Stocking Up The Pantry 2012...

As the garden keeps giving, I keep on putting food up. Because I use several methods of storing food, I use the methods that best suit our needs and I know the food will get used.

While the pantry fills, taters sit at the bottom under every shelf, jars start to stack up, and I end up putting empty jars waiting to be filled every where I can.

To the right are Jars filled with good eats, as well as the left side. The right is wet side, the left is the dry side. We are looking good so far and ahead of production this year. I am short on taters, and I was late on beans which are now canned from mine and Marks garden. I still have Lima, Kidney, Pinto and Mexican Red Beans that are almost ready to harvest. Because they are dried beans, they need time to ripen and store.

I also have 19 Butternut Squash that are bigger than a pound each, and a few Pumpkins. The Okra is still going as well as the Sunflowers. I still have 2 bushels of maters and the peppers will continue to grow. 

The pantry is looking good...

Canning Those Tomatoes/Sauces and Better Sauce Ideas

While waiting for the bumper crops to start, those tomatoes start to come in. I love to eat the wonderful fruits as they come in the house, having that kind of reward is so wonderful. I have, through the years come up with many uses as has Danielle. Coming from England she brings with her a different pallet as well as fresh eating ideas.

Along with those big round bundle of joys comes the start of the Paste Tomato harvest, Roma's. I plant Heirloom Roma's which don't grow as big as the ones at the store, but are packed with 2x more flavor and meaty goodness. As the war against GMO's continues, I couldn't tell you the differences of nutritional values between the two because I plant Heirloom seeds.

A few years ago I bought a few Roma's at my local GMO peddler store. I cut mine open and compared them side by side. Mine didn't have such an even color, nor was its shape perfect. Mine was smaller and didn't weigh as much and wasn't as plump. When I cut them open I could see right away mine was more compacted and wasn't as juicy. But the color inside was as rich as the outside color, the GMO fruit was whiter and had more runny juice inside. It had a much better shape and even blotted color.

When thinking about a sauce tomato, consider water content and pulp content as these are important qualities when making good sauces. Starting out with a good quality Heirloom Roma is the first step in making a good sauce.

Once the Roma's start to come in, just before the bumper crop, for a few weeks you will start to harvest a few pounds a week. The rate at which they start to come in increases every couple of days. This period last a couple weeks in my zone, and so I have to prepare and process those early Roma's.

Often I will process the first ten/fifteen pounds and freeze the pulpy juice and when the bumper crops hit, and I am in full processing swing, I will thaw that stuff out and mix it with my fresh tomato sauce. However, in both cases I allow my homemade puree to sit in a stainless steel bowl, covered in the fridge, overnight.

If your making your own stuff, homesteading or just being frugal, time and money is the two things we want to reduce. This can also help make us a better product. By letting the homemade puree sit overnight, the water content of the juice rises to the top, allowing us to skim it off so that it isn't stirred back into our sauce, reducing energy and cooking time to make a quality, thick sauce.

Even after canning, compare my approach to your traditional sauce by setting the two jars side by side on a shelf for a few days. You will see how much less water content my method has. Also your sauce will be thicker, richer and you will use 30% less energy making the same amount of product.

Although I adjust the Spaghetti recipe a little, I use the one found in Ball's Blue Book.

 

How To Process More Tomatoes and Make Seedless/Semi-Seedless Jams

I am ready to still continue making my own food if power is lost for long periods of time. I know how and have the proper equipment to manually prepare my own food for long term storage. But for now, I have power and I have lots of fruits and produce to get through.

Using technology to help you sustain a self sufficient life isn't a bad thing, and because you use it to help you doesn't mean that your not doing it right. Sure, some people might say "well that isn't the way it was done/you can do it a more primitive way" and most of the time their right. But you know what? We are modern pioneers, not pioneers without the tools available to us to use.

Go back 100 years with a chainsaw and ask a Lumberjack yielding misery whip to fall a Redwood in Oregon, if he would like to try your chainsaw. After he uses your chainsaw, you would have to shoot the guy to get it out of his hands. Maybe it is just me or perhaps you think like I do, it is just common sense to use what you can to help you. I got a Kitchenaid stand mixer some years ago, the the fancy high end one. I had picked it up for a few hundred bucks. I started to use it to make bread dough and mix other things when I could.

One day I went into the store going to check out the attachments that I could use to make more use of mine. So there it was, the one thing I needed the most... The Kitchenaid strainer attachment... My mind started racing like the dad did when he opened the box and saw the leg lamp in the movie Christmas Story... It was amazing to see it there, and it drew me in and I didn't care about the cost. I was drawn in by all the uses and how much time it was going to save me... so I bought it...


I got it home and started to make jam the following morning, Raspberry to be exact... It was too easy... The berries went in, filled the hopper, pressed down with the tool, juice and pulp drained down and the seeds and other stuff came out the end. That was it, that easy...DONE!

 A bright light appeared in my kitchen that day, it was the time saving idea light... I had finally found the one item that would save me THOUSANDS of HOURS of intensive labor to process berries and tomatoes. I can do a bushel of tomatoes in under an hour, that is from washing, cutting and processing them for canning. Now that I have this, I use the time I save and my shoulder for other projects that need attention.

I don't know about you, but some jam like Blackberry/Raspberry can have way too many seeds for my liking, but at the same time they don't feel like homemade jam to if there isn't some seeds in it. So I dump one big tablespoon back in each batch I do.

Trust me when I say " don't let the price fool you, it's well worth the investment ". If by chance you don't have a Kitchenaid mixer yet, get one!!! I love mine!!

