Soup...and a Hike

It has finally gotten warm enough for us to get outside with the kids for a hike. We started out with a 2 mile hike in a very large conservation area near us (I recognize that "very large" for eastern Massachusetts is probably a postage stamp to you big-state people!) and enjoyed the sunny, warm day.

This afternoon I made chicken soup again as I'd roasted a chicken a few days ago. This was just chicken, celery, carrots, onion, bay, thyme, salt and pepper. I put up 8 pints of soup. This is the first time I haven't put the chicken soup in quart jars. I wanted to be able to take them to work.

I also dumped out the rest of the fiddleheads I'd canned last spring. What seemed like a good idea at the time didn't really pan out the way I wanted. I had hoped that by canning them in the pressure canner I could just drain them and saute them quickly in butter when I wanted them. The first jar turned into mush in about 10 seconds. There was no second attempt. It's not often that I throw out something I've canned, but this one just didn't work out. Maybe that's why pickling them is better. Or freezing...