French Cut Green Beans (Cutting and/or Canning or Freezing) Fall Bean Crop

This is a French Bean Slicer!

A few months ago I was on a real tear cleaning and reorganizing the entire house.  It is truly amazing what you find that you forget you even had!  At least it worked that way for me.  One "find" was my French Bean Slicer.  Yep, there is was in that big deep drawer where I pitch all of the stuff I can't bear to part with but don't use very often.  I have had this little jewel for so long I couldn't begin to tell you when or where it came from, except that I sent off for it years ago from somewhere?

Lovely French Sliced Green Beans.

But make no mistake I DO love it!  I love it to French slice not only green beans but also for sugar snap peas I put into Rissoto. 

But.....lest I get ahead of myself.  This saga started as  they often do with a call to our good friend Harry Brown the egg man, as I call him!  Our tomatoes are gone and I wanted to get some slicing tomatoes and thought he might have some.  When I arrived there was a 10 gallon bucket 2/3 full of beautiful green beans he had just picked.  Needless to say they went home with me along with those tomatoes and a bag of squash!  They amounted to 14 pounds of near perfect beans.

Pints of broken beans.

At this point I starting breaking beans and then the light bulb came on!  I had broken half the beans, 13 pints by the time I had a brain storm! There is that French Bean slicer in the drawer!

The hour was late by now but I fetched it in but a minute!  Beautiful and effective it is.  I thought to simply break off the ends of the remaining beans and to store them away in the refrigerator until this morning.

Two gallons of whole beans.

Right after my Saturday call to Mother and 2 cups of hot black coffee I started!

This took no time at all and was fun in fact!

First I washed and drained the beans and attached the French Slicer to the dining room table positioning a chair under the drop chute to catch the beans. It is easy and a fun little gadget!  You just put a few beans in the chute and crank the handle.  In no time I was finished and quite happy with the prospects of my own French Sliced Green Bean Casserole for the holidays!

Lovely French Cut Beans.

Having put the jars and Ball Caps and Lids in the dishwasher to sterilize them before calling Mom I was set.  All I needed was the canning salt and a big pan of boiling water.  I used the drinking water from the reverse osmosis filter and set it and the pressure cooker canner to boil.

Beans, Salt, and Water is all I use.

Next I filled the jars and added a teaspoon of salt per quart and a half teaspoon for pints.  Leaving 1" head space I filled the packed jars with the boiling filtered water.  Next I wiped the rims and put the lids and caps on.

About to run out of jars I canned 3 quarts, 11 pints, and froze 3 quarts of beans.

Ready to process:  *Process 20 minutes for pints and 25 minutes for quarts at 10 pounds of pressure.
To freeze after breaking or slicing blanch in boiling water for 3 minutes and plunge into an ice bath.  Drain well and package with same amounts of salt as above in freezer bags or cartons and store in the deep freeze.  I yielded 23 pints total.

These quarts will make my holiday casserole.

*Per the Ball Blue book guide to preserving,100th Anniversary Edition.