Last night, I made up some chili in the slow cooker, for ourselves and my mother when she gets home form the hospital.  You can see my recipe here, though I slightly modified it this time.  I added a rutabaga with the vegetables, an extra can of beans, and used two cans of crushed tomatoes, instead of one, plus tomato paste.  I also skipped the cream.  Lots of fibre and iron in here, which my mother will need for the next while.

This morning, I put up 12 pint sized jars of the chili.

I don’t have the equipment to pressure can these, but these are not intended for long term storage.  Done this way, they should last 6 weeks or more, in the fridge.

I found a flat bottomed, rectangular roasting pain with rack while cleaning the Old Kitchen.  It was the perfect size to hold all the jars.  I put the jars on the rack and, after setting kettles to boil water to scald them, added hot tap water to the roasting rack, so there would be no chance of anything cracking.  I scalded the lids and rings in a stainless steel bowl, then poured boiling water into all the jars to disinfect them all.  I scalded my jar funnel, too.  I am so glad I picked that thing up!!

Once the jars were scalded and emptied, I could use the roasting pan to carry them all together to the crock pot.  I left the hot water in the pan.  To fill the jars, I would put some chili in, then use a (scalded) fork to poke at it and get out any air pockets, fill it the rest of the way (with a half inch head space) then poke at it again to get rid of the air pockets.  After removing the funnel, I popped a lid in place, then moved on to the next one.  Using the roasting rack made it much more organized.

Once filled, I put on the rings, but did not tighten them all the way, then moved them all onto some paper towel to cool slowly.  Once fully cooled, I’ll tighten the rings the rest of the way.  Not too tight, though.  I don’t want my mother to have a hard time opening them!

This took up about half of our 8 quart crock pot of chili.

So I had chili for breakfast. 😀

The Re-farmer