The *Joys* of Home-Canning

(THIS RETRO/VINTAGE PRESSURE CANNER IS ONE MY MOM BOUGHT ME IN 1973 WHEN I WAS 21. 

DOES THAT MEAN THAT I AM NOW CONSIDERED RETRO/VINTAGE?)

The following diatribe is somewhat tongue-in-cheek (I think!) but if this was my first experience with home canning it would also be my last.

I've worked for the last 6 hours to *put up* 8 pints of spaghetti sauce. Of course, these tomatoes came from my garden so that 6 hours doesn't include the time it took to have turf-war with the neighborhood swine-deer or the planting;  then the picking, washing, sorting and initial cooking done last night.

I put the pot of hot tomatoes in the garage last night to cool so the only thing I had to do this morning is send them through the Vitorio, add onions, celery, garlic (oops, forgot the garlic) and spices. The first setback arrived when I knocked the half-full pot of tomatoes off the counter (bending my good pot!) where they shot across the floor in a tomato tsunami and spattered all over the cabinets.

Gordon: Are you ok? Do you need help?
Joanie: No. Yes, bring me the two old pink towels from under the bath/laundry room counter.
Gordon: Sure sorry that happened.

Insert scene of Joanie spatulating, wiping, mopping, and cleaning cabinets and floor. Then a trip down to the the laundry sink to soak the mess out of the towels.

Joanie: Please help me remember to turn off that water. (Exit to dungeon to get onions while starting to feel frazzled.
Gordon: No problem. How long will that be?
Joanie: Until it is half full: about 5 minutes.

Insert more cleaning and chopping in the Ninja (thumb still intact!)

An indeterminate time later...

Gordon: Dam!
Joanie: I could have done this! (maniacal laughter)

Good thing I have quite a supply of old towels under said laundry sink counter to clean up the flood on the floor!

Cook and stir. Watch. Repeat. Continue cleaning all of the implements used to make this mess sauce.

Tell me again... what is so wrong with buying that case of Prego spaghetti sauce?

Oh! I remember! It's because I love how home grown tomatoes taste and there is nothing like it.

Sometimes I wish I'd never tasted a home-grown tomato!

Green Tomato Relish

*Fritz* has been predicting COLD weather that moved in today. In anticipation of that event I knew that I needed to put my tomato garden to bed! Saturday was one of those gorgeous, glorious, warm, fall day. I knew that was my window of opportunity. I went out and picked any tomato that was big enough to do anything with regardless of ripeness.

I must have done something right this year in soil prep. Most years I am able to grab hold of the tomato cage and just *yoink* the whole plant out of the ground. There was no *YOINKING* this year! I had to trim off most of the branches and then dig up the root ball! I love this Black Krim Heirloom tomato. Since it is an heirloom tomato I can save seed from this year's crop for next year (or more likely... find the bedding plants next spring- but I will save the seeds!) Look at the root structure on this baby!

Needless to say I had TONS (read- nearly 3 BYU bucketfuls... the new international standard for produce measurements!) of tomatoes- mostly green. Several years ago when I was in the same situation I decided to see if I could substitute green tomatoes for zucchini in my relish recipe. It was wonderful! HA!

This is another one of my ancient recipes. I got this from a friend in Priest River, Idaho in 1974 and apparently didn't have any recipe cards, so being resourceful, I got the cardboard from my latest pair of Albertson's brand panty-hose and make myself a recipe card!

The first step for making relish is to grind, yes, grind- with an old-fashioned hand crank grinder, the tomatoes (or zucchini) and onions. I gives off lots of green tomato *blood* that looks acid green. (Notice the bucket under the grinder to catch the juice... don't for get this important precaution!) The onion juice goes in as well so you can imagine the smell of this juice.

I was looking at all of the poisonous (not really), acid-green juice and mused out loud that there should be a good use for it. Gordon suggested pouring it on the garden to see if it would repel the deer. So we will see if that deters them from eating my ivy this winter. It will either do that or make the ivy grow even faster!

