Getting the canning done

 Hi Everyone!

Over the last few weeks I've been trying to get all of my canning done. 

A small batch of ghee. Butter is very expensive here. When I find it on sale I will make more. I use mostly ghee to cook with.

Just about ready for the jars. Ghee is not actually canned. It is poured into sterilized, hot jars, canning lids and rings put on the difference in temperature as the jars cool seal the lids. 

You don't even have to use new lids. It's very cool.

A beautiful golden color until they solidify. 

Then it turns to this beautiful creamy color. It will last up to 15 years like this. However, not in my house. LOL

Next I got frozen corn canned. I only had 2 pints left on the shelf. People still ask me why I can frozen veggies and hard beans. When, not if, the grid goes down do you really want to be cooking hard beans for several house on a cook stove? Or have your frozen veggies defrost? The same with meats. I can almost all of our meats.

So the corn is done. Just out of the caner, 13 pints.

As I mentioned before I have had a bumper crop of cucumbers. I have canned sweet pickles, dill pickles, bread n butters and now relish.

First this is what it looks like when a rat gets to one of your cucs. This was a huge cuc hidden under some leaves. Had to toss it. That's 2 this year.

I did get the relish made though.

These were fresh picked one morning. 

Cucumbers, onions from the garden and a red bell pepper, not from the garden.

Add a few tablespoons of canning salt.

Then mix it all up.

Cover it and place it in the fridge for 24 hours.  

Remove as much liquid as you can. Make a sure gel or use a store bought adding your spices.  Simmer for 10 minutes. Fill sterile jars and waterbath for 10 minutes. Sorry, I didn't get photos of this process.

But here they just out of the caner.

I don't have photos yet but tomorrow I'm canning hard beans. I have about 15 quart jars ready to go.

3 big containers soaking the beans. I will simmer these for 30 minutes tomorrow.  

 

The jars will go into the dishwasher tonight ready for the morning. 

Since Mr. M's Kidney removal and the other one in CKD, we have not eaten any kind of sweets. The other day I saw a peanut butter cup in the store and my mouth started watering. LOL However, I'm not paying $2.50 for a darn candy cup. So I made my famous homemade peanut better squares. These are better than store bought and I can control the ingredients.

This needs to be in the fridge over night. 

This is what they will look like when they are cut.

 

Let me know if you would like the recipe. 

 Have a great Sunday.

 

Nicole

Darn animals

 Hi Everyone!

I'm not sure what animal did this. I can't find any tracks or scat. For those of you who don't know I used to teach remote living and tracking. So, I know what I'm looking for. I knew not to let my string beans grow so tall. I should have pruned them. There were some very long ready to harvest beans at the top. We decided to get them the next day. Well wrong decision.  

The next morning I woke to this.

I don't know if you can see or not but all the string beans are eaten away.

This grow bag is heavy so what ever knocked it over was big. Maybe a deer but I didn't see any scat at all. A racoon that climbed up and tilted it over?  

No more string beans, but I harvested more than 20lbs of beans this year, so I really can't complain.

We got a long hard rain last night so I thought I better harvest more cucumbers and yellow squash.

It has been a bumper crop for cucs this year. And why summer squash is in abundance this late in the season is beyond me, but I will take it. 

I have so much squash and cucs in the frige I will have to can it up this week. Too much for us to eat and all of the neighbors I share with are gone on vacation.

Right now I have canning jars in the dishwasher. It's time to make ghee. I was going to can corn today but it will have to wait until Tuesday.

That's if for now. I hope all of you are having a great Sunday.

Nicole 

What I did on Sunday

 Hi Everyone!

I'm going to find out today if I have to have surgery, so I'm trying to get things done around the house and garden. I have so many cucumbers that I canned some dill pickles. Have lots of bread n butter and sweet pickles canned. It's time for some dills. 

First the cucs are cleaned and placed in cold water with some ice and set in the fridge for 24 hours. This makes them crisp.

I had to use two containers 

Some of you may know this, but when you cut the ends off cucumbers take the end of the round side and in a circular motion rub the cucumber. This is called milking the cucumber and removes any bitterness. My mom taught me this when I was a kid.

From here I cut these into spears while the brine was simmering. I filled the jars, put in the spices, and waterbathed for 15 minutes. Here are the results. 10 pints.

Are these beauties or what? 

I'm off to make some breakfast. Toast and applesauce for me today.

What are you having? 

Whatever it is enjoy and have a great day. 

 Nicole

Sunday Evening

 Hi Everyone!

