Some foods from the store come with one-piece lids in a mason size and thread shape. For example, coconut oil and some kinds of spaghetti sauce. I can with those lids, and I use them multiple times. They have much thicker seal than the flat lids sold for canning. Thicker even than the one-piece lids that used to be sold for canning back in the 80s. I wouldn't use them for low acid pressure canned stuff, of course. I don't think I've ever reused a flat lid, but I would consider it if I just needed one or two more lids for a low acid product like applesauce. I would pick through all my old lids and choose the ones with the best looking seals, the shallowest grooves from old canning. I posted a question here a while back, about some new jars with lids that had been stored on a warm porch where they sealed and unsealed themselves many times. When I pried the lids off, they had visible grooves. But I was advised to go ahead and simmer them and use them, and I didn't have any trouble with them. Again, high acid, BWB only. Edit: I mean, the one piece Lids from the 80s were marketed as reusable. Up to four times, if I remember correctly.

Beans varieties with spots and swirls often have a few seeds with inverted pattern. The background and the pattern colour swap places. A bean with a lighter background and a darker pattern will display a darker background and light coloured pattern. If you plant these inversed seeds, the offspring will be normal again. Freshly harvested seed also has different colours from older seed. What looks like vivid purple on shelling, becomes a dull brown after a few months in a seed packet. If these statements do not fit what you see, a good photo would help. Were the 'deviants' all in one pod, all on one truss or all on one plant? All on one plant would point to a cross as the most likely explanation. If you are growing all the 'deviants' this year, you will either get a wide variation between the plants, where every plant has different pods and different seeds. And conclude from that that you had a crossed plant last year that gave you the purple seeds. Or you might get the 'normal' Logan Giant beans back. In that case you had inverted seeds, which is a rare, but normal, manifestation of what the seeds can look like with Logan Giant.

Rosie, I think you have graduated from KD 101; now it's time to take it to the next level by being willing to abandon the strictly balanced symmetry of your layout in order to max the out the functional benefits of your space. (Don't worry about the visual "cost" of losing the balance, getting that right in the end is the final step and it can be done in other ways than a book-matched design.) Anyhoo, the idea of having different-sized counter runs (and cabs) on either side of the sink and range is the next stage. Off the top of my head I usually would say give more space between the fridge and range (for the main Prep Zone in a plan like yours)than between the range and wall, except that if you do a lot of grain milling then you may need to give more space to the baking side to accomodate the grain mill and other major baking appliances. However, you did say you grow vegetables so perhaps you also can. That would mean that the "prep" side would get an enormous work out assembling and filling the jars before moving them on to the canner. (Cold pack stuff would come from the sink/island prep zone; hot pack stuff would come from range to can-filling area and then back to the range for processing.) Then you need to think of where to put the hot jars after processing and that cannot be on a stone counter, only wood or formica works there because of the risk of thermal shock. I don't know about you but I rarely do just one processing at a time so I accumulate a lot of filled and cooling jars before I'm done canning for the day. And I want to have them wind up in place where they can sit and cool down without being in my way during the clean up and rest of the day's kitchen work. But maybe you freeze instead, which would move the packing more to the island after prepping in the Prep Zone/blanching/shocking/spinning dry to the packaging steps, which might happen on the island? Do you use a FoodSaver - where would it live? Just think through how you do this..... The excellent suggestions of other posters should lead you to play around with the layout along the counters to find the most useful spacing for your personal counter top usage. Right now you have 54" on the left of the range and 60" on the right. Is that the best config? I'd try a lot of variations for regular meal prep, dedicated baking and food preservation pprojects. Don't worry, for now, about the cab sizes, just think about the work surface patterns. Since you do more home food preservation than many typical kitchen users, you have to think those additional processes through with the space needed kept in mind. For instance, I sometimes use a DW as a holding area for clean and hot jars if I am doing a hot pack, so I would want to think about its placement not only for day to day convenience, but also for how efficient it woud be for snagging jars amidst the hustle of getting a whole batch of jars filled and into the canner. This is just an example of the extra considerations needed in a preservation kitch. One suggestion I would make is to consider having an extra-deep counter, 30" would be great, but even 27" is an improvement over the standard one. This would allow your fridge to assume an even more "built-in" appearance, but most importantly, those extra inches allow appliances to stay on counters and not compromise the functionality as much. If you any extra inches to spare in your design I'd "spend" them on a deeper range wall countertop rather than in extra aisle width or island space. I hope you won't feel bummed, or discouraged, by our additional suggestions. Extra time spent now working out the variations will pay off in the long run. I made drawing after drawing and then drew lines to track how I move through my most common meal preps and preservation projects. I took pics and even made drawings of my counters during canning, freezing, dehydrating and baking projects so I could see what I actually had out, and how I had it arranged, while actually doing the tasks. This was enormously helpful to me. You have obviously put considerable thought into your current plan and drawing. And you're more than ready to take on the next level of analysis. Welcome to grad school! HTH, L

Just Stunning. I love your confidence and ability to see the big picture and stay with it. Thank you. It's always best when putting together a room or a house to try and get all or at least most of the elements worked out before you even begin. For those just starting, a good way to do this is to create mood boards to make sure it will all work together. And then truly think about your needs and how you work. You are very talented. Thank you for sharing these beautiful photos and all the details. They are so very helpful! I'm happy to help. I have a quetion about your induciton cooktop. I'm starting the building process and am considering an induction cooktop, but have always cooked with gas. Did you buy all new cookware for the induction? I had to buy some new cookware as much of it wasn't induction ready. My iron pans worked as well as my large stock pot and my wok. The rest went to our kids. I used to cook with gas too. I won't go back. Cleaner, more precise, no heating up the room and less bad stuff in the air. My All Clad cookware is about 10 years old and all attract a magnet except my griddle pan. Do you think these will work? Yes they absolutely will work as well as any iron pans you have. Also do you find that your pans rattle when heating up, or that the cooking is noisy in this sense? One pot does rattle but it's the exception, rather than the rule. Otherwise I don't find it noisy at all. I appreciate your comments, I dont know anyone with an induction cooktop to see in person. Is there a better appliance store in your area where you can go and look at induction? Maybe they have one that is a working cooktop so you can try it out with one of your pans?