This week on the New Harvest Homestead forum, there have been questions on canning beans and how to do it.  I have been canning our own beans for about a year now and truly love having the convenience of home-canned beans instead of spending my money at the grocery store.  I don't know ... call me crazy, but if I can can beans and save us money, then I'll can beans!

So, after some discussions and answering questions, I thought I'd go ahead and can up some more beans today.  I made a small batch of baked beans (5 pints) and about 9 or 10 pints of red beans (I can't remember right now as they're in the canner).

That wasn't enough, so I went ahead and made a Pineapple Upside Down Cake, a double batch of buttermilk biscuits and I plan on making two batches of cookies:  Snickerdoodles (hubby's favorite) and Chocolate Chip Cookies (munchkins' favorites).  I should be done with all the baking by early afternoon. 

I just turned off the canner so once the canner de-pressurizes, I'll get those out. 

I haven't done much canning this summer (not compared to last summer).  Since the cucumbers didn't make it, I didn't can any pickles.  But, we had TONS left over from last summer to carry us through next summer.  Yep, that's how many we had!

Also, as the tomatoes aren't all ripening at the same time, I've been roasting and "food milling" tomatoes in small batches and putting those in the freezer.  I made a batch of homemade spaghetti last week using some of the roasted tomatoes and man, oh man, was it good!!!   I used our fresh basil and our dried oregano, fresh garlic ... mmm-mmmmm.  Talk about yummy.

We started homeschooling last week and it seems to be going pretty good so far.  We've changed the way we do our homeschool this year (as far as the way we homeschool) and we're accomplishing a lot but it doesn't feel like it...maybe because we're not doing the "busy work" we were doing last year.  We'll see how this year goes!!!

I hope y'all are all doing good.  God's blessings!!!