Another canning question.

The other day when I was learning to can venison I had enough meat left over to fill approximately another 3 pints but I didn't know if you have to have a full batch of jars inside the canner or not in order to can. I went ahead and wrapped the extra meat and placed it in the freezer for future stew meat. I figure a person probably would only want to completely fill the canner for saving on both time and expense of gas or electricity but is there anybody here who does can only a few cans at a time of something? Would it be worth the effort if a person made a big batch of stew, chili, beans, etc. for dinner and then canned the leftovers for future use?

Didn't realize I wasn't logged in, but that was me that asked that question. Oh, by the way I tried my canned venison the other day and it was delicious. Thanks everyone for helping me out. I'll be canning deer from now on.

[SwampMom]

If I don't have enough food jars to fill the canner, I fill jars with water and process them. The water does come in handy in emergencies. And if I need the jars, I just dump the water.

Soup, stew, chili, beans? Yeah, I do them all. Home-cooking, even when the cook isn't home. MIL kids me about putting everything in jars! She boiled a really salty ham once and saved the broth, in case I wanted to can it. Yep, I did, Made some tasty beans!

[kitty32_z8]

I often have cooked a partial batch being I have a large pressure cooker. yOu might consider amking it into something then can it, that way you have more jars. I often can 'leftovers' form meals that turn out real good.

Kathy

swampmom, now that you mention it I think I remember either you or someone else here that cans water for emergency. That is a good ideal! Never no when that storm is going to hit and knock out the electricity. Thankyou.

Kathy, thanks for the advice. Often times my stew or chili is made out of leftovers already but then I have leftover from it but not a whole lot. I always save my leftover greenbeans, corn, carrots, taters,etc and freeze them. Then when we have a roast beef dinner usually the next day or two I gather all my frozen leftovers and make a big pot of stew. We eat half of it and then usually end up throwing the other half away. But if I could can it in pint size jars then I could have these ready for my own dinner when I'm here alone or take hunting/fishing with me. Easy to warm up. I also do the same thing with chili, save my leftover brown beans or kidney, etc. and use them later for chili fixins. The only problem is that I just don't have enough leftover to fill my big pressure cooker. However with swampmomma's advice I'll start canning water also.