Simple Pleasures

Homemade biscuits are the perfect vessel for eating my homemade Cherry Almond Jam!

Delicious!

Promising

Despite my lack of attention to the garden and surrounding areas, things still look promising around here. I am feeling much, much better these days, but I did have a little bit of a relapse yesterday after being stuck in the car not being able to stretch my hip out and extra walking around the stores running errands. I paid for that with more hip and back pain.





Half of my rhubarb is doing pretty good. I've had better years, but with the chickens pecking the young shoots as soon as they come out of the ground, I'm happy with what I can get. I hope once the chickens are fenced in, the other half of my rhubarb patch will bounce back.

My cherry tree is so-so. It's over-shadowed by two large dogwoods and they need to be cut down. Previous owners went crazy with the dogwoods and our property has many of them. I can definitely stand to lose a few. I'm out of my cherry-almond jam (so good!) so I'm looking forward to picking cherries at the local orchard down the road from us. I know for a fact that this lone cherry tree won't give us enough for even one pint of jam.

The mulberries!! This was taken last week and since then, I have a tree with ripe mulberries that I can see from my bedroom window! It's a recently discovered tree, with all the branches are high up, so those berries are for the birds. Meanwhile, right around the corner from the ripe mulberry tree, the one closest to the house is a.l.m.o.s.t. there! Maybe in a week or two. Mulberry trees by the driveway and in the garden area are soon ripe, too.

My cousin and a friend both want to learn to make and can mulberry jam, so I'm going to invite them up as soon as they are ripe and plenty of berries come down daily. They bring their own jars and I'll provide the rest. Will be nice to have company in the kitchen when making jam!

Jar Finds

I'm having pretty good luck at the yard sales these past couple of weeks. Last week I found a box of a dozen reg. mouth quart jars for $1.50 at a church yard sale. I wish they were wide mouth, but I'm happy with what I can get. Then today, I found a dozen Kerr wide mouth quart jars for $5 and 17 mostly wide mouth pint jars also for $5. My stash of empty jars is getting replenished again-- yay! I know that regular mouth jars, lids and bands are cheaper than wide mouth, but I have big hands, and I find it easier for me to use wide mouth for my purposes. I reserve the reg. mouth jars for jams and sauces, foods that are easy to pour out.

I like the Kerr brand of jars. I used to think Ball jars were the best (still do, sort of) but then a fellow blogger enlightened me to the fact that Kerr jars have the year they were made marked between the threads. How cool to know when the jar was manufactured, knowing a jar has been in continuous use since 1966 or 1981. Since Ball bought Kerr, they dropped the date on the jars and changed the shape, which used to be squarish, to match the current Ball jar shape. A little disappointing.

So now, when I go yard sale-ing or thrifting, I try and keep an eye out for the older Kerr jars. I just like knowing the date of the jars. It's comforting to me, to know that someone took care of it for all those years, filled them with tomatoes or applesauce to feed their families, cleaned them when they were empty and did it all over again, year after year.

My uncle tells me that my Grandmother had thousands of canning jars. She had to can enough to feed 11 children plus her husband and herself and they lived in Minnesota with those long, cold winters. I imagine it was a full-time job to put away enough food for everyone. I don't have that many jars, but one of these days, I'm gonna count, just to see how many I have. For sure, it's not nearly enough jars to put away food for my family if we were not able to go to the food stores, but I don't know if we ever will get to that point. Someday it'd be nice to live solely off what we grow and raise; partly to see if we can do it, but also to reduce our dependency on society and besides, it's better for us in the long run to know exactly where our food came from, what is in it, and what it ate before we ate it.

I bought 2 bushels of apples the other day. I'll make a few pies to freeze for later and then depending on how many are left, I'll probably make apple chips with the dehydrator. It got hot here again, the temps are in the 90s so I'm looking for cooler ways to put away the apples for winter eating.