Back to the recipe... add the salt, stir and let it sit over night. The salt draws the juice out of the pulp and makes for a firmer, thicker relish. Next morning drain, rinse with cold water and drain again.  Put this mixture it into a big pot with the remaining ingredients.

You notice this time I have dark red pepper *blood* from the red and green pepper. That just went down the drain.

Stir it all around and let it cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. This really is a mixture that takes good care of itself and doesn't need a lot of tending.

Bottle the cooked relish and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. And since it make just over 7 pints there is always a little left over to taste.

I've been making this for 38 years now and we love it... I will never use any other kind of relish. It's particularly good in tuna-goo-sam'ichs.

Happy Tomatoes

This spring when I was browsing the tomato plants at Home Depot I found some Heirloom tomatoes. Wikipedia says they are non-hybrid tomatoes and have a better taste... but I haven't noticed that much difference.

I got one purple and one golden plant and then my good old fill-ins- Early Girl. These tomatoes don't ripen as fast as the Early Girl, but the purple are big- almost like a Beefsteak tomato.

Besides eating them I've decided to make myself some *Happy Jars of Tomatoes*...  I start with several of the purple, then the yellow and top it off with plain ol' red!



Doesn't that just make you smile?  Here they are before the hit the jars...

Apples... Must Be Fall

I realize that the calendar still thinks it's summer but in Springville fall is here! AND I love it. Elio told me it was 44 degrees this morning!

One sure indicators that fall REALLY is here are apples. I love apples... they are such a wonderful fruit. They are the hardy fruit... they store well and they don't spoil too quickly. The other thing is that the are easily redeemed.

What do I mean by that? If an apricot hits the ground, well, there's only one place for it to go and that is the trash. A peach? Maybe if you do it RIGHT NOW... but even a couple of hours and your windfall peach is a bruised mess ready for the trash. But apples... even if they have been birdy-pecked, dropped in the dirt, bounced on the lawn, invaded by insects or just generally deformed it is still useable and edible with a little bit of skillful trimming with a sharp paring knife.

BEHOLD THE BYU BUCKET!

I figured I've yammered on so many times about my *favorite BYU buckets* that they needed some press time. I love these handy plastic buckets with tight fitting lids...

BUT I digress...

I had a bucketful of windfall, birdy-pecked, dropped in the dirt, bounced on the lawn, invaded by insects or just generally deformed apples today (and 3 buckets of OK apples) that needed my attention. These are the little apples that just beg to be made into applesauce.

Applesauce and I go way back... 40 years ago this month I made my first foray into applesauce land.

First you trim out any bad spots (quite a few in today's batch), throw them in a big pot and cook until tender...

I used to use a Foley Food Mill but now I depend on my Vitorio Juicer/Strainer. I picked it up at a garage sale almost 30 years ago and it has served me well. It really is the simplest thing to use.

Pour the cooked apples into the hopper...

Crank the handle and the applesauce comes out the shoot...

And the core, peelings, seeds, etc. go out the end...

Six quarts of redeemed apples!

I couldn't help but reflect on the analogy of how we are redeemed. We are windfall, birdy-pecked, dropped in the dirt, bounced on the lawn, invaded by insects or just generally deformed *little-apples* but the Savior skillfully helps us trim out all of the bad spots and makes us useful in His kingdom.

Happy thought!

Domestic Goddess

Today was MY day!

I started the day by eating fresh raspberries and peaches (ah, I love this time of year). But then it was a time to get busy.



First on my list was to turn 18 *clam shells* of raspberries into raspberry-vanilla jam! I made some back in July and I NEEDED more. Of course, it helps that Ream's had raspberries on sale again.

Next on the list was tomatoes. This is a sampling of what's growing in my garden this year.



I planted two heirloom tomatoes: a golden and a purple. The are pretty but in my book you just can't beat the taste of those good ol' Early Girl[s].

