SOUP DAY!

Yesterday, I decided it was SOUP DAY in our house.  No, not soup for dinner.  SOUP DAY in capital letters.  I decided I was going to make soup and can it for hubby and I's lunches.  I could have done one recipe of soup and we would have had a few soups for lunch.  I could have done two recipes of soup, and we really would have had enough for a while.  But no.  I am an over achiever.  I decided we needed three soup recipes.

It doesn't take that long to make soup, right?
It doesn't take that much longer to cut up vegetables for three soups then one soup, right?
I'll get into a groove, it will go quickly, right?

*snort*

Boy was I wrong!

I started at 8am, fueled by my coffee.  The house was still quiet because the kids were all in their Saturday morning stupor of sleeping in and cartoons.  First, the dishwasher needed to be unloaded and loaded and the counters needed to be cleared.  What kind of soup was I making?  The night before I decided on Taco Soup , My Best Bean Soup , and good old Split Pea and Bacon Soup.  My beans were already in the fridge, soaking and waiting their turns in the soup pot.

I chopped three whole heads of garlic, two large onions, twelve large carrots, and entire head of celery, and five tomatoes.  All ingredients went into their own seperate little bowls.  This doesn't sound like that much, but by the time I was done, I had children circling me like piranha wanting breakfast of some sort.

Break from soup to make pancakes, eggs, and bacon for brunch for the family.

Time to get the bacon ready for the soups.  I had a ten pound box of bacon waiting to be processed into usable amounts for the freezer.  Might as well get that done while my hands are greasy, right?

Okay, back to soup.

First the Best Bean Soup.  Jars, lids, and bands into the dishwasher.  I wasn't sure how many I was going to use in my SOUP DAY.  I figured close to 25, so that is what I loaded in and started.  I set up my pressure canner to warm up.  Then I finally started my bean soup.  Eight jars went into the pressure canner and had to process for 90 minutes once I got it up to the right pressure.

I had a little break in here.  I had to stay pretty close to the pressure canner, but I could at least focus on other things for a bit.  I helped hubby with a few car work things, agreed to friends coming over to visit and my boys going to a friend's to visit.  I put my daughter in charge of babysitting the pressure canner while I ran people to and fro.

OOOhhhh!  Pressure canner was a half an hour away from done.  This is when I figured it was time to get the next soup going.  Split Pea and Bacon went into the soup pot next.  The only down side was that I forgot just how long it takes for the pressure canner to come down in pressure so you can actually remove the jars.  An hour later I was finally ladeling the Split Pea into six jars and loading those into the pressure canner.  Those had to process for 75 minutes once I got them up to pressure.

Again, a little break while the soup was in the pressure canner to clean the kitchen from soup mess, switch laundry, and drive children to and fro.  (I seem to do that a lot on the weekends.)

About this time, hubby came in asking about dinner.  OY!  Yep, I only had two kinds of soup done and it was already time to start cooking dinner!!

OOOOOhhhhh!  Pressure canner was half an hour away from done.  Time to start the Taco Soup!  Yep, that's right.  I did it again.  Totally forgot how long it takes to cool the silly pressure cooker down.

I finally got the eight jars of Taco Soup into the pressure canner at 6pm.  I couldn't wait any longer to cook dinner.  I had three of my four burners going AND the broiler in order to cook dinner while my last batch of soup was going.  I ate dinner while I babysat the pressure cooker one last time for the day.

By the time the last batch of soup came out of the canner, it was 8:47pm.  I had been cooking for over twelve hours.  I am happy with my 22 jars of soup.  However, I don't think I'll be attempting three kinds of soup in one day again!!