Per the guidelines you can use most any recipe you wish as long as you follow the standard soup canning guidelines of no more than 1/2 the jar solids and 1/2 must be liquids and that you do not add noodles or other pasta, rice, flour, cream, milk or other thickening agents. Since many black bean soup recipes call for cornstarch you'd leave it out and add the thickener just prior to serving. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Canning Soups

While I'm not making any 'guarantees' about the safety of this recipe, here's my own family pressure canned 'basic' spaghetti sauce recipe, which hasn't killed anybody yet ... Using enough tomatoes to nearly fill an 18 quart stock pot ... 3/4ths San Marzano / Roma or other sauce tomatoes 1/4th Beefsteak / Better Boy or other juice tomatoes Wash and hull tomatoes, cut out bad spots, grind up tomatoes ( skins and all ) in a 'meat grinder' add 1 tbsp sugar, oregano, marjoram, basil, red pepper flakes to taste. add 2 cans tomato paste for additional thickness simmer with lid off for about 6 hours, stirring every 30 minutes. This is a judgement call based on specific tomatoes used, and can run anywhere between 4 and 8 hours. When cooked down to desired 'thickness', start transferring to sterilized 1 pint canning jars. Add 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt to each 1 pint canning jar as you fill Can for 25 minutes at 10 psi At the time of opening a canning jar and serving, then and only then do I add sauteed chopped peppers, sauteed mushrooms, or any other 'wet' ingredients !!! The cooked down tomatoes by themselves may be near the 'borderline' of safely low pH ... therefore I don't add anything except 'dry' spices to the basic sauce I am canning. I also individually add the 1/2 teaspooon per pint of canning salt to make sure that there is sufficient salt concentration in each and every jar to 'discourage' bacteria growth.

Tom, you're right about toxin vs. spores, that was a "thinko". But it only takes a tiny bit of toxin to make you sick. There was one report from whoever counts botulism cases about a lady who opened a jar of carrots, dipped her finger in and tasted the liquid, then decided to throw out the carrots in case of botulism. The tiny taste was enough to make her sick...I think she died but I can't remember. So what I meant was, when you open the jar, a little splash onto your fingers or the counter could be enough to make you sick. See the link below to a fact sheet from the UPitt medical center on aerosolized botulinum toxin, which says "Animal models suggest that inhaling 0.7-0.9 µg of aerosolized botulinum toxin would be enough to kill a person weighing 154 lbs." That's not very much, so depending how friendly the sauce was to the spores, the concentration in the jar could be enough to produce a dangerous splash. I also found an article in JAMA that references botulinum toxin as the most poisonous substance known. I take some risks for myself, like eating raw milk cheese and dishes made with undercooked eggs, but since Valereee has a family, I think the risk is too great. She could can a different sauce for her family to use when she's not home, and save Mama Finocchiaro's Tomato Gravy for when she's home. Melissa Here is a link that might be useful: botulism fact sheet

Actually, a pressure canner is going to reach a higher internal temperature than a boiling water bath, so you should be fine using the 5 pounds at the same time, but if you're more comfortable with it, use 10 pounds, which is the standard pressure for canning. I don't think you'll notice any difference in quality. I doubt the time to bring the canner up to pressure and bring it down after processing is any greater than the time required to bring a big BWB to the boil, so as far as convenience is concerned and certainly weight, you're probably ahead with the PC. Carol