Let's see, where were we? Jam x 21 half pints... tomatoes processed. Don't you think that ought to be enough for a Domestic Goddess.

WELL NO!

My trouble-maker neighbor has been posting her wonderful oatmeal bread all week long!



AND I did just happen to have one half pint of open raspberry vanilla jam!



Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about!



Gordon says, "I have a suggestion for you- DON'T BE GIVIN' AWAY ANY OF THIS BREAD!"

Apricot Jam

I did a post about apricot jam back in 2008 but I decided that it was time for another one.



My friend, Sheri, calls this *Sunshine in a Jar*! And she's right! I love the warm, sunny color of apricot jam. I have 12 glorious, golden pints of goodness on my counter cooling right now. And the up side to my apricot jam recipe? The foam that is skimmed off during the cooking process becomes an additional pint of apricot syrup! Yummy!

Laster-evening Gordon and I pick what remained on the tree of the apricots. Since we live in a canyon we get some healthy wind here and have LOTS of windfall fruit. I've collected 6 grocery bags full of apricots and apples this week. All told we ended up with 3- 3 gallon [BYU ice cream] buckets of apricots. I don't know how to quantify that with the only previous crop because I discovered the wonder of BYU buckets since our last in 2008.



We always share our fruit with the Orem-variety of fruit-bats (2 families now!) and the neighbors. I'm thinking that if hard times come, and we know they eventually will, some apricot jam ought to liven up our food storage fair considerably.

So for this year... I will continue to be the little Grammie-jammie-maker.

211- Currant Jam (Whatelse?)

So, lasterday, I worked like a crazy woman, or perhaps the Little Red Hen:

• I pick the berries
  
• I cleaned the berries
  
• I de-stemmed the berries (with help from Hanky-Spanky)
  
• I went to a bridal shower (WHAT? when did the Little Red Hen ever get to go to bridal showers?)
  
• I steamed the berries
  
• I juiced the berries and then I collapsed in a heap on my favorite basking chair on the deck and did some star-gazing.

That means that this morning I needed to turn all of that pulp and juice into Currant jam! Boy do we ever love red currant jam here. It is so wonderfully tart, sweet and zingy!

I ended up with 28 pints of that luscious red spreadable nectar!

313- Homemade Taquitos

... es muy bueno!

So you remember that a couple of weeks ago I did a post about making my own Home Canned Beef. (Which turned out totally yummy!! We had some as just a roast beef dinner one night. Very tasty quick meal.)

The biggest reason I wanted to put in a store of canned beef is... TAQUITOS!!! Yum... I love taquitos!! In fact I've been regretting all day that I sent home all the leftovers with Stuart last night!

Taquitos are really very simple to make (uh, but, let's be honest... a bit messy!)

You need to have (these amounts are approximate... I don't measure):

1 can Canned Beef
1-2 tablespoons cream of wheat or malto-meal
1-2 dozen corn tortilla
oil, a bunch (yeah, this is the messy part)
toothpicks, ditto
paper towels, ditto
... and to go along with the yummy eating... guacamole and refried beans

You can get canned roast beef at most supermarket in the same aisle as the tuna...

First you dump your beef into a pan, gravy and all, shred it with a fork. Then sprinkle on some cream of wheat or malto-meal and stir while heating. The cream of wheat/malto-meal absorbs the liquids and makes for yummy, moist taquitos. You want to cook the meat mixture until it is hot and the liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes. (What you're looking at here is 2 quarts of home canned beef with about 1 cup of liquid and 1/4 c malto-meal.)



Next, pour about 1" of oil into a frying pan (the deeper the pan the better... less mess). Heat to medium hot. Quickly fry each corn tortilla to soften, only about 5 second per side. Remove to paper towels to drain. I find that I can fit 4 tortillas on each paper towel. Add another paper towel and keep going until all your tortillas are softened.



