Seeing Out November

30°f/-1°C, overcast.

Winter is the best time to can beans---dry beans, that is. While it is not officially winter by the usual calendar, I think it actually starts November 1 and ends February 1, but whatever. This cokd weatherbis a great time to can as the house can use the extra heat.  

I did a few pints of plsin pinto beans Saturday, since I already had the canner out from doing the turkey the day before.  Then yesterday I decided to try making chili beans, but doing it an easy way.

I started with dry pinto beans, washing and sorting out the suspect ones. I put 1 cup of the beans into each quart jar. 

Next I added the spices: chili powder, cumin, salt, black and red pepper, paprika, some of my dried garlic, and some of the onions I dried last winter. I added them one by one to each jar, but next time I will mix all the spices together first, then divide the mix between the jars. Easier and probably more accurate.

Then I added enough tomato juice to cover the beans, and filled the jars with boiling water. Put on the lids, and into the pressure canner they went, processing for 90 minutes.

The result: delicious! I was curious as to how they would taste, and they are exactly what I hoped for. They're spicy, hot but not too hot, and will be perfect in chili. I may make another batch tomorrow. Because Larry loves beans, and I have at least 15 more pounds of dried pintos. Canned, they are so easy to use, but dry? They take a lot of time.

We got into a few other things, too. I finished gluing little lights onto a ceramic Christmas tree, cleaned a pile of silverplate flatware for the booths, packed some ebay sales, and caught up the laundry. Larry finished cleaning up the patio from the apple butter day; he was off hunting for 2 1/2 days, then was sick so didn’t get that job done. Then he cleaned out the chicken coop and added new bedding. 

We both organized the van to make room for a cabinet to take to the booth since a china cabinet sold Friday (yay!). Moving the cabinet went easier than expected. The thing has been such a pain to repair and get ready that I was sure moving it would be big drama, but nope. So we are ready to go to the booths to restock after the great sales this past weekend. 

I have not mentioned the WV National Guard member who was killed last week. She was a friend of our granddaughter-in-law, as she and granddaughter Haley are both in the Guard. This has been hard for them, and, well, for our whole state because West Virginia is like one big family.  I disagree with the National Guard being in DC in the first place, but support them doing the job they were told to do. 

It makes for conflicting emotions---anger, sorrow, frustration, grief all wrapped up like a tight ball of string---and especially hard on our Guard members and those who knew the ones who were attacked. I will never understand what motivates people to injure others in such vicious ways.  So if you have a moment, spare a thought, a prayer, or some healing energy for all those affected by this deranged act.

And so we closed the month of November, on a somber note which perhaps is fitting for this often dreary month. Today we step into December; darkness will get longer and deeper, but we are just 21 days from the return of the light and the quiet joy of Solstice. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.