Little works in the kitchen, filling jars with green beans.
Who hasn’t wanted to share their favorite things with their grandchild? It’s one of the greatest gifts in the world when a grandchild shares your interests. Little and I are two peas in a pod. I was a little disappointed on Monday when they only lasted an hour on the canning beans job. Then, I learned…it wasn’t the chore itself but the act of getting pruny hands and the icky sensation of that. The tapping of the jars. The noise and sensation was too much stimulus for Little. So we regrouped and came up with a solution.
Measuring and adding things to containers is the perfect way to get the job done without it seeming so overwhelming. I asked Little to please count out seven jars for me and put a teaspoon of salt in each one. Then, stuff some green beans in there on top of the salt till they come up to here on the jar. Voila…we canned! And it was enjoyable this time and became a teachable moment…for Little AND for Nana. There was a lot of beaming pride when that load came out of the canner!
But what a L O N G day! By the time I finished the last canner full, my back was screaming obscenities at me and threatening to do me an injury. I had enough beans to do maybe three more jars, but I decided to cook half of them in my little pressure cooker with a Vidalia onion and some ham. When they were done, I took half over to my friend in town. He’s retiring this Friday and I wanted to give him something. Cake? Or fresh half-runners with ham??? You know which one I’d pick…every time. He was thrilled and texted as soon as I got home how wonderful they were. He was right…I heated up a bowl for myself and one for Mr. FixIt, as well. They were SO good!
Have you all ever heard someone say they were going to “cook up a mess of beans”? That’s what we always called it. Cookin’ up a mess of beans. I can’t think of it being used with very many foods. You might fry up a mess of fish. Or shuck a mess of roast’neers. (That would be corn on the cob.) I love the colloquialisms of the Appalachian people. It makes my grandchildren laugh. Colorado kids!
Little’s batch of beans!
I’m staying put today. Canning the last couple of days was a lot of work. We ended up with twenty-eight quarts plus two messes of beans cooked in the little pressure cooker. That’s a lot to get out of a bushel. And it was a lot of work. But, I’m telling you…you’d be hard pressed to find anything that tastes as wonderful as good ol’ half-runner beans. They can’t be beat! I’ll clean the kitchen then I need to block Big’s sweater so it will be dry soon and I can send it to Colorado before she heads for college. Once that’s done, I can sit down and knit for a while. I’ll put the pork roast in the slow cooker early so we can have a good supper when Mr. FixIt gets home from town.
Only three more sleeps and Little goes home.
?
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6 ESV