Buy the Big Bag
Canning is intimidating. Fermenting a huge crock full of pickles is scary. Seeing the posts from those friends that have a sea of jars in their kitchen at the end of a long day can be inspiring, but also incredibly overwhelming. My first thought is "wow, they are set for a good long time!" Then reality sets in, knowing just how many hours they had to have spent cutting, cooking, packing, etc. to end up with those extra-full shelves.
When we are just starting out, it seems daunting... all the recipes, all the possibilities. What do I do first? Where do I start? Even as a seasoned preserver, my mind freezes (pun intended) from an overabundance of possibilities for saving good stuff for later use.
The other day, I went to the store for the week with my list. I was excited because I was finally going to try the "egg roll in a bowl" that everyone raves about. I know, I'm super late to that party. But I grabbed my head of cabbage and a couple carrots and some ground beef and headed home.
Fast forward after the meal was cooked and in my belly (it was delicious with a bit of my sweet chili relish I had on the shelf, by the way) and I was left with a big pot of egg roll and most of a head of cabbage left over.
So I'm left with a choice, do I throw away the cabbage? Do I try to find another meal that uses cabbage? And then it hit me, why do I have to have a "project" to preserve food?! I can just as easily slice up this cabbage, release some aggression into a mason jar, and end up with a lovely quart of sauerkraut in a few weeks. So that's what I did. Then I regretted not spending a tiny bit more for the big bag of carrots instead of just getting the two single ones that the recipe required.
It starts with a pint, then a quart, and one day, you will have your own sea of full glass, waiting for the winter. Don't wait, jump right in!
