Putting Up.

Everyone in the house is already asleep and I’m sitting here, waiting for the last batch of pressure canned soups to finish up … I’ve just filled out a huge stack of fall fair entry forms for the girls. Do you attend your local fall fair? We have a blast with it every year and enjoy seeing old friends at the fairgrounds year after year. However, I almost skipped the fair this year – it just felt like too much on the to-d0-list but the girls asked and here we are, filling out the forms again.

If you go to the Orangeville fall fair – we’ll be the ones with ducks, chickens and rabbits following behind us … 🙂

Ahhh, yes, the fall fair.
The beginning of the change of seasons.

The glorious summer sun is quickly fading into an Autumn haze … our inky nights arrive earlier and with that, a more regular bedtime for our family. I adore summer – what a beautiful season to relax (?), enjoy nature and family, quiet times and busy times, but I {very much} welcome the almost-here Autumn season – it is my favorite. Snuggly days by the woodstove, warm bread baking in the oven, hot apple pies, Thanksgiving, cool mornings and sun-dappled afternoons – and yummy, creamy healthy soups simmering on the stove.

 

Let me introduce you to my latest batch of Pressure Canned Soups – the creamy, dreamy delectable fill-your-tummy Cauliflower Soup.

This soup is Lyla’s favorite – she asked for it to be her birthday lunch – in July – in the middle of a heatwave. That’s how much she loves it.

Did anyone see that cauliflower is really cheap right now in the grocery stores? After a good friend told me about these good sale prices, I zipped out and bought quite a few heads of cauliflower to make and can soup for the winter.

Nearly a dozen jars of creamy soup later, I think we are set for the fall and winter months.

{Can you believe I found these beautiful bowls in the barn out back, stuck inside a milk crate, long forgotten? I think they are so pretty!}

 

Doubling, or even tripling a soup recipe, is just so simple. And this recipe was so wonderfully easy to start with, it really made this task quite enjoyable.

Don’t forget, if you are pressure canning, you cannot add  the milk products to soup – when it comes time to serve the soup, *THEN* you may add the milk, cream or cheese to the soup while it is warming in the pot.  I’m not an expert by any means – but this is what is working for me:

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

{I’m not a big person on measuring so use your judgement}

two heads of cauliflower, choppedpot full of water to boil
chicken stock added into the water
two or three potatoes, peeled and chopped
one stalk of celery, chopped
three onions, chopped
carrot, peeled and chopped
salt and pepper to taste
garlic cloves to taste
Herbs de provence, to taste

{Add cream or sour cream to soup to thicken, but only if you are not canning.}

–You will add all cream products only once you are ready to serve your soup, so please omit them from any cream soup recipe you may find online.–

Add all ingredients to the water, bring to a boil, continue to simmer until the vegetables are soft. Puree soup with an immersion blender.
Ladle into warm, clean canning jars, leaving a headspace of about an inch.
Wipe rims off jars and place new canning lids on.Place gently into pressure canner (canner is filled with water up to your knuckle).
Lock pressure canner and process at 10 lbs for 60-09 minutes (I could not find information on how long to process, so I am going with the longest time).

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See you at the fair!