Seriously good price on pressure canners.

Space    We are going to go to Bunning's  today to buy another shelf unit to put the canning on. But that means a cupboard that I keep all our family history in has to be moved out to fit it in. But, at the end of the day I'm so glad we made that decision to prep. as it does take discipline, sacrifice and hard work. Last night I was aching all over and had taken pork out of freezer to cook. Hubby said do you want to order a takeaway? No way as I could see $50 flittering out the door. A couple of panadol and I changed tact and cooked it in a marinade and had it with rice. Melted in your mouth and took about 10 minutes including slicing the pork and draining the rice. A year ago I would have got the takeaway. 

Great work shinester. I am so looking forward to getting the jars (and bits) and burner so I can get mine started.

Did another 10L, this time bean mix, some frozen, some eaten 'accidentally' of course.  I usually make batches of these kinds of things anyhow for day-2-day meals, canning them means I don't have to worry about freezer space and can have more ready to go.  Another advantage is no need to thaw, just stick them in the microwave [minus lid] and dinner or lunch in a few mins.  The downside is a lack of kitchen cupboard space currently. 

I did the lids up pretty lightly [finger tight] and it seems that I had one that didn't seal.  No stress, as it tasted GREAT.  I could have re-done it, though wasn't worth it.  The process of high heat and pressure cooks the beans like it's been brewing all day and makes the beans even better than normal IMHO.  I had some 'canned' [weird to say that about jars!] and some not and there's a noticeable difference in flavor.   A couple of those Kmart $1.50 [500ml] drinking jars are in there as well as the 'free' [500ml] jars provided with the canner, they look pretty similar to the Kmart.  They're the right size for a single meal.  All up, that's 30 meals ready to go of food that's tasty, quality and not the normal canned crap you get from supermarkets. 

We could practice bartering, beans for ammo.... 

Fractus, I'll give you 100 rounds of .22 or 20 rounds of 308

Canning potatoes is particularly difficult due to low acid,so ensure you have a good recipe that give long enough to kill all bugs

Did some more, 10L of pumpkin soup, 5L of caramelized onions.  As you can see the pumpkin is 'pressure canned' and as the onions are in high acid [vinegar] and high sugar, there's no need to pressure can, so I did them in boiling water.  As you can see, I've used old pasta jars and if you get the lids on when the ingredients are hot they vacuum seal as the ingredients cool, giving a nice 'pop' upon opening.  We eat them as we go of course, though it's great having ready to go meals that I like [unlike tinned food] though we've still got a pretty good store of meals and a lack of cupboard space already lol.  The Kmart drinking jars are a great portion size [500mls], stick them in the microwave, heat up and a meal ready to go.  In an Austere environment, you could always eat them cold of course.

Still waiting for my canner to arive......getting pretty pumped to start jaring up some complete meals.

Ha, embarrising or inspiration, your choice   Stock's a great idea, I usually just use the cubes, though this adds options.  As I mentioned above, an option on 250mls [8oz] is using Kmart jars [drinking jars with a straw, but work fine] that go for $1 a pop.   I've been reusing the lids [ring and top] as some have suggested elsewhere is possible without an issue as of yet.  Having said that, next time I'm at the local supplier, I'll be grabbing a ton to stock up, they do wear out eventually apparently.

Those pickles look great! 

Some other alternative ideas/lids/thoughts;
Kraft [and Im sure others too] peanut butter jar lids fit the standard mouth jars, which makes the plastic lid handy for storing in the fridge and Vegemite lids fitting the wide mouth jars.  Since the lids fit one another you could [and I will eventually when I have an empty one] use them as canning jars with the proper lids.  Some say that the glass isn't thick enough, though I call bulldust on that.  

I have noticed that when you do a batch if you don't have enough jars for a layer they move around disconcertingly, so I recommend putting in empty jars next to the ones you're canning to reduced movement.  I cracked one jar [cheapo Kmart] because of the temperature change, aka putting a cool one into boiling water.  Obvious mistake, I know, though worth learning from.