Wasting Some Green, and Seeing Red, A No Waste Trick

Well the garden is coming in and doing its job, I have processed pickles, chutneys, jams, squash, onions, garlic and the corn is coming in.

I have had so many cukes, I put some in the frig and meaning to get back to them for bread and butter pickles, and well they went limp on me. I try to have a no waste rule, however I have been so busy with the new building project, time just slips by. I picked another bunch today and threw out the old shriveled ones.

So the first small handful of red maters were nice, then today I harvested 6 pounds or so. I processed them for juice using my kitchen aid and two different attachments combined together to pulp free my sauce in less then 15 minutes I had over a 1/2 gallon of the good stuff. I have frozen that and will add that later when I have enough organic juice to make a few batches of sauces and salsa.

The trick to get every little bit from the maters using my method, is to process the maters 4 times through the kitchen aid. I ended up with 1/4 cup of seeds and just skins. The old method use to take me hours, and there is nothing wrong with doing it by hand. However, I am a modern pioneer and I love to save time processing as long as I get a better or higher quality end product. In this case, it was hours sooner and I got 100% of usable product.

If you want me to share what products I use, and my method, let me know. I am always happy to share.

Maple Syrup Making: How To Video, Another Self Sufficient Skill Accomplished

This year, with the unseasonal warm temperatures, maple syrup making time is cut short. I am not complaining at all, and grateful to see brown/green ground and feel the warmer air around me. Even some of the 600 plus bulbs I planted last fall are coming up, at least the ones the moles haven't eaten. However I am quick to remind myself that flowers bloom at different times and kept the rule in my mind while planting to ensure a beautiful spring.

I had spent a few days over the last couple weeks with Tom Sr. while he was syrup making. He seems to be less stressful when he's not around certain people or has had some rest. Either way, I was so happy to spend some time with an elder learning the self sufficient skills by passing it down. I felt like I was spending time with my own Grandpa learning the skills. It brought me to a different place.

A place that I created in my mind, a place where I am learning the life skills of being self sufficient from the elders of my own family. Its a sad reminder of the loss of people in my life, but life is what it is, and it made me feel good inside to be there doing it with Tom. If I took other peoples lives for granted while they were alive, I am sure I would feel guilty. Karma taught me many years ago to live/love for today, not hoping for tomorrow. The feelings of spending time together brought me some really good, much needed kinship. I suppose we humans, the ones searching to live self sufficient, search/look to elders for knowledge. I can see this idea in many Indian tribes and history that I have read about them.

So gathering sap, boiling it, adding more sap while boiling it, until you run out of sap and end up with a syrup in your pan. Filtering is a small issue to consider when taking this on, but common sense goes a long ways. The more sap you can boil, or larger batch you can do, the less filtering you have to do. I did a quart jar of fines, what is fines? Fines is a term Tom uses to describe the final end product of syrup that contains all the really fine particles that he isn't willing to figure out how to remove, and they are super fine.

So, if you have ten minutes to spend with me and watch my video, it won't be ten minutes wasted. I hope that you learn something about syrup making and enjoy the video.

If you remember it was just a few years ago when I attended a how to class sponsored by the state on making maple syrup. Now I have 7 pints of of syrup to last me till next year.

Canned Deer Meat Video Part 2 Completed

I finished editing the second, last video in my two part series on cooking canned deer meat. the recipe shared, is a recipe that has been in my family for a long time, I don't know how long. Its good and it will make you satisfied and happy. Be sure to cook with a little one and friends and pass the recipe on.

Currently, I am working on the maple syrup video, which has proven to be a lot of work. I also will be re-working my cold frame, which has been a on going learning lesson for me.

Canned Deer Meat Video Completed

I hope you enjoy both parts of this video on deer meat.... Just a self sufficient reward!! I really enjoy canning food, and its rewards. I have a sense of pride when I set a meal out that I have grown, gathered, hunted or harvested. I know the food I am setting on the table is good, wholesome, minimally processed, healthy food.

If you think I am kidding about how food is factory processed, please purchase Food Inc. and see how the food your eating is made.

If your a chicken lover, I found a funny sticker that you might like... I purchased it for my truck... and one for my coop door..
My utube channel

Canning Country Style

So lets talk about my jamming/canning adventures for a minute. I once was asked about my 1966 tappon stove and how canning pots won't fit under it.

So as it is, this is pictures of my canning pots/stove out on the back deck. If you recall I picked this up off the street corner and did some small repairs, less than 20 bucks, it retails for around 100 bucks. If I hadn't found it, I would have bought one just to can on.



Laugh at me if you want, it works, and I put up food. When the old stove dies or remodle happens first, I will still can outside in the summer to keep the heat and steam outside, keeping the house cooler.

Here is my last batch of jams cooling, as you can see by the marks on the towel, I have already moved and stored other jams today. Once I get my cool storage cleaned and start filling it, I'll share some pics of my pantry with you folks.



Once cooled/set I'll paste on new labels and put in my dark cool pantry for storage.

Let me tell you about that new strainer I purchased for my kitchen aid, LOVE IT..... If you do jams and jellys and have a kitchen aid machine, you can thank me later. It took me less than 5 minutes to do each batch, I like my jam semi seedless so I always add a few tablespoons of seeds back in. As you might know, I also have the grinder attachment to grind my own meat. You will need this attachment to use the strainer as well.

Last year, my shoulder was so sore from straining all those tomatoes, not to mention the hours of work involved. Maters aren't even red yet and my shoulder is thanking me.. LOL... Some how I can see the conflict between using the old strainer and my new kitchen aid one, being SS and all. However, the amount of labor and time saved to move on and do other SS things, well, it just makes sense to me.