I Ran Out of Refrigerator and Freezer Space!

Just a quick post today!

It's COLD out!  When it's cold and dreary like this, I like to make a BIG pot of my Confetti Bean Soup.  Well, I did, and when there are only two people to eat it, there are LOADS of leftovers.  Usually, I just divide up the soup among a bunch of 1-quart containers and either freeze them or put them in the fridge and eat on it until it's gone.

Well, I made the soup, we ate the soup, and I looked in the refrigerator - FULL.  No problem!  I checked the freezers - FULL.  Hmmmmmm...  This was quite the dilemma.  What to do, what to do?

CAN IT!

Now, I had never, ever, canned bean soup before, so I was wading into unknown waters.  I was confident it was possible to pressure can it, but I just didn't know the headspace, pressure, or time required.  I rummaged through my shelf of canning books, and in the third one I pulled out, there was a recipe for 10-bean soup that's similar to mine.

It's just the normal pressure canning process with these specifics:

1" headspace

10 lbs pressure

90 minutes

I ended up with SEVEN quarts (a full capacity load for the canner) of soup, plus almost another quart I stuck in the refrigerator.  Now the guys won't get tired of eating bean soup every day for a week, and I can have it whenever it strikes my fancy, with no real effort (say hello to Mr. Microwave!).

And now I have to find some shelf space in the pantry...oh me.

I Didn't Read 100 Books (or Even 40!) in 2020

 Those of you who know me know that I LOVE to read, and the past few years I've tried to read at least 100 books.  Well, this past year, what with That Knee That Won't Cooperate (not mine), COVID-19 and its related inconveniences, appliances dying, and election woes, I gave up.  I wasn't driving much, so even listening to audiobooks didn't happen, and I was in a total funk by the end of the year (that's why no posts between Thanksgiving and New Year's), so I just gave up.  I hardly read anything.

Except...the Bible!  I started a year-long Bible study in APRIL, and I actually finished it mid-December.  It is a chronological reading plan, which means you read the Bible in the chronological order that it was written, to the best of scholars' knowledge.  So sometimes you skip around, reading different parts of different books and then going back to a book you started earlier - Psalms were sprinkled throughout the Old Testament, for example.  You have an overview of each book when you begin it.  After each day's reading, you have a more in-depth explanation of what happened.  It reminds me of a class I took as a Junior in high school, Histlish - a double-credit combination of United States History and American Literature.  You studied some period of U.S. history and connected it to the literature written during that same time frame.  The Bible study is one of the plans (The Bible Recap) offered in the YouVersion Bible app and on the website.

Anyway, other than the Bible, I read only thirty books, which is pretty pitiable for me.  I just couldn't.  I actually did pretty well to begin with - before the pandemic crisis.  Most of the books were fluff, but that's what I craved.

Just a few required any brain cells, and I recommend all of them:

• The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity - Julia Cameron (she used to be married to Martin Scorcese)
• Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman - James Gleick
• Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century - Jessica Bruder
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones - James Clear
• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure - Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff

If you want to see the full list, click here.