Canning Butter...yes, canning butter!

This is AWESOME! I didn't even imagine being this was possible until Christmas when Silas bought be this great cookbook: The Essential Food Storage Cookbook by Tami Girsberger and Carool Peterson.

So my BFF Chette and I had a fun afternoon canning butter a few weeks ago...and here's how it went.

First you need BUTTER. I got mine on sale for $1.24 a pound which is a GREAT deal. A Wal-Mart it is normally over $2 a pound.

Next, you need canning JARS. A little less than one pound fits in a pint jar, but we also used half-pints.

HEAT jars in the oven at 200 degrees.

Boil jar lids and rings.

Melt butter on MEDIUM heat.

Here is some all melted...

Use a hot pad to remove warm jar from oven. Using a funnel, pour the melted butter into warm jar. Place boiled lid and ring on jar. Set aside.

This is the best part. Jars will seal BY THEMSELVES within a few minutes. Leave them alone until they reach room temperature.

Once your jar is at room temperature, place in the refridgerator. Every 20 mintues for one hour, shake the jar. This will prevent the butter from seperating. Once the hour is up, your canned butter should be solidified or close to that. Remove from fridge and place in a cool, dry place. Shelf life: 2 years.

(My cookbook says that they have some that's 6 years old and it's still good.)

This is our load. We canned 12 pounds of butter and we got 9 pints 10 half-pints total.

Crafty? Who me?

I am not so crafty, but there are some things that I have done and I am pretty proud of, so I am going to occasionally post some tutorials for the benefit of my lovely audience. (hehehe)

SO, in October we went to a pumpkin patch and we got a lot of pumpkins. A few were for decoration but two big ones were for consumption. The last few years I have become fond of pumpkin cookies and pumpkin rolls but those cans of pumpkin are so expensive, especially around the holidays, so I made my own from a pumpkin...image that.

Here you are...HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN PUMPKIN GUTS...

#1...Aquire a pumpkin. (We like cheap pumpkin patches.)

#2...Cut pumpkin into large chunks and spoon out any seeds and stringy stuff. Place on cookie sheet.

#3...Place in oven, cook at 325 for a while...until you can make an indent in the crust with your finger. I think it was at least 20 minutes if you only have one cookie sheet in at a time.

#4...Remove from oven. Place on clean dish cloth to cool.

#5...Once it's cool, cut off the crust. Then cut the pumpkin into piece small enough for your food processor or blender. Blend.

#6...Measure your pumpkin guts.

#7...Here is my load. It doesn't look as magnificent in the photo as it really was. I cooked 2 large pumpkins and got over 30 cups of pumpkin guts. You can keep this in your freezer for at least a year.

Next year I am going to can pumpkin. I wanted to do it this year, but found out that you can't can pumpkin guts but you CAN can pumpkin cubes.