Ode on a Grecian Canning Jar

Well maybe not a Grecian canning jar… but man-o-man do I love a good canning jar – so many uses. For instance, you can use them to cook and store your own beans. Cook up a one-pound bag of beans – black, pinto, kidney, garbanzo, you name it – and it’ll yield you three pint jars of salt-free, protein-packed beanage you can (should!) keep in the freezer. That’s about the same volume you’d get if you bought three cans of beans at the grocery store. It takes a while to soak and cook the beans, but the cost difference and health benefits alone (we’re a sodium-watching household) make it worth our while.

Or, the next time you make pancakes, make extra batches of the dry ingredients and store them in pint jars. Again, freezer is best, just because you don’t know how well the different ingredients might play together; after all, there are no preservatives in my favorite pancake recipe.

“I like coffee with my pancakes,” you might say. No problem! A pint jar is perfect for storing coffee beans in an airtight container, right inside your decorative Cafe canister.

“I don’t have time for pancakes and coffee! I have a pantload of tomatoes from my garden that I have to figure out what to do with.” Well look no further. Make up a big batch of tomato sauce and store it in canning jars!

I bet you Keats didn’t love his Grecian urn half as much as I love my jars.