Canning!

I just made my first batch of canned chicken. I was inspired by visiting Heidi to actually use the lovely pressure canner I bought a few months ago. I have made 1 batch of barbequed pork, but nothing has actually been canned until today. Part of it was just the uncertainty factor, and part of it was just not knowing what to do. So I asked lots of questions and tasted her end result. Yummy!

Here is what I learned about canning chicken. It is worth paying a little bit more to buy the boneless skinnless breasts because it takes a long time to chop up the chicken otherwise, and you end up throwing away a lot of bones. Yuck! It is also probably best done on colder days, but it really wasn't too much hotter in the kitchen when I was done, but here is the kicker! about 55 minutes after taking the cooker off the heat, (and I have to admit that I totally forgot I was waiting for the thing to cool so I could open it because I was working on my blog) I heard a ping. I remembered the chicken and trotted down stairs to open the lid and remove the jars. Although there was not pressure in the machine, the jars of chicken were still boiling inside!!! I was so shocked I almost dropped a jar! I did not expect them to be boiling still. I made 8 jars of chicken today, so I will have to get some more chicken the next time it goes on sale. I am planning to do some tomato sauce & soup this year, but need to food mill first so I don;t have to peel all those tomatos! Heidi has a soup recipe that is just amazing. I can never eat Cambell's tomato soup again!