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Blah, Blah, Blah

Non-stop go, go, go these days. Part of me enjoys the action, getting out of the house and doing something different; another part of me is ready for staying home and doing nothing-- well, as much nothing as 2, 4, 6 and 8-year olds will let me.

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We had to head into Northern Virginia on Saturday for a family get together and it was nice. Always good to see family and it had been too long between visits, really. The kids got their grandma and granddaddy 'fix' and we're all caught up on family end-of-the-summer activities. We also stopped by to see friends for a quick little visit and wished we could have stayed longer, but we had another stop to make before going home. It was great seeing them, too! :o)

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Our original plan was to stay overnight and then hit the Renaissance Festival the next day, but it turned out that Andrew had to work that day, so we nixed those plans. I'm a little disappointed we didn't go, but it runs all the way through to the end of October, so there's still another chance we can make it. I already made a costume for Peter to wear, and got the materials to make dresses for the girls, but have yet to sew them up. If we end up not going, they can use them for Halloween at least.

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I have a birthday coming up, so I received some gift cards to Walmart. First thing I thought of was getting one of those Bissell green machines so I can finally clean the poor couch. We picked one up today and paid the difference. Since Peter poured the milk all over the couch, it's sort of been shoved aside, the cushions being used on the floor by the kids (milk was poured on the base of the couch, not the cushions). Then the dog vomited on it last night-- ew. Then today, apparently, there was poop on the couch which Peter then stepped in and smeared onto the couch and tracked little poopy footprints all over the living room floor before I caught a whiff of it and grabbed him so I could clean him up. Meanwhile, the girls are sprawled on the chairs seeing all this go down and not one thought to come and tell me about the poo or Peter tracking it everywhere.

So the Bissell came in handy tonight. I fired it up and cleaned the base of the couch, the arm rests and one of the cushions. Man, that water was dirty! It's still damp, so I'll have to wait until it dries to see how much better it looks, but I'm sure it's an improvement from what it was. I'll probably have to go over it a couple of times but it's a start, and I got the poo and vomit all cleaned up anyway.

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My tomatoes are trickling down now. I haven't canned any in a week. Every time I go out there, there's hardly enough to fill a quart jar, even after a couple days of no picking. The potatoes seem to be doing alright. I can see a few exposed here and there and the tops are starting to wilt and wither. I'll wait a little longer before I dig a few up and see what I find.

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The wild grapes have been picked and juiced. I got 2 quart jars full of juice that needs to be sweetened and thinned with water. Wild grapes are pretty sour, but that doesn't stop Peter from gobbling them up! Each of the girls tried them, made faces and spit them out, but Peter just eats one after the other, asking for more after he finishes the bunch I gave him. I had to play keep-away so he wouldn't eat up all the grapes! There aren't very many wild grapes this year, lack of rain, I suppose, so every bit I could find, I needed.

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We are in drought conditions here, and there is a burn ban imposed on county residents. Many of the orchards here had to send away truckloads of apples and peaches to be juiced because they weren't good for much else. When there is no rain, the tree steals the sap from the fruits, so the fruits don't get any bigger and end up getting sunburned. Lots of fruits, but they aren't big and juicy as years with plentiful rain. I suspect the price of a bushel of apples will be much higher this year. Guess I should be happy I have plenty of applesauce left from last year and won't need to buy so many apples this year.

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I have unhappy hens. They keep getting sexually assaulted by the 6 roosters every time they step out of the coop, so they have taken to staying in the coop. They are protesting their living and work conditions and have stopped laying eggs for me. 11 hens and if I'm lucky, I get 2 eggs, but usually just one per day. I had every intention of butchering a rooster last week, but then I chickened out and let him go. Lucky feller. I need to kick myself and get it over with. I'm alright with the butchering part, it's the taking of a life part that gets me. I fudged it the last time and the rooster suffered a little bit and I feel so bad for that. I need better killing tools so I don't make that same mistake.

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I signed up for Elsie Marley's Kid Clothes Week. That's that little picture at the top in the right-hand corner. It's a fun little thing, commit to sewing at least an hour every day for a week to sew clothes for your kids. She did it last Spring and seeing some of the outfits people made for their kids was really inspiring. I decided to try and participate this year and make at least a dress for each of the girls, or maybe night gowns for their Christmas gifts. I have some nice corduroy that would make a cute jumper for one of the girls. When I made Peter's costume for the Renaissance Festival, I didn't use a pattern and I was pretty pleased with how well it came out, plus, it fits him nicely. Maybe a simple shirt for him, dresses for the girls and jammies for all of them. A bit ambitious, maybe, but no one said I had to stop at the end of the week!

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Percy is looking so cute, all curled up into a ball, asleep by my feet. I think I'll follow his lead and curl up in my own bed. No more go, go, go for the week, but there's still things to do around here.

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Shocker

For the first time ever, since I've taken up canning 10 years ago, I am running out of jars! I never imagined I would run out of jars to fill!

My tomatoes have exceeded my expectations this year and I have canned 41 quarts so far. Not enough if we were pioneers and lived solely off our garden, but it's so much more than the previous years! I still need to tweak how many plants of what tomatoes, but I am pleased with the harvest so far. Several plants are starting to wither and fade, but at least half are still going strong.

If it wasn't for the corn, I'd still have empty jars, but I'm not complaining-- filled jars are better than empties! I have 3 cases of pint jars left and 1 case of half-pints. Zero quart jars. I have been feeding the kids applesauce more often for snacks just so I can get the quart jar back! The kids eat a whole quart in one sitting. I doubt I'll make applesauce this year, I still have plenty from last year. I think I will get a bushel or two of apples to make pies and apple chips though and to eat out of hand.

The local farm store is sold out of quart jars. I'm hoping to score a case or two when we go into town this week. I was hoping to can irish potatoes with some of the smaller ones when we harvest potatoes. Last year I shredded the smaller potatoes, blanched them, then froze them for making quick hash browns. It took up a lot of space in the freezer and a lot of my time to prepare them and besides, making fresh hash potatoes isn't that hard, so it wasn't like a huge time-saver. We do, however, love irish potatoes and now that I have the pressure canner, I thought I'd try making my own. Quart jars would be nice for this purpose.

I hope I'll always have this problem of not having enough jars. It means my harvest is going well and we'll eat good this winter! May you be as fortunate! :o)

Same Old, Same Old

Nothing new to report around here. Keeping busy with kids, harvesting the tomatoes and green peppers from the garden, canning the tomatoes...

We went to the store on Sat in the big town and the grocery store had excellent-looking white corn on sale 4/$1 so I caved and bought another crate-- 48 ears. We ate some for dinner, made fresh corn fritters for another dinner and I need to can the rest today. On Sunday, the same grocery store had ads in the paper and the corn is now on sale for 6/$1!! agh! I just might get one more crate of corn...

We had Maisie the dog spayed last week. Poor girl. She gave me such a pitiful look with those brown eyes of hers when I picked her up from the vets in the evening. A couple of days easing into her favorite chair and taking it easy and now she's back to her old self again. We take her in tomorrow morning to remove the stitches and get a rabies shot for her.

The vet is nice; holistic and homeopathic. We found them online and they are not too far for us to drive, we have to leave an hour before the appointment to get there on time. A very hippie sort of house converted into a vet's office. My kind of place. When you go in, there's peace signs and pictures of animals on the walls; an old church pew painted sky blue; an owl puzzle glued together and hung on the wall. Probably not the most sterile of places, but it looks clean and the vet assistant was very nice and easy for me to lip-read and understand. We went through a spay/neuter organization that helps low-income people to get their pets fixed and they were on the list of participating vets. I think we will keep them as our permanent vet for our other animals, I felt very at ease there and so did Maisie.

We took her to another vet previously, and the entire time, Maisie growled. It got to the point that the vet felt the need to muzzle her. It was kind of funny to see her in a muzzle, her tongue working around the edges trying to figure out how to get it off, and at the same time, I was a little disturbed that she was so nervous being there and the vet and his assistant didn't seem to try and calm her or ease her fears. At the vets where she was spayed, she didn't growl once, and only barked when the cat sleeping on the fax machine moved and caught her attention. Big difference in behavior and I'm going to follow her cue and continue to take Maisie there.

We can learn a lot from animal behavior. I have had cats that didn't like a certain person, and I pooh-poohed it and later, I found that person to be not the kind of person I should be friends with. People that my cats adore have usually turned out to be great friends for me, including my husband. The first time I brought him home, I opened the door where my cats were and they ran out and Tiko immediately did the cat thing between Andrew's legs and purred loudly. Tiga held back a little bit, sizing Andrew up and sniffing his hands and legs before deciding he was OK. Tiko and Tiga were great big Tabby cats, my first on-my-own-away-from-home cats. I miss those big fellas! I'll always have a place in my heart for a Tabby cat.

The day is going fast, so I need to get going and do what needs to be done. See ya next Month! :o)

How To: Wet Walnuts (Walnut Syrup)

If you're like me, you love wet walnuts on ice cream! Yum!

Just look at that spoonful!

The only thing I don't like about buying wet walnuts at the store, is the cost-- ouch!

So, I searched and searched and finally found a recipe to make and can my own wet walnuts!

I've been making my own for quite a while now, and the recipe has been tweaked and changed to the way I like it. Here's the way I make it:

You'll need:

8 cups of light brown sugar (for no measuring, buy 2 bags of brown sugar 32 oz or 2 pounds each)

2/3 cup corn starch

3 tsp maple extract

16 cups of walnuts

6 cups cold water

You'll also need your canning supplies plus 10 clean pint-size canning jars and lids.

{Makes 10 pints}

Dump your brown sugar in a large pot and add corn starch.


Add the maple extract

Add the 6 cups of cold water and whisk to combine ingredients.

Bring to a boil.

While waiting for the syrup to boil, get your clean jars and fill with walnuts. Divide the 16 cups of walnuts evenly into 10 jars.

I like to tap the jars on the counter to help settle the nuts and then add a few more, pressing firmly to make sure there is at least 1-inch headspace.

When the syrup starts to boil, let it boil at least 10 minutes.

Using the jar funnel, ladle the hot syrup into each jar, until it reaches the top, leaving 1-inch headspace. Wipe rims, cap with lids, then place into canning pot.

10 jars fit nicely here.

Cover and bring to a boil. When boiling starts, can for 10 minutes.

Let sit in canner off the heat for a little bit, then remove and cover with a towel to keep from cooling too fast. When cool, check for sealed lids and store in a cool place.

Once you open a jar, keep in the fridge.

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Incidentally, this is also the recipe for my pancake syrup, just keep out the walnuts.

When I had the wet walnuts in the canner, I made another batch of syrup.

I love yard sales, where else can I pick up a 1/2 gallon Atlas jar for 25 cents??

The syrup recipe will make 3 quarts. I pour 1 quart into the old syrup bottle and 2 quarts in the 1/2 gallon jar.

Store in the fridge and refill the syrup bottle as needed.

Let me know if you make this and how you like it! This also makes nice gifts for people and you can use those smaller 1/2 pint jars instead.
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Catching up

* None of the fallen feathers from the chickens go to waste around here. The kids like to gather them up and make things with them. Cat toys are the main project, but Evelyn crafted this indian hat and was so proud of it. With all the sales on school supplies going on, I am stocking up on plenty of markers, crayons, pens, construction paper, and glue. Glue goes fast around here and we have already used up one bottle within a week of purchasing it!!

