I didn't kill us

I broke out the pressure canner today.  With the freezer at capacity and my cooking mojo feeling mojo-ish, I set out to can soup.  And so that is what I did--ALL FREAKIN' DAY.  First, I prepped the pressure canner--washing off the manufacturing oils per the instructions, and assembling the lid parts.  There wasn't much assembly involved but when I have to have a pressure gauge to monitor the steam bomb, assembly of anything on my part makes me a little nervous.  Second, I had to make the soup, which involved some math and mad calculating so I cooked the food enough (for instance if you had tomato to a dish with beans before the beans are soft, they never get soft) but not too much, since it was going to be heated to temperatures in excess of boiling for the better part of a day.  Third, the cans of soup went into the pressure canner.  Then for the next hour and a half I baby-sat the canner, making minute adjustments to the heat level and letting off steam to keep the pressure at 11 psi.  Adjustments were required about every 5 minutes.  The steam smelt of vinegar, which was recommended to add to the canner water to keep water marks from forming on the jars.

All that for this-

2 1/2 quarts of chicken veggie and 2 1/2 quarts of minestrone.

As you can tell, I left a bit too much headspace.  I was very concerned about exploding the jars.  The minestrone looks ok, but the chicken vegetable looks, well, tired.  I hope it doesn't taste like the life has been cooked out of it because that how it looks.  I need a better payoff for a day's work.  I have a sneaking suspicion this may not have been worth it.