This is the part where I fell down on the photo-taking job. Our home teachers came and Camille and her room mates got here and they started rolling. So I hope I can describe it ok. Place about 1-2 tablespoons of beef down the center of each tortilla. Fold the tortilla over it and then slide the meat back towards yourself with your fingers and then roll the tortilla and secure with a toothpick. (Sorry... I should be fired as photographer)

When you have your taquitos rolled it is time to fry them up (at this stage Stuart calls them raw... funny boy!)

Add oil to your frying pan to 1" again. Heat to medium hot. Add taquitos, don't crowd them and fry, turning once. I like mine on the crunchy, brown side, but some people like theirs softer. It takes about 5 minutes.





Doesn't this just make your mouth water? Yummy! (Now I must tell you that I normally only use ONE toothpick per taquito, but we had a novice roller and we neglected to tell her ONEe was enough!) Crunch, yummy, lip-smacking-good.

OK, loser photographer again... I didn't get a photo of the yummy dipping beans and guacamole... but go here if you want to see it.

We had lots of fun with the making, visiting and eating... and then Camille and the rest of the girls cleaned up the kitchen! What a bunch of sweeties!

296- Home Canning Beef

I'd never thought much about home canning meat until my friend commented how easy it was. Well, it got me to thinking! My family LOVES homemade taquitos but the store-bought canned roast beef is so expensive... if you can even find it! Yesterday Gordon and I stopped at our Super Wal-mart and they had those ginormous bags of beef roasts on sale for $1.88 a pound! That was all I needed to light the match! I was going to make my own *bottled* roast beef!

As it turns out there isn't as much information on the internet as I thought there would be about canning meat specific to my elevation (we live at 4800'). So I called friend-Vicki to ask for the particulars. She wasn't kidding... It is SO EASY! (Note: I just went looking for one of the sites I'd looked at yesterday and found this one that might be helpful.)

First you cut your meat into manageable chunks (I want you to know that I cleaned up my cutting board just for you Jessica!!) and pack as many chunks into the jar as possible while still leaving 1" head room.



Next add 1 heaping teaspoon of my favorite Better than Bouillon (you can also use cubes, granulated or just plain salt). That's it... you don't add any water or broth, it will make its own. Wipe the tops of your jars. Place the lid and ring on each jar and tighten.



Now, here is the hard part... put your filled jars into your pressure canner (you MUST use a pressure canner, not the boiling water canner you use for fruit). Add enough water to bring the water level about 3" up the jars (or follow the directions specific to your pressure canner).

DIAL GAUGE CANNER (notice the stylish 1970s Avocado Green!)

Place the lid on canner and turn on the heat (don't add the weight yet!). Soon the water will begin to boil and steam will come out of the spout. Set the timer and let the steam vent for 12 minutes. Then place the weight on the spout.

As soon as the pressure gauge reaches the desired pressure (13 lbs. for 4800' elevation) start your timer; 75 minutes for pints, 90 minutes for quarts. When the desired pressure is reached you will need to adjust the heat to keep it at that constant pressure. (Yeah, good luck... you think you should be able to set the flame and be done... nope! You have to babysit this pot checking it every 10 minutes or so to make sure it stays on target!)

At the end of the 90 minutes (I did quarts) turn off the heat and remove canner from heat source. DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO HASTEN THIS NEXT STEP!! The pressure will gradually reduce until the safety valve opens (see your book for specific instructions), Then, and only then, carefully remove the lid and using a jar lifter transfer the jars from the canner to a clean folded towel to cool.

The next day I like to remove the rings, wash & dry jars and rings. Replace rings, label the jars. (Only do this after jars are totally cooled)

Wow, look at all that wonderful precooked meat just waiting for taquitos or one of my other favorite recipe! (Each quart yeilds about 2-3 cups of shredded meat)

So, you may ask...

What did I do while I was babysitting my pressure canner for 14 quarts worth of processing? I put my time to good use by bottling 14 quarts of apple pie filling. (Except at my house it will be a miracle if any of this apple pie filling ever gets into a pie!! I love to put a heaping tablespoon in my morning oatmeal! YUMMY!!)

