Harward's give-away and emergency prep

So I entered a give-way on the Harward's blog. She has a nice assortment of items in her give away and her blog looks like it will be interesting to follow. I have never followed a blog before, only done an RSS feed on a couple that I really like.

I've been buying and making items for our 72hr kits and for some food storage items. I've been a canning fool at our local Country Cannery. I'm sad that we didn't find it (and it is JUST DOWN THE STREET!) until Sept of this year. I can't believe I can see it from my house. But since it's an unmarked building and inside the perimeter of the farmer's market. I had NO CLUE that it was a public cannery! Hopefully, they will open on the first Tue after the 4th of July and we will be able to can more items. They can do 108 quart jars in and hour and a half. I can only do 7. Talk about getting your canning done quickly! And it doesn't heat up my house. The cost is 25 cents per jar. You provide your own jars, lids, rings and food for canning. They process it. Or, 50 cents per #2 can. A #2 can holds 3 1/2 cups - or about 1lb of food. All you have to bring is the food.

I've canned soup, chili, meats, potatoes, carrots, tomato sauce, applesauce and pumpkin. One day, my son and I were able to can about 99 cans of food in less than 3 hrs. 150lb of it was potatoes that all we did was wash, cut into chunks and pop into a can. Some was a pumpkin that we cut in half, removed the seeds and they put into the pressure canner for 30 mins. Delivered it back to us and we scraped out the meat, mushed it up, plopped it into the can and sent it back for processing. I think that was also the day we did some apples for applesauce. It was SO easy! We washed them and cut them in half. Put them in the steam kettles with a little water to cook for 15 mins. Drained the resulting fluid off and then put the apples directly into the mill. The mill spit out seeds, skin and stems into one pot and the apple sauce into another. We stirred a little of the juice we drained back into it, along with some ground cinnamon and plopped the results into cans. Easy-peasy! When we opened a can of it - YUM, YUM!

It will be so nice to have this food for an emergency or to just make quick meals when we have those "on-the-go" days. And at least some of that pumpkin will be pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving!