Recipe Thursday - Canning Mixed Veggies

This time of year everything is all about preserving the harvest or preparing for the coming winter. My days are sun up to sun down busy, busy, busy. No time for anything else, however, when all is said and done I will have a lot of prepared foods which will make for simple easy and nutritious meals all winter long. One of the things I am trying year is canning mixed vegetables. Last year I made the complete soups before canning but I have a much bigger garden this year and the produce seems to be ready to harvest all at once which means a lot less time to preserve it all.

The other day I harvested a few vegetables that couldn't be canned separately because there just wasn't enough of each vegetable to make many jars full. I decided to make them into mixed vegetable jars for soup. It will be so easy to open a can of veggies and a can of meat and make a meal in a few short minutes.

The most important thing to remember when canning vegetables is that you have to adjust the canning time to suit the vegetable which needs to be canned the longest time. Remarkably I had harvested vegetables which all required the same amount of time.

These were the first ones harvested. I went back and grabbed some carrots too. 

I washed them all extremely well and then washed them again before cutting them up in bite size pieces.

Prepping the veggies takes a bit of time. 

I boil my jars in an old canner to keep them hot. Then fill the jars to about 1 inch from the top. Add about a tsp of course pickling salt. Don't use table salt.

Fill with boiling water to about 1 inch from the top of the jar. 

Remove all air bubbles and refill with water if necessary.

Place the preheated lids on and process according to your pressure canners instruction. For me it was 10 pounds of pressure for 40 minutes. Pretty easy!