Friday, November 8, 2013

Wealthy and Canning Carrots

I tiptoed into a new venture today with my canning.  Baby carrots!!

Our local grocery had a good sale on them - 10 for $10!  So I snagged up 20 bags.  I was willing to go for more, but my husband kind of put the brakes on my shopping.  I mean, I bought a near over flowing cart of groceries for about $90 just by shopping their sales ad!   And that $90 worth of groceries will feed my family well for the next two months!  Enabling us to have meals for less than $5 each for quite a while!!

So  I spent a good portion of today canning those baby carrots. One bag is enough to fill a quart jar.  Since 7 quarts fit into my canner, that  means I'm canning 7 bags of baby carrots at one time. And I was really excited about it.

I should back up here and tell you that the absolute highlight of my week was getting hired to work at this little local grocery from where I purchased this stash of baby carrots.  I'm loving it.  I'm so happy and thrilled to be in the work force again, even if it is a part time minimum wage job. There's no shame in it.  At least I'm working.  I saw an e-card on Facebook today that said Even if everyone worked hard and went to college someone would still need to make our pizzas, stock our shelves, and drive our cabs.  Quit looking down on them and assuming they deserve to live in poverty. Can't help but to think how true that is.  Not everyone can or will be the top of the food chain.

And as for living in poverty, I don't feel poor. How does poor feel anyway? I have 6 beautiful children, a husband who loves me, and maybe not a whole lot of material things, but I'm blessed beyond measure, and that makes us feel RICH.  Richer than a lot of people out there who are basing their wealth on material things or the money in their pockets.

Like right now, my wealth can be measured in the number of meals I'm able to can up this weekend.  Wealth measured in carrots and potatoes.  And kids' laughter as they watch Madagascar 3.  That's wealth.

Did I mention I'm also rich in friends?  I have a plethora of friends - plethora, I really like that word - and I'm so rich in friends that are like family that everyone else should just be jealous.  That's right, envy my wealth of friends.  Because I've got a lot of them.   People who listen when I need someone to listen, who help me find the truth, the good, and the best in a lot of things in this journey of life.  Honest-I-am-going-to-tell-you-what-I-think-like-it-or-not friends.  And they'll tell you, if it's pisses you off, OH well.  It's just how it is. No holds bar, no pulling punches, just raw, bluntly honest friends.  The kind that they don't care if they piss ME off, but don't let anyone else step in on that or they're on you like ducks on June bugs.  Wonderful, caring, loving, honest to a fault friends.  Yep, I'm rich with them.

So back to the carrots.   I didn't know you could actually can baby carrots, so I used a search engine and found a blog post on it. You can find the blog post I found here.  They turned out wonderful.  I washed my jars and got them ready and then filled them with the carrots that I washed and drained.  One teaspoon of salt in each jar, filled with hot water leaving 1 inch head space, then processed in my Presto Pressure canner at 10 lbs pressure for 30 minutes.  Viola!  Whole  baby carrots that aren't taking up space in my fridge!  Love it!  They'll be great served as sides, in roasts, or even in stews this winter!

Yes, I realize not everyone is still canning this time of year. Even my new boss seemed surprised that I was canning when I sent my husband down for more lids.  I should mention, I cleaned them out on the last 6 boxes of jar lids in the whole store.  I don't know what I'll do after I use those up!  lol

But, as long as there are sales and I have empty jars, I'll continue to can all winter if need be.

And I'm going to continue to enjoy the wealth of our poverty.  And love. And be happy. And be satisfied.