A couple of days ago I canned some chicken for the first time, as an experiment. I have never canned chicken before, as we (read: DH) don't do much with leftover/already cooked chicken, so it didn't seem practical. But I bought some chickens the other day (not yet to the point of raising our own meat chickens), froze a couple, and parted out the other two. 1 breast half for dinner for us both, the wings saved for another meal, as well as 2 of the legs/thighs. The remaining breasts, legs/thighs were cut off the bone, and canned (and the remainder went in the crockpot for stock). I only got 3 pints, which seemed a little disappointing for the effort involved, but once the meat was ready to pack into the jars it was simplicity itself. And, knowing that I wouldn't be anywhere near filling the canner, I had soaked a lot of pinto beans to take up some of the space. One of the 3 pints didn't seal
, which was disappointing, but gave me an excuse to try the result today in a chicken salad. Not bad at all; not
better than leftover roast chicken, but certainly no worse. And (the ones that sealed) are there waiting for the time they are needed. I will probably do this again.
Are you all laughing at me? You should understand that, growing up, the
only canned meat we ate was tuna (oh, and chipped beef
; does that count?) This is not something I come to easily
The beans were canned with the Tattler lids - also a first time thing for me. Went very well, and they all sealed. I have one box of 12 of both the regular and the wide mouth, bought at not the best price locally. Now that I am familiar with how they work I will probably mail order some more, at a better price.
Great score on the tomatoes-WOW! 
) and finally the jars came out of the canner at about 7:00, and we finally sat down to FRESH corn and awesome organic chicken quarters for dinner at 8! WHEW!!!
