Pea Time!!

The peas are ready and its time to can them. YAY!!
I know what your thinkin...."Well thats not enough to even get your pressure cooker out!" Agreed. But this is only the first pickin....the next one will yield heaps more and I will have already had all the stuff out and ready to go. So, Its ok.

Now, if you have dealt with peas fresh off the plant before, you know its a royal PAIN and are wondering what drugs im on that make me say YAY to pea canning time ... No drugs, I assure you! Check out what I bought.

We lovingly call this the "Pea Combine". You can do beans too, so if you do both, this thing is a must have for sure!!
This thing is amazing!! You can use the hand crank or hook up hubbys drill to it or your kitchen mixer and go to town with these things! No more days of dreading getting the peas ready to can!! If your gonna do many peas/beans at all, you should run right out to your nearest website and grab you one!! I must urge you to find the best deal for it tho. The link I pointed you to earlier, is just one I found by Googleing it.

The attachment for using the mixer wont reach in mine tho, so I use the hand crank, still super easy. And its even easier if you have child labor available.

At this point, Im not going to tell you that you need to wash the crap out of everything and then take your peas to the sink and wash them again. 

I like to cold pack my peas so Im not gonna tell you that after you wash your peas, pack them in pint jars and fill the jar up with boiling water leaving 1 inch of space, add salt and put your lids and rings on. 

Im also not gonna tell you to put your prepared jars in the pressure cooker, (this is the one I have) and get it all locked down and get those to cookin at 10lbs. When your cooker starts to whistling(and you see steam escaping) ...set your timer for 7 min, when thats up, put your weight on and wait for it to start dancing. Set your timer again for 40 min and play with the heat till the gauge stays where it supposed to and your weight only dances around 1-4 times every minute.....and then go knit something...when your timer goes off, turn the stove off and wait for the gauge to read "0", then take the weight off. Wait for pressure to release(a min or so) and unlock everything and take your peas out and set them in an undrafty area sit back and count the pings...(my fav part) 

Then you will have the tastiest peas on your block!