went downstairs and grabbed a jar. I'm sure it won't surprise anyone but probably half the jars in my basement aren't labeled. Either I think I'll remember (and never do) or I plan to wait til they cool and then label them and then I get in a hurry and pack them before I ever notice they weren't labeled. It doesn't matter . . it's all good.

I grabbed a quart jar of meat and a pint jar of potatoes. As I was walking upstairs with them, Vince said "What's for lunch?" I said "meat and potatoes!" He wanted to know what kind of meat and I told him I didn't have a clue - pork or beef.

Once I started cooking it, I thought . . black beans would be good in this so I went back down and got a pint of black beans.

We had some leftover corn on the cob so I cut it off the cob and put it in there.

Vince doesn't like jalapeno peppers so I cut one up and sauteed it for my bowl.

I cooked a pot of rice because most everything we eat goes on top of rice. Vince said "Are you supposed to eat potatoes AND rice together?" If you're from southwest Louisiana - yes!! 

When I came upstairs with the jars, I started the rice cooking. Start to finish, it took about 20 minutes.

We all think differently but I'm so thankful to have food in jars, ready to heat and eat . . for so many reasons. As I was heating all this up, the electricity went off . . thankfully for only about 2 minutes but that made me very thankful for a gas stove. Speaking of gas, I checked our tank yesterday. We got it filled in September, 2024. That was 1-1/2 years ago. The only thing we use gas for are the stoves. I can in the basement and that's all I use that stove for but it all comes out of the same tank. Both stoves have gas ovens but the wall oven is electric and that's the oven I use 99% of the time except during the summer when it's so hot and it's nice to keep that extra heat trapped in the basement garage. Anyway . . I'm saying that to say that the propane company will only fill the tank to 85% and the level now is 70%. That means it will probably be at least four more years before the propane company will re-fill the tank. They have a minimum and they want the tank to be at 15% or less before they come out. That all changes if we ever have to run the propane heater - hope that never happens!