I've been trying to get onto my blog but life just wouldn't allow me until now. I have some health issues going on and I have to take it as easy as I can. That is so difficult for me. Anyway, I got all of my onions from the garden cured, bagged and put away. I only got about 20lbs of onions this year.

This is the last batch. I have white, red and walla wallas.   

I made applesauce to can.

It is so easy with my pealer.

It is fun to use and saves so much time.

 

It peals, cuts and cores all at once.  

 

 

After I chop the apples to smaller pieces, I cook them down, add cinnamon, allspice and cardamon. I don't add sugar. Then I mash them up leaving some chunks of apples.

Then I prepare my canning jar and caner.  I end up with 8 pints of oh so good applesauce. Yeah there was something in the background I didn't want all of your to see. LOL
 

I have been very lucky with my string beans this year. I got 10lbs of beans to can so far. It is a lot of beans.

 

Look how pretty these are.

After cleaning, cutting and preparing canning jars, I got 18 pints. They turned out perfectly.

I got a good lot of poblano peppers at the farmers market. I was going to can these too, but I decided to flash freeze them, bag them and the put them back in the freezer.

 I roasted and pealed them first. These are all cleaned.

Cut and the seeds removed. 

I don't have a grill so these go into the over on broil. These are perfect.

Then they go into a bag to steam. 

Once they have cooled a bit it's time to remove the skin. It comes off very easy. Yes, I should have gloved on. LOL

Darn I don't have any photos, but next you lay the peppers out on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for about 3 hours. I take them out and vacuum seal for individual meals.

I did have one mishap. I started to pressure can the string beans when I noticed the gauge was all steamed up and steam was coming out of the bottom of the gauge. Uhhh not good.

  

I had to turn everything off and remove the top. I have several caners so another lid was no problem.  

When I was able to remove the gauge this is what happened. The compression washer broke. So weird it's rubber!

Mr. M. stopped by True Value on his walk the next day and got a washer for me. So it is now ready to go.

That's my last week in a nutshell.

Hope everyone is well.

Nicole  

Tuesday

 Hi Everyone!

Well we have had 3 days of nice weather. Ya know for us that's 70°F and no wind. I love it. I sure hope it lasts awhile. OK, so it's 69°F. The sun is out and that's what I like. LOL

I had so many cucumbers that it was time to make the famous brown sugar bread and butter pickles. This is not my recipe. I got it form Wilderstead many years ago and they truly are the best. 

I had 4lbs of cucs and 3 large onions from the garden. I have to use 2 bowls. After adding the salt, I covered them and places them into the fridge over night. This removes all the moisture.

 While the cucs settled. I decided to make some pies. I was gifted a large bag of apples so apple pie it is.

One pie went to my neighbors. The topping is crumble, no crust.

So the cucs are ready.

Everything mixed and heated on the stove. Then into the jars and waterbath canned for 10 minutes. 

and you get these beauties.

I had lots of energy yesterday and so also made and canned strawberry preserves. 

The only photo I took was when it was all done. I had 4 1/2lbs of strawberries and rendered 9, 1/2 pints of preserves. 

These all sit on the counter overnight. Today I will remove the rings and wash the outside of the jars. The label them and put them away.

Are you doing any canning from your garden?

Have a great day today.

Nicole 

Way too much going on

 Hi Everyone!

It's Wednesday and this week has flown by. I've been busy with so much I don't know where to start. I did take yesterday off. Didn't do a thing but watched TV with Mr. M. 

I think I mentioned that I was NOT going to have a garden this year. I just wanted everything outside to sit for a summer. However, with the cost of food, I NEED to have a garden this years. Part of that is obtaining new pallets. YAY!!! I found a place to get them for free that is literally a block from my house. They helped Mr. M. and I load them into the truck and told me I can come anytime to get more. Here is the first truck load. I think there are 6, we didn't bring any tie downs for some stupid reason. LOL  I'm happy with this first load.

 

As you know I've been canning, trying to get our food stores up.

You saw the Louisiana Red Beans. If not you can check it here	Seasoned 15 bean soup.
Spicy potatoes	3 pints of Jalapenos.
Lightly seasoned ground beef.	Poblano, onion spicy taco ground beef.
I can never have enough canned chicken.	I made more Ghee too.

And we always need a snack. Blueberry mini muffins.

Each muffin has one big blueberry inside.

I also got a butane gas, one burner stove. It was highly recommended so I got one. OMG!!!! I love this! I really dislike cooking on electric. Breakfast and one pan meals this is ideal. It is so easy to use and comes with 4 cans of butane.

I got it at Amazon for a very reasonable price.

That's it for now. Hope to see you this week for Friday Face Off.

 
Nicole