Canning Favorites-Tuesday Ten

I thought since I am so busy with the harvest I would share some of my favorite tools or must haves to make any canning session successful. I am always on the look out for new products that make things go faster, smoother, or easier.  I apologize in advance that it is more than ten. I just couldn't limit it anymore.

1.A large stock pot(or two). Everything I do is in large quantities so small pots are a waste of time and money. I currently have a 22 quart stock pot and an 12 quart stock pot and am purchasing another in-between size since two is not enough for me as I often have many things going at once.

2. A strainer. This is one of my most important tools as it makes it so easy to make sauces, juice, and salsa. I couldn’t live without it. If fact I just replaced it this year as my old one stopped working I use it so much!

3. Canning pots. I love my pots, this is Eeny, Meeny, and Miny. Yes they have names as they are used often. The biggest can hold 9 quarts at a time, although I mostly use it to wash beans in as it takes up a lot of room on the stove. Meeny holds seven quarts, and Miny holds 7 pints. I especially like using the little one for pints since it doesn’t take so long for the water to boil.

4. Jar lifter and funnel. These items make it easy to lift hot jars out of the canner and pour food into jars. My jar lifter is from the goodwill as I like it better than the one I bought new.

5. If your going to can you must have jars! I love the look of narrow mouth jars so that is all I use. I have all sizes, many were left in our old home for us, and the others are from the goodwill yard sales, and I have purchased some. I think I have somewhere between 500 and 800 jars not counting my blue ones.

6. These tattler lids are my new favorites, they are BPA free and reusable. I am planning on switching over to these now that I have given them a try. Love them!

7. Another find! This is better for you than surjell and you can use no sugar or other sweeteners with it. No more relying on white sugar! I ordered it off of Amazon.

8. This is one of my pressure canners. I have a smaller one also. You will need one of these if you want to can low acid foods such as beans or chicken broth.

9. I love baskets and I especially love them when they are so useful! The large one are bushel baskets, then half bushel, and then peck. They come in handy when canning recipes call for those measurements. Or when picking things out of your garden, you can get very accurate measurements by using them. All of mine are from the antique store but they were the same price as purchasing new. I paid 8.00 for the bushel basket and less for the others.

10.One can never have enough bowls! All that food has to go somewhere when working with it! These bowls were a Christmas gift from my mother and are hands sown my favorite. They are stainless steel and have quart measurements that you can read from the inside or outside. The largest bowl holds 8 quarts!

11. I love these books, the recipes are simple, easy to use and good! My Ball blue books is so worn all the pages are falling out. I just noticed that Target now carries it for about 8.00.

The only thing missing from that list is an outdoor kitchen! It would be so nice to not have my floors sticky all summer or heat up the house. Now I must get back to my kitchen as I have grape juice processing.

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