One thing that has helped me a lot financially for years,
is the fact that my kids and I enjoy "canning"
our own food. If you know how, you can take a chicken
breast, a portion of mixed vegetables, cover it with chicken
broth seasoned to taste and can it in a special jar where
it will keep for ten years without refrigeration.
I was going to go into a lot of detail about this, but
I found a "how to" website maintained by the
people who manufacture the jars used in the canning process.
The website is at:
www.homecanning.com
I have been canning my own food for more than twenty
years and there are a couple of points I would like to
add and/or emphasize.
1. If you are not exactly the most fastidious person
in the world, if your kitchen is not the cleanest place,
home canning is not for you. This is seriously dangerous
- you can easily "can" your own poison, killing
yourself and your family.
2. The other side of that coin is, some of the "directions"
out there are evidently written by lawyers determined
to make sure nobody could possibly kill themselves,
no matter how filthy their canning environment. If you
follow their pressure/time recommendations, you'll kill
any filth and bacteria you put in the jar, your food
won't be dangerous, and it won't be fit to eat either.
3. DO NOT use jars (like mayonnaise jars) that were
not specifically made for the purpose unless you are
"bath canning" tomatoes - even then, I wouldn't
recommend it. I have several hundred canning jars, some
of which are probably twenty years old. The jars aren't
expensive and you can reuse them forever.
4. NEVER, EVER, reuse a lid. They cost just a few cents
each - this is a really dangerous thing to do. You can
kill yourself and your children trying to save a few
pennies.
My kitchen is immaculate and I use the recipes that my
aunts, great-aunts and grandmothers used for generations.
The food is healthy, delicious and convenient. I can select
soup, chili, beans-n-ham, stew . . . whatever, warm it
up in the microwave and serve it in less than ten minutes.