*Sylvia's 'attachment' preference is tape. Lots of it!! She uses so much of my tape that I have to hide it or else it will be gone. On one of our little visits into town, we decided to let the kids have fun in the dollar store and pick one item each to get since they had behaved well that day. Sylvia picked tape! 8 rolls of tape for $1! I tell ya, that was the best thing she could have ever picked! She likes to wrap little toys in construction paper ( trying to get her to switch to newspaper) and lots of tape to seal it up, then she leaves her "presents" around the house for us to find and unwrap. I swear she uses half a roll of tape just to tape one present! But it's her tape and her dollar, so I'm not saying a word. I try to show her she can use less tape, but she pushes my hands away and keeps at it.

*Andrew has the day off on Sunday, so I am going to butcher a rooster or two for dinner that day. It cannot be put off any longer! Just this afternoon, looking through the window, I caught 4 roosters, taking turns, mounting one poor little hen! Poor girl! I rushed outside and scattered them, but told myself it's time for them to go. The young ones are almost as big as the older ones, and if it wasn't for their non-existent spurs, I'd never be able to tell which is which! Only the two older roos have long spurs.

*Working on a wet walnut how-to post. I should have that up next week. I popped open one of the jars I canned last week, poured some on ice cream and it's so good! I'd like to try it with pecans one day, just substitute the walnuts with pecans. Maybe over the holidays when the nuts go on sale... This is when I miss living in Louisiana where we could pick fallen pecans and fill paper bags full of them for free!

*I think Peter is ready to be potty trained. He keeps taking off the diapers or he sticks his hand down the front of the diapers to play with his willy and then the fit gets messed up and the pee trickles down his legs. After the supply of diapers I have runs out, I'll be switching to training pants and then start potty training. I can see the light at the end of the diaper tunnel!! hooray!! more than 8 years of constant diaper changing and I'll soon be done!

*One of the young hens laid their first egg today! Pretty soon, the other ones will start laying and I should be getting at least 8-10 daily. When I have several dozen, I'd like to try and sell some. Make a sign and hang it out front. I might be able to avoid doing that and sell to friends and family only. Did you see that massive recall on eggs the other day??? Good grief! Makes me happy I have my own chickens.

*My mom feel down twice this week. Makes 3 times this year. Nothing broken or sprained, but she gets sore and hurts a few days afterwards. I need to keep a closer eye on her and get her in for a check-up. I want her to live a good long time, watch her grandchildren grow up and hopefully, she'll live long enough to see her great-grandchildren, too.

*Good news/Bad news:: I got my period/I'm not pregnant! It's never fun or easy when Aunt Flo comes to visit me every month, but when she is here, it's a relief to know I have dodged the pregnancy bullet once again. Andrew has an appointment for a consultation for getting snip-snipped! I can't wait! No more worrying when Aunt Flo is late or having to deal with raincoats anymore! Was that TMI??? :o) It's my blog, I can write what I want!

*It's almost time for that children's consignment place to start up again. I think I'll be selling the kids' out-grown clothes there for sure. The foyer has boxes and boxes of too small clothing they don't wear anymore and it looks like a yard sale is not going to happen this year. I am considering volunteering one day a week with the sale, because she added a new bonus to volunteers this year:: for every hour past the required 4 hours you volunteer, 1% will be added to your percentage of the sale. If you just consign, the percentage you earn from the sale of your goods is 50%; with the volunteer hours, if I worked 2 8-hour shifts, that would net me 12 (16 hours minus the required 4) extra percent to my sales making my total 62%! So if I sold $100 worth of items, I'd get back $62 instead of $50. Makes a difference.

Andrew usually gets 2 days off per week, so if I can leave the kids home with him, get there early and stay most of the day, I could handle a day or two per week and try to volunteer at least 4 days which would give me, hopefully, 48 hours of volunteer time. That would be equal to 44 percent added to my 50 which makes 94%! In the past, money earned from the sale of our items went to pay for car insurance. It sure would be nice to have that extra money again. The sale starts Sept 13th, so that gives me a month to get ready for it.

