Green Living
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Pressure Canning
It's so weird that this happened. DH and I have often talked about getting a pressure canner, but just a few days ago I told him "well everything that we can pressure can we can freeze, and the chest freezer is already running and we've never lost power." We lost power for 5 hours on Tuesday night 
I was *hyperventilating* that we were going to lose dozens of hours and hundreds of dollars of local produce that we had painstakingley blanched and frozen.
So we're looking into a pressure canning. What brand do you use? We're looking at the American Harvest brand, it's made in the USA and has good reviews. TIA!
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Re: Pressure Canning
Ball Book of Preserving = the canning Bible.
About freezing though, if you make sure your freezer is full, even with milk jugs full of ice, it will hold temp for over a week depending on the size (bigger=longer). Just DO NOT open it for any reason whatsoever. When we had a hurricane and lost power for a week, our freezer food was still good.
I don't know what brand of canner I have, but I do like the weighted gauge versus the dial gauge, just because the dial gauges have to be taken in and checked regularly to ensure they are calibrated correctly. The downside to a weighted gauge is that I'm never quite sure how to interpret the rocking/jiggling and I think I have too much pressure going on sometimes (which can destroy flavor). The one canning guru I know uses a dial canner. I guess she thinks the preciseness and ease of using the dial outweigh the inconvenience of hauling the thing around to have it tested. Just be aware of what you need to do to make sure canning with a dial gauge is safe.
Mine was somewhere around $90, and I have been happy with it. If I could change one thing, I'd definitely get one that's large enough to process quart jars. Mine only processes pints, and sometimes that isn't enough.
I much prefer Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving to the Ball Blue Book (I own both). I read the Ball Blue Book one time cover to cover and haven't picked it up since. I reference the Complete book several times a week during the summer. It's much more comprehensive IMO. And hundreds more recipes.
All that said, I generally don't pressure can. I think most veggies are better frozen (maybe that's because I need a dial gauge canner!). I will can corn, which I think tastes fine from a can, and I'll occasionally can up some meat sauces or veggie soup. But mostly I can using water baths (fruits, jellies, pizza sauce, ketchup, mustard, pickles), and that doesn't require as much equipment.