Thanks Dave! I felt confident that would be the correct answer and went forward with the recipe. I now have the lovely sound of the gentle rocking of the weight in my kitchen with 7 pints of chili con carne being processed. If I'd been wrong, I would have stuck the jars in the freezer after processing and cooling down. The remainder of the batch that didn't go in the canner will be for supper tonight. I agree with the amount of beans...I think I stopped at 5 cups instead of the 6 because it just looked right and more would have been too much. I adjusted the dried seasonings a bit, using a blend from the Ball book that added cumin, red pepper, and coriander. If the beans come out a little too soft or mushy, that won't bother me at all in chili. I've done a taste test and I think I like my cooking recipe for chili better, but since I like to have some canned chili ready for instant meals, this is the way to go. I may be able to tweak the dried seasonings a bit more and get closer to the taste of my regular chili. What I notice most is the absence of garlic. I put a lot of garlic in my cooking/not canning chili recipe. I know there are some canning recipes (Ball Blue Book and Ball Complete) that do include garlic, but the recipe I used from NCHFP didn't include it. Thanks for the feedback. It is always appreciated. Jill

Why not just leave out the meat and use more beans? As long as you fill the jars half full of the solids and half with the liquid, it would be the same as canning soup.

> But wouldn't leaving out the tomatoes also alter the pH and/or density? >> Yes to both but the shift would be toward the safe side - less density and less low acid contents. I don't agree with Dave here --- compared with hamburger, spices, and everything else in this recipe, and even compared with broth, tomatoes are quite acidic, so taking them out would decrease the overall acidity of the combo. poledragedog, tomatoes *are* considered high-acid --- you can can them in a BWB and they're found in the same section as the jams & jellies in canning books. Since you've read up I know you know that they are only just on the acidic-enough-to-BWB side, however, and so the recommendation today is to add a bit of acid when canning them that way. But in, say, a tomato-sauce recipe with added herbs & veggies, or a soup or chili recipe where the other ingredients are meats, spices, and broth, the tomatoes are the most acidic thing. The issue I would see (and I"m only musing here, based on reading the same stuff you probably have about canning soup), is density: the tomato sauce would not behave like the ground beef, being a solid ingredient floating in the broth; it would mix with the broth to make a denser liquid, wouldn't it? BTW, I'm intrigued by the adding of masa harina as a thickener. Do you cook the paste at all before adding it? I just bought some masarica (is that the same thing? It looked like it from the package; not easy to come by in my small Canadian town....) and made my own corn tortillas for the first time. Despite having been of no help at all with your question, I think I'm gonna steal your chile recipe and go give it a try! Thanks! ;0 Zabby

The harvest above is irrefutably not an accidental garden and materialized only with time and perpetual effort. I would love to proclaim total credit for this garden harvest but acknowledge far greater natural and heavenly might play a more significant role. Just like a building foundation the main focus in this garden is the soil and all that exist within it. This garden resides west of Georgetown in black gumbo soil (heavy clay); therefore I have nurtured it for years using organic practices, compost, greensand, decomposed granite, manure, composed wood chips, peat, organic fertilizer, dried molasses, etc. It is a large garden (50ÂX150Â) divided into 4 sections. Although not what most think of as raised beds the soil is mound high for good drain age. The crop is rotated among the sections and one section rest each year under a cover crop or two. A 7Â fence surrounds it to prevent unwanted mobile life from decimating it yet it is subjected to periodic aerial assaults. Interestingly this year a pair of mocking bird moved in to a nearby tree and defended "their" garden from other frequent fliers looking to dine. My philosophy is to plant enough for everyone and hopefully they will share with me too. I donÂt fight Mother Nature I embrace it, a hard lesson learned, she is very beneficial once accepted. Example; the birds eat bugs too. I thrive for a natural eco-system. Last spring I had a stink bug infestation and had to take drastic measure to fight them I pulled up the broccoli plants and threw them away (not in the compost bin). Absolutely no chemicals are intentionally applied however I did try planting potatoes in hay bins and believe the hay may have been herbicide contaminated. I despise reinventing the wheel so researching to learn from others mistakes is imperative but have more than enough learning experiences of my own. It does not matter how rigid your organic dedication is you will be challenged. As far as the vegetables in the above image go there were 28 eight distinctive heirlooms tomatoes mostly indeterminate and some determinants. I planted tomatoes to produce throughout the season so not all 28 are represented in the image. The same goes with the chills only there were 15 different ones. Late season before the first freeze is when most chilies yield abundantly in the Central Texas Hill Country. Thank for the compliments but I must get back to the canning factory.