I have to say, "I just love making a home!"

249- Raisins- Part Trois

I know you can hardly wait for each new day and the progress I am making with my raisins! Perhaps you would be as excited as I am if you ate them every single morning in your oatmeal! (Yes, that's me. I love my porridge every morning... with raisins, brown sugar and cooked in soy milk... sometimes apples thrown in for good measure!)

Several years ago I attempted raisins, but I was not too happy with the results. I think that I harvest the grapes too soon and the resultant raisins were rather tart! Yeah, what's up with that? I also read at the time that you should blanch the grapes to speed up the dehydrating time. What a hassle.

So here is the first batch of raisins... not blanched and not harvested too early... yummy.



It takes about 18-24 hours to dry a batch (apparently the blanching DID NOT speed the drying time). Batch number 2 is almost finished (I have two dehydrators and one is significantly faster than the other). I estimate I will have about 5 more batches. I'll come back and let you know the final count.

Since not all grapes are created equal some are drier than others. I've found that if I put them all into a container the moisture content evens out. The other thing I do is store the bulk of them in the freezer, filling up my canister as needed. Where that might not be technically necessary, I don't want to lose my raisins to mildew or any other ick after all the work that goes into making them.

192- The Little Red Hen Gets Help!

This morning the job of turning all those currants into jam was daunting. The Little Red Hen asked Hanky Spanky, "Will you help me make this jam?" Hanky Spanky happily replied, "Yes, I will help you make this jam!"

They worked happily together on the task until they finished with 38.5 pints of currant jam and 3 pints of currant syrup. Yummy!

The Little Red Hen was very happy to have company AND help this day!


FONTS- Problem Secretary, CK Cursive, BRUSH- KPertiet_LedgerFrames, BA_photomask01a, ACTION- DP Moms Perfect Workflow action

Apple-y Goodness

All of my gardener friends tell me that one must wait until after the first frost to harvest apples. That frost/freeze makes them even sweeter.

But what does one do when the weather changes abruptly from fall to W-I-N-T-E-R???? Well, this ONE prayed very hard that the snow would hold off so I could harvest my apples on Monday AND, hopefully, have my trees "naked" before it snows. (I really don't want to lose branches because I have snow on leafy trees!) Apparently I wasn't the only one praying! The forecast was for snow Saturday and Sunday. Thank goodness we didn't get any. BUT we did finally get that freeze!

So this morning I was out picking apples! Back when I was picking peaches I scored a gugalin of fruit boxes down at Ream's! I love to have a standard size box for my fruit (or anything for that matter)! I filled up the back of my little Bug-hauler!! I was absolutely amazed when we filled up every single box I had (14 in all!) and there are still apples on the tree. (of course, you have to be a monkey to get to them. So that counts me out!)

As anyone who has fruit trees knows- getting the fruit off the tree is just the beginning of the work. We sorted as we picked so any apples that had birdie-pecks, blemishes, or got dropped went into one box (that turned into 2 boxes) and the other boxes are the "good" ones. I knew that I would need to take care of the "questionable" fruit today or it would start to go bad. I ended up putting up 10 quarts of apple pie filling and 12 quarts of applesauce.

I love the fun kitchen gadgets that make this process so easy. I have my Vitorio Juicer that puts sauce down one shoot and peels, seeds, etc. out the end. But my favorite, hands-down, is my Pampered Chef corer-peeler-slicer! It really speeds up the job!

I just love the smell of apple-y goodness wafting in the kitchen!! Today I got to enjoy that smell... but with 12 more boxes of apples in the garage I have the feeling that I will be smelling that apple-y goodness for a couple of weeks!

Home Canning Tradition

It was 36 years ago that I first got my "taste" of home canning. I was a new mommy with an almost 6 month old Tony. We'd just come back to Greenville after being in Virginia for a little over 2 years in the Coast Guard. It was so good to be back home!

