Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Uh Oh

So, I don't really know why it happened, but one of the quarts broke in the canner. What a mess! The first inclination of a problem was that the kitchen still smelled strongly of chili while the canner was going. The second inclination was, well, an inclination. The jar was tilted.

This is really bad. I am not looking forward to cleaning this up.





Chili

Tonight I made a double batch of chili with the intention to can the leftovers. I never make chili the same way twice, so this is tonight's recipe:

4+ lbs. ground beef (93% lean)
2 onions, chopped
4 jalapenos, seeded and chopped
2 large cans kitchen ready tomatoes
2 cans tomato paste
2 cans red kidney beans
2 cans dark red kidney beans
5 oz. Wahoo! Chili powder
salt to taste

Brown the meat, onions, and peppers, add the spices and tomatoes, let it simmer for about 2 hours. For dinner, I made cornbread and we put the chili on the cornbread and topped it with shredded cheese. It was not nearly as spicy as one would expect for putting an entire jar of chili powder in it (basically 1 CUP of powder). But it was tasty! After dinner I filled up 4 quart jars and 2 pints and the pressure canner is going. 90 minutes at 10 lbs. of pressure, based upon the cookbook's recommendation.

Why are there only 3 quarts, you ask?