I have often wondered why preserving food in JARS is referred to as CANNING. Well, here is a 'jarring' story about canning! Soup mix is one of my favorite winter cuisines. However, in able to enjoy this hearty meal in the winter months it must be preserved in the mid-summer's heat. Let's get started!
The first thing we need are tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes! These tomatoes were grown n Harrell Family farm. They must be blanched, pealed, and chunked into large pieces.
Next, we need corn. We use white field corn. But it was planted close to the indian corn and some of the stalks became cross-pollinated. This caused some of the white field corn to have red or purple colored kernels. It doesn't effect the taste of the corn. Pop (my father-in-law, Larry Harrell) cuts off the corn whole kernel into a pan.
We also cooked down some butter beans (these are somewhat akin to larger and tastier 'lima beans' for those of you that are not familiar with this vegetable) and cut come okra to add to the soup mix. A lot of people do not add this ingredient but I love okra in my soup mix.
Now it's time to combine the ingredients!
After all the ingredients have been added they are cooked down in a large pot, or in this case, two large pots. After the veggies are sufficiently cooked the coup mix is pored into quart jars and set on the counter to pressurize. The heat of the soup mix causes the lids to seal onto the jars and for the next few hours, every few now and then you hear "pop!" This is the sound of a tasty jar of soup being sealed to perfection!
