Our Food Storage Adventure......

In recent months we have been working on our food storage. I have been slowly trying to build it up and get it organized in the garage. After Pam and I went to the church cannery for a night, we decided, in true VanderHoeven style I might add, to take it one step further. We decided to have a canning day with the whole family.

Pam checked out a sealer from the cannery, each of us went out and got our bulk foods we wanted to can, and we decided to make a fun day of it.

When I realized that between us, the Sirrines, Ady and Kirsten, the Walshs, the Keenans, and the Lutzs, we had 400 cans to fill in one day I was a little overwhelmed. WOW!

This was the scene in Pam's living room as the day started.
Before too long, we had an assembly line going, and tackled this task.

Salt anyone?
Jennifer Walsh was head of the labeling committee.

Jacki and Kirsten ran the sealers. Jacki was able to also bring one down from a cannery near her house. So we could have double efficiency.
Pam, Judy, and I were the "filling the cans" crew.

Believe it or not we were able to get those cans filled in about 5 hours. We canned a huge variety of things. Flour, Salt, Sugar, 4 or 5 different kinds of pasta, rice, pancake mix, potato pearls, brownie mix, powdered milk, roll mix, popcorn, tortilla mix, and even dogfood (last of course).

Now for the AFTER shots -
Next month I will be working on canned vegetables and soups. I really had a lot of fun doing this, and hope to make it a family tradition once or twice a year.