Since Greenville is so small we lived with Mom for 6 weeks while we waited for some place to live. It was while we were there that Mom taught me how to can.

I don't know where we got the apples, I know it wasn't for our wormy apple tree (so sad!) Mom showed me how easy it was to turn that box of apples into applesauce! She taught me right there in our tiny, little kitchen that I'd grown up in... being her #1 helper. I loved that little kitchen with its trash burner (wood stove) right along side the gas stove. She showed me how to just quarter the apples, cut out any bad spots and pop them in a big pot and steam them until tender. Then we sent them through the old Foley Food Mill. (If you want more instructions than this I found this site online.)


Add sugar if necessary, heat again and bottle using the open kettle method (which most sources don't recommend, but I've never had any trouble in 36 years!)




The years have been good to me where canning is concerned. For some odd reason I enjoy this process. There is something basic and satisfying about bottling your own fruit.

Now here I am... a Grammie but I am still canning. Since moving here to Utah I've been blessed with all of this produce right in my own backyard!!

Apricot Jam

This is my third batch of apricot jam and I just had to get out my camera and record the goodness. I wish I had smell-a-vision-blog so you could smell the sweet fruity air in my kitchen. I got this recipe from Jens Alfke's blog. It was exactly what I was looking for, one that didn't use a boat-load of sugar and didn't require pectin (which goes for $1.99+ at my local market). I loved his wit in writing.

The recipe is easy (the proportions are):
1 cup apricots
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice



You mix this together and let it sit for 2 hours (I usually end up getting distracted and it sits longer, but no harm done).

This is what the yummy goo looks like after sitting.








So now we turn on the heat and start cooking... and stirring. Bring it to a boil. It will start to foam. You need to skim off the foam.
(This is an important step here. On the first batch, I started skimming off the foam and then when it stopped foaming I added it back in. Well, that isn't what the recipe said and now I know why. That batch is not as jelled as I would like it to be.)
A little trick here, if you add 1/2 tsp butter it will reduce the foaming drastically. Jens says to save this foam for syrup. Joanie says mix about 1/3 c syrup and 2 tsp butter, heat and dip your pancakes in... yummy!! Pancakes are finger food aren't they?






OK back the jam-truck up a minute. When the jam starts to boil, set your timer for 25 minutes. That is how long you will need to cook the jam. Remember, no pectin, more cooking. I find that if I stir it every couple of minutes I do fine, but if you want to stir more than that have at it!








Now sing the song..."Just keep cooking, cooking, cooking, ah-ha-ha!"

Pretty soon your timer will buzz and your jam should be reduced almost by half. (See the line on the inside of the pan?)









This is my favorite part (but I'm going to make you go over to Jens blog and read how to get your jars ready and about the apricot kernels and rings and all that stuff). Ladle the hot jam into clean jars. I use a wide mouth funnel that used to be my mom's. She was the one who started me on all of this 36 year ago. If you slopped any jam on the rim of the jar, wipe it off (the funnel prevents that mess and speaking of mess, you notice that I have the jar in a flat bowl and the funnel is right up next to the pan to reduce clean up later... always thinking!) Place your lids on the jars, tighten and then invert the jars. Jens says this sterilizes the lids. I like his thinking.












Well, maybe this really is my favorite part... eating the jam, said the Little Red Hen.













Now this is the finished product. Ready to be stored safely in the basement (I just love having a basement!!!) It will be a lovely treat.










I've also put up 14 quarts of apricots. Not always a big favorite at my house.















And I dried a bunch. They just seem more tasty and tempting this way than in the jar.
Notice the fuzzy whiteness?... yeah, that isn't mold, but apricot skin fuzz. Tasty!






(And can I just say one more tiny thing? I sure wish that Blogger was wysiwyg!! I go back and forth a dozen times with a post like this to get everything just where I want it. There has to be an easier way!!)