We had a big work day at Ryan’s parents’ house last weekend. My job: harvesting the carrots that had sat in the ground all winter long. And the best part of the job – I got to take most of the carrots home!
I decided to put them up, since it was more than we could eat and I’d love to have them for soups when winter rolls around again. And since I hadn’t used my pressure canner in a few years, but hope to do a fair amount of canning this coming summer and fall, I decided a small batch of canned carrots would be a perfect way to get some practice in.
I used the simple recipe from my good ole Ball canning book.
First I peeled the carrots and let them sit in a nice cold bath while I worked.
I then sliced trimmed off the ends and any bad spots, and chopped them up, again tossing them in cold water, it seemed this helped them from browning while I worked.
I packed them into the hot jars, added salt and then boiling water.
I screwed on hot lids,
and loaded up my pressure canner. I’m not going to lie, I am pretty intimated by this thing!
I hauled out the instruction manual and followed the directions. After letting the steam escape for 7 minutes, I added the regulator and sustained 10 pounds of pressure for 25 minutes.
We all survived and got 7 pints of carrots out of the deal. An early, small, but successful start to the canning season.
Bring on summer! Bring on the harvest!