Just Do It

I think it might have been about a year ago--maybe a bit less, but not by much--I ordered a pressure canner. I wanted to be able to can low-acid foods like pumpkin and vegetable broth, but ever since it arrived, I've been afraid to use it. Who hasn't seen cartoons or television clips of a pressure cooker or canner exploding? The instruction book didn't really help my fears any--the safety instructions cover about 3 pages.

However, Tuesday I finally decided I was being silly (not to mention, the pumpkins were stacking up), and decided to get the thing out and do a test run. No jars or food--just water.
Ta-da! No explosions! I got it up to 15 pounds of pressure, held it steady for about 5 minutes, then turned it off to let it cool down on.

It was then 4:00 PM--at which time a sane person would have said, "Great, I'm ready for tomorrow."

What I said was, " Heck, it's still early. I can get the pumpkin done tonight."

At 11:00 PM, I had finally canned 17 pints of pumpkin, and had a bowl full of cubed pumpkin leftovers in the fridge. The actual processing time was an hour, but even with heating them in the oven briefly before hand, peeling, seeding, and cubing 7 pumpkins takes considerably longer. I would have sworn 10 hours, but I know that really can't be possible. It felt like it, though.

Yesterday, the garden and I were not even on speaking terms, but today:
two trays of small tomatoes in the dehydrator, and 12 pints of crushed tomatoes. So I think I'm all caught up for at least 5 days.

Whoo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!