The Beast!

So it came, finally! Talk about waiting with baited breath. The doorbell rang while hubby had to kids at the park. I could see the brown truck from the window in the front hall. I got giddy. Opening the door to a huge box. Golly....Christmas Time!

This thing is a monster.

I carved out an hour to read the instructions from front to back (it's steam pressure, you bet I'm reading the directions or you could bet I could get seriously hurt) then I washed it thoroughly and put it together. Tested it with a litre of water and played with the temperature on the stove to maintain a constant pressure. That part wasn't easy.

Then after dinner and all my other chores were done I started in on carving up the pumpkins. That part was time consuming. Got it all cut up and blanched (boiled for 2 mins). Then stuffed it down into the jars.

Here is where I went wrong. I forgot how much pumpkin expands when it's cooking and I put too much into the jars. Once I got the processor all fired up I was able to maintain a constant 11 psi without much trouble. Spent the 90 mins putting away a huge batch of dried herbs (dill and basil). Back sore and feet tired I took the jars out of the processor to realize that water had been forced out of the jars while they were boiling and now there was exposed food in the jars. Not ideal.

So this morning I'll be opening all the jars and bringing the pumpkin back to a boil and seasoning it then portioning it out and freezing it. It will still make great pies but now it's not nearly as convenient since my freezer is very expensive real estate. That ought to be a nice way to spend an hour or two this morning. I just hope that I have enough FoodSaver bags to get the job done without interruption.

I do love my processor, really it's shiny and big, big, big! I look forward to doing many good things. I just need to do some forward thinking the next time I can a solid that isn't completely cooked going into the jar.

I also plan to make an apple pie today after I get the grocery shopping done and some more work for the girls. I can't help it. It must be done.

Oh and I just realized that I've been blogging for a year now. Wow how time flies.