Regular readers will recognise Stoner the Bear, but I guess it’ll mainly be our American readers who will also recognise that shiny thing with knobs on.

Yep, we’ve gone and bought ourselves a genuine (pronounced gen-yoo-ein) All American Pressure Canner, and it arrived at lunchtime today having left Wisconsin just three days ago.

We long ago realised that nobody in Europe makes a decent pressure canner, so if we wanted one we’d be stuck with buying from the States via Amazon , but we always said we couldn’t justify paying the horrendous price for the real deal plus shipping.  Having done all the research, though, we knew we wouldn’t be happy with anything less than an All American, so there the matter rested.

Or it did until last week, when I finally said “Sod it, we’re only old once, so let’s buy the thing.”  We’ve always worked on the principle that if in doubt, “oh what the hell” is always the right decision.

So we bought one, and we’re well impressed with it even before we’ve used it.  Can’t say we were impressed with the packaging, but against all the odds it did actually get here undamaged.  Just.

Verily, this thing is the Harley Davidson of pressure canners/cookers.

Now, what Brit readers are wondering is why, when we’ve been successfully bottling fruit for years, do we now have need of a pressure canner?  Well,  the answer is the vegetables we grow.  Without a pressure canner, we simply can’t bottle vegetables safely.  Yes, we do have a freezer, but not one big enough to freeze what we want to grow for store.  And besides, with bottled (canned) veg as well as fruit, we’re independent of the mains electric supply.

That shot’s for the benefit of any UK readers who might wonder how many Kilner jars you can get in a 21.5 quart All American Pressure Canner.  That’s six of the 2lb “Dual Purpose” ones, and it looks like 12 of the 1lb ones will work too.

The instructions are comprehensive and typically American (and I don’t just mean all the references to quarts and bushels), although you are left wondering about “pole beans” and “string beans”.  At the moment it seems to us that pole beans are runner beans and string beans are French beans, but if anybody knows for sure, do please add a comment now and clarify it for us!

Finally, it’s just occurred to me that by cropping that top picture as tight as I have, I’ve cut Willie Nelson out and he hasn’t featured on this blog hitherto.  Willie’s the dog who lays on top of the beanbag which sits in that corner of the kitchen to the right and keeps the two kettles hot after they’ve boiled on that stove in the background so we have free hot water all day long during the winter.  He’s called Willie because Elsie made a long handle/lifter-upper thing for the beanbag in a somewhat ethnic-looking fabric, and when we let go of it having put a kettle under the bag, it tends to fall round the top of his head …

Have a good weekend, folks.