Dressed for Canning Success

When starting a canning project, the best way to make it a productive and pleasant experience is to be ready for it.  Like making dinner is harder in a dirty kitchen with no clean pots and pans ....  canning will be as easy as you prepare for it to be.

I can outside most of the time.  It is much more pleasant, I can watch the kids play and I don't heat up the house.  When I blanch, tomatoes and peaches, I set up like an assembly line.

I set up my camp chef and my table so I can stand or sit in one spot and easily reach the produce to put in the hot water, remove the produce to the cold water, peel into the bucket on the ground and place blanched, peeled produce in my clean pot.

Once this is done, I leave the table up and process my jars of produce.  I then set them to cool on a towel on the table.  I know people say the wind can break your jars ...  and I live in a very windy place ... but in four years of canning this way, I have never broken a jar from the wind.  I would say it never hurts to try and if the wind is a problem for you, then simply walk the jars into the house rather than letting them cool outside.

Sorry for the glare ...  can't control the sun!

The camp chef can also handle two canners at a time.  There's not quite enough room for three, but the middle burner is a good place to put a pot of canning liquid (water or syrup) to stay warm without heating the house!