If you've found Tattler lids for $1.49 a box, buy them! Tattler lids are used in exactly the same way although you should carefully read the instructions on the box. With Tattler lids you screw the rings down hard when you remove them from the canner. You would never do that with regular lids. I have friends who are on their third year with Tattlers. They love them. The only downside is that the Tattler lids and especially the rubber rings, must be heated before use. The rubber has to soften. Personally, I like using regular lids. I don't have to fool with heating up the lids and I give a lot of my canning away as Christmas gifts so I would be wasting a lot of money using expensive lids.

My husband was in michigan this week and that was one of the flights he thought about taking on thursday night. He flies a lot and it just hit close to home. Clarence is not far from where we live. We are a little more out in the country. Big sigh of relief. When the news came on at 10pm they announced at the end of the broadcast that a plane had crashed by the airport, but they didn't know anything yet. By the time the 11pm news came on, it was not until after the weather that their news crews made it to the neighborhood and they announced it was a commercial plane. WIVB broadcast without commercial break until I went to bed at 2am. When my husband called to say he was alright i was so grateful. (wipes tears and sniffles) Fran, Could i have the blanket flower, please? BTW, DS#3 watered my keyboard once, its still a little iffy. We set it in from of the blower on the woodstove for a week. Just FYI those of you sowing in the keys LOL! Thank all of you for the prayers. Families here are esp. close knit and things like this are difficult for anyone. Praying for your FIL, too Nichol. Fleethart

For hard cheese like Parmesean, I sometimes throw it in the food processor like lowspark suggests - it's what I do when making pesto. We have a couple of the shredder/storage containers like grainlady mentioned. Ours came from Ikea. I find them very convenient and the shredders that come with them work well. We have micro planes that work nicely when wanting to grate directly on to something. For doing a lot of cheese, the shredding disk on the food processor is nice, but I only use that when the amount is worth cleaning it. Usually, I shred by hand. My hands are small so when using a big block of cheese, I'll often hack off a piece that I can hold more comfortably and shred that. It makes it a lot easier.

Foodonastump, funny you should ask. I never did use the stirrer thing. Upon inspection I decided that it was too whimpy for anything but the lightest of sauces/batters. A whisk works just fine and doesn't require batteries. The spatuala thermometer has never been used because I can't pull-out the platic strip protecting the battery that powers the thermometer. I tried taking out the battery box, and can't get that out either. Right now it is laying on my side cabinet in hopes that someday the grandson who loves such challenges will come to visit and get it to working. yeonassky: I have a tool called a 'seal breaker'. You use it like a can opener to break the seal on too tight lids and it works every time.