Canning Vegetable Soup

This past weekend I picked the last of our shelled beans and peas from our garden... I got a mixture of white beans, pintos, a pink speckled bean that I can't remember the name of, purple hull peas, and black eyed peas... not enough to really can by themselves... so I decided to make soup...

Here's what I did...

The recipe I "loosely" followed was from the Ball Book of Complete Home Preserving...

8 cups cored peeled tomatoes
6 cups cubed peeled potatoes (I didn't peel mine, they were "new" potatoes)
6 cups thickly sliced carrots (I only had about 3 cups)
4 cups cooked lima beans (this is where I used my mixed shelled beans and peas)
4 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels (I used 6 ears of white field corn picked from the garden)
2 cups sliced celery
2 cups chopped onion
6 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste

I had also just picked the first of our okra and had a few pods, so I sliced them up to add to the veggie mix.

In a large stock pot I mixed all the ingredients together and brought it to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduced the heat and boiled gently for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile I washed, rinsed, and sterilized my quart canning jars in boiling water and put my lids on to simmer in hot water, keeping everything hot until I was ready for them.

I ladled my hot soup into the hot quart jars, leaving a one inch headspace. I removed any air bubbles and adjusted the headspace as needed by adding additional liquid from the soup. I wiped the jar rims with a damp cloth, then tightened the hot lids on to fingertip tightness.

I processed the soup in my pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure for 85 minutes (pints would be 55 minutes).

After processing, I let the pressure in the canner drop to zero naturally, then waited a few minutes longer and opened it up and removed the jars using my jar lifter...

I set the hot jars on a folded dish towel on the counter to cool and...

To listen for the musical sound of the PING! of each successfully sealed jar. Love that sound!

There was a little soup left over from this canning project, so Mr. G and I added some home canned chicken and had the best soup supper EVER! with a pone of cornbread... Deee-licious!

For a printable copy of this recipe, click here.