Just wanted to show what canning equipment I use to can. It is so necessary to have the tools of the trade to help you and keep you safe. I jar lifter is very important to keep you from burning yourself with boiling hot water. A magnetic lid lifter is very helpful in getting the lids out of the hot water and a pressure canner is necessary to can meats and vegetables. Also a wide mouth funnel is necessary to help get the food in the jars and not all down the sides of the jar. I also included some pics of pecans that I canned.
First I toasted the pecans in a single layer in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes. I stayed right by the stove and kept opening the door and shaking and turning the pecans. When they were toasted to my liking, I put them in hot, DRY jars and put a previously boiled dry lid on, screwed the band on and put in pressure canner. I pressured canned at 10psi for 5 minutes. They are very tasty this way, no salt or anything else added. They are sealed and on my shelf for later use. The toasting brings out the flavor of the nut and will be great for my baking needs.
I still have about 20 lbs of tiny baby pecans to shell. It is a slow time consuming thing but I usually do this on my tv night as I'm sitting doing nothing. I do like to keep my hands busy. Will be canning more pecans as they last longer on the shelf then in the freezer. My goal is to can everything in my freezer that I can. If the freezer goes out during disaster then my loses will be few.

Today was the last canning day for this week. I put up 6 pints of chicken breast and 2pints of beef stew meat. I had taken a roast out and it needed to be cooked or canned. The pressure and time is the same for chicken as for beef so I was able to put them all in the canner at the same time. Everything sealed and looks good. So now I have a good start for my pantry shelves.

Hi all, its late again as I spend too much time on fb playing games. I worked today on canning chicken. I had so many leg quarters that I started w/them. I first decided to can them cooked versus the raw pack. So, instead of boiling chicken for a few hours, I pressure cooked the leg quarters for 5 minutes at 10# pressure. The chicken came out tender and well done. I separated most of the quarters but left a few whole to see if cutting was necessary. The whole pieces did just as good as the separated. After skinning and deboneing, I was able to get 6 pints and 1 half pint. I was rather anxious to try this as I was afraid I had cooked my chicken too long. So, tonight after church, I came home and nuked a bowl of dry spicy chicken noodles. After it was ready, I added half of the half-pint that I had canned. It was great. Really added to the dry noodle soup. I think I will make some more half-pints to have on my storage shelf. I really didn't need the wide mouth jars as the pieces were not large. Tomorrow I can chicken breast so will probably need the wide mouth. Well, gonna add my pics and off to bed.

I took my grandson home Sunday and decided I was ready to start pressure canning again. My freezer needs cleaning out so I took ground beef out Monday night and started cooking and canning Tuesday. It went very well. No excess beef leftover. I got 8 pints of ground beef. Now its shelf ready and won't freezer burn or go bad and its quick and easy to use. I just took pics of finished product and havent learned how to post one and make a comment under it so will post and as I learn how hopefully things will look better on my blog. It's really late and gotta get to bed as I took chicken out this afternoon and want to can chicken tomorrow. More pics to follow.