Butter beans 2022

When all else fails, do it yourself. 

The spousal unit and I enjoy old-fashioned ham potpie. It's a great way for our household of two to use up the Christmas and Easter hams. We have ham a few times, then I freeze what remains for potpie. 

To make the potpie, I first simmer the ham bone to get good broth and freeze it. Then freeze the ham. When the time comes to actually cook, the broth, ham, two potatoes, maybe a quarter cup of diced onions, parsley, seasonings, potpie bows or sometimes bot boi noodles, and butter beans go into a big pot and come out as potpie.

Ah, butter beans. Around here, one can no longer purchase butter beans. 

But one can certainly get dried large lima beans and home-process butter beans, and that's what I did this morning. I now have fifteen pints of butter beans cooling on the island. That's a lot of butter beans!

I didn't plan on ending up with fifteen pints. I aimed for nine, which is how many pints my Presto 23-quart canner holds on the bottom layer, but it is what it is. They won't go to waste. There are any number of soups I can add them to, plus any number of casseroles. It'll be fun finding new-to-us recipes and changing up dinnertime. And, of course, I can double the next batch of ham pot pie and freeze-dry a few meals. 

Canning butter beans is just one example of how a lot of people are working around how limited some items we used to consider staples have become. Not to mention how much money I saved.

At my local Walmart, today, if you could actually purchase a can of butter beans, the Hanover beans would cost you $1.38 a can, and the Goya would cost $1.74 a can.  I canned them for 31cents a jar. You can argue I had to buy the jars - totally endless reusable jars - and lids, but for jars I've had and used for years, it won't add much. Metal lids cost about 25cents a lid if they're purchased at the correct price point. So you can argue the added cost but it won't add up to $1.38 a jar. 

May I also point out I KNOW there is nothing added to my jars that I don't know about except beans? It is important to know what is in the products you consume. 

I'm not sure what the next canning project will be, but I'm actively looking. Canning is fun!

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, home canning, butter beans, simple country pleasures, rural lifestyle, pantry prepping, a writer's life, ham pot pie, do it yourself, canning jars, canning lids