Abuela's Frijoles Negros, or Grandma's Black Beans.

I endevour to own a shelf of home canned items.  It’s NEVER easy to do this with pressure canned items in my home, because they are time consuming and labor intensive.  I feel the hot water bath canning is much more achievable for a busy mom-preneur like myself, but alas,  I’m never much interested in what one can safely bathe in hot water!  I do a little of it here and there, but each year I get super excited about the process of Pressure Canning, which allows me to sock away soups, sauces, meat & broths and lots of things I used to buy off the shelf as convenience items!

However, home canning isn’t easy at all, it’s very detail oriented and precise.  It’s not safe to take ANY shortcuts and you must must must follow guidelines set forth the experts.  Its pretty easy to make a mistake and in the beginning, there are often many.   This is basically year 3 for me, and I only get to do a few batches each year because we run out of jars.  But just like I did, you will collect more and more over the years until you get here, where I am now.  I have a cabinet or two FULL of jars, some donated, some purchased used, others are reused from the ones I bought new.  All need a close inspection before use and due to a mishap in this very batch, I will also be pre-boiling jars, to be sure they will hold up.

The mishap, involved placing a quart jar of tediously prepared Cuban Black Beans into the canner and the bottom promptly popped right off.     This is really awful when it happens, because now all the contents of the jar are in the clean canner water, AND you can’t even eat the stuff, if you could salvage it because there MIGHT be a little glass in it.  It’s heartbreaking but, part of the learning curve I expect.  The only thing I can be great-full for is, that I choose to learn my process on inexpensive ingredients, and so while I’m out a lot of time, it’s only a little bit of money.  Last year I learned that I MUST MUST MUST use the freshest youngest ingredients when my pickles came out soggy and boring.  Also, pickling lime is a fantastic helper there too with that.  The pickles aren’t a waste, they make a decent relish, but still, there is a learning curve no doubt.

However, when your shelf is lined with a few of your own home canned items, and when the kids can reach for Grandma’s Black Beans & reheat them in a pot ready to eat, I just can’t say enough about how special that is.  Making your own convenience foods is really the best way to go.

This recipe will be available in my upcoming cookbook this fall.