Domestic Sunday

Not a lot happening here yesterday, it was yet another cloudy, rainy day. I don't think the temp got much above 40 for the high, so I puttered around in the house.

 Whenever I use any sort of vegetables I put the trimmings and leftover bits in a bag in the freezer. This could be anything from onion skins, sweet potato peels, broccoli and cauliflower stalks, kale stems, carrot tops, celery leaves, bell pepper bits, you name it. This stuff adds up pretty quick around here because we eat so much fresh produce.  Once a month or so I pull out the baggie, dump it into a huge stock pot, add water and a few seasonings then simmer for a couple hours and can it. Yesterday I got 11 1/2 quarts of broth/stock, a nice addition to the pantry from something that often gets thrown away. The remains of the vegetables get buried in a garden bed and left to compost in place.

I also had a ham hock in the freezer that needed to be used, so I made up a batch of split pea soup to can.  I ended up with 8 pints and enough left over for supper.

In between the canning I managed to get 14 more items photographed, boxed and listed on eBay.   One of the items that did NOT get listed on eBay is the old VitaMix blender. One minute I think I'll sell it, the next I think I'll keep it. I finally decided last night what to do with it.

Split pea soup in my house gets put in the blender since I like it creamy not chunky (other than some chopped ham that I add when heating it to eat). Blending hot soup is a major pain. You can only fill the blender container half full, then empty it out and refill the blender multiple times. I started eyeballing that old Vitamix with the dispenser spout on the side and the rusty old cogs in my brain slowly started to turn....

Yes, the canning funnel fits into the top of the blender like it was made for it, although it makes it a bit tall when pouring in simmering liquid. (Especially when trying to take a picture at the same time.)

Yes, it will assimilate each new addition of chunky soup in just a few seconds, and YES you can open the pour spout and dispense it directly into a canning jar while it's whirling away!! YAY!!!

It would be faster with two people, one to keep feeding the blender and one to fill the jars, but even so I got all the soup from the stock pot blended and into jars in just over 2 minutes. It would have taken MUCH longer to do it in multiple batches. So, the old VitaMix gets to stay.