One of the best things we did while visiting my family in Tennessee was to can green beans for the upcoming winter. Last year we did the same thing and it just about killed my mom and me. I was kind of dreading it, to tell the truth, because what I remembered from last year was spending hours and hours stringing and breaking beans while my mom labored over the hot stove and two pressure cookers and the house was a thousand degrees and felt like a sauna by the time we were done.
But there is nothing like green beans from the garden in the dead of winter when there is snow on the ground and summer feels a million days away. So we decided to do it all again.
This year was completely different. My mom and I kept looking at each other saying, “Why is this so much easier this year?”
One things was that we had a lot of hands helping with the work this year.
Three generations of bean breakers
We plowed through those two bushels of beans in not time flat. Now I know why farming families in the olden days had so many children. More hands = more work done quickly.
It still took most of the day to get them all processed. I guess the only way to speed that part up would be to have an industrial size kitchen with 10 pressure cookers going all at the same time. But it will be so worth it.
Thanks, Mom. Maybe next year you’ll even let me run one of the pressure cookers, huh?
I’m so jealous your kids get to experience things like this…I never did as a child and I think anyone would benefit from it. Looks like you had a great time!
That’s a lotta beans! Good for you all! I’ve been freezing yellow ones here for our Dutch dinners with sour butter gravy. But unfortunately I have to buy them at the Farm Market instead of picking them from the garden. That looks like a great garden in the background, Paw!