*It's the weekend! Andrew is working Saturday, so I'll be canning tomatoes in the cool of the morning before it gets too hot. Off to bed for me!

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Peak

This is peak canning season for me right now. The corn I got from the farmer is either in jars or in our bellies. I'm kind of sick of corn. First time ever! After I sliced the kernels off the cob, I'd nibble a little bit of the corn that was left on the cobs before I tossed it in the bucket. Imagine working on 5 dozen corn and nibbling just about every other ear... yeah, that's a lot of corn! I couldn't help it! The corn was just so sweet and tasty! Hopefully I'll crave corn again before the end of corn season around here and we can have a few more meals with fresh corn on the cob.


The tomato plants I got from the farm store were mislabeled, I think. I bought several types; always get big boy, romas, and cherry toms. Then I get whatever else strikes my fancy: early girls, better boys, types like that. The big boys were getting nice and big alright, but they weren't turning ripe. I kept waiting for them to change from the orange color to red, then today I realized they were ripe! I had all these huge orange tomatoes almost too ripe! Must have been a mix-up or the markers got switched somewhere along the way. They're good, but I had to harvest quite a bit of tomatoes after supper, so I am unexpectedly making a batch of roasted tomato sauce tonight. I'll throw it all in the crockpot after I roast them and let the crockpot do the cooking for me overnight.

The big orange ones in the upper left corner are the mystery fruit. Any guesses as to what they are?? The cherry toms are also not what I bought. I bought the regular cherry toms, but these are black cherry toms. Very prolific!! The vines grow taller than me and spread across half the fence and I am harvesting bowls and bowls of these little toms! Quite tasty, they seem to have a more concentrated taste of tomato, I like it. I've been throwing them in with the other tomatoes as I can them, we can't eat them fast enough!

Had a lull in the tomatoes the other day, so I made and canned a batch of wet walnuts or you probably know it as walnut syrup. I grew up calling them wet walnuts. My dad loves this stuff, they sold in little jars and he could easily use the whole bottle on a bowl of ice cream and I remember him grumbling when I used some on mine. I understand now, why he grumbled, they're pretty pricey for a little jar. I used up the last jar I canned last year quite a while ago, and have been craving some lately, so I finally got my ingredients together and made some. I'm thinking I'll make a second batch after I pick up some more maple extract. I have more walnuts I need to use up that have been sitting in the pantry since last Fall.

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The kitchen counters are covered in jars and garden harvests. Very hard to find clear counter space this time of year. One counter has cases of canned jars that need to be moved down stairs. Another is the holding area for canned jars until I have enough to fill a case. I have a pile of empty jars in the sunroom waiting to be filled. The counters by the stove and sink are buried under tomatoes and peppers and even the stove is hidden under the canner and pots. I kind of like seeing the organized chaos, but I admit, I will be happy to have my kitchen back to normal again.

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I'm happy. It's hot and canning is hot work, but I enjoy the whole process. I'm just one of those people that are happiest when they are in the kitchen. After the last couple years of not having enough tomatoes to harvest, you'll hear no complaints from me about being overwhelmed with tomatoes this year! I hope you are having good harvests too!

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A Good Day

It was a good day today. I was able to head to the grocery store without the kids and I really needed that little bit of time to myself. I dislike waking up to children that say, "I'm hungry/thirsty" to me first thing in the morning, before I even have a chance to get out of bed and get my feet on the floor. Say "good morning" or something first, please! I need a little bit of time to get my engine up and running, go visit the bathroom, get dressed, put on my eyes and ears (glasses and hearing aid) before I resume the mama role.

I don't know, my children seem to have the tendency to stand there looking at me, after calling for me, and I'm staring right back waiting for them to say something. Most times I can handle it, but this morning it was really rubbing me the wrong way, so I was kind of glad I had a chance to run out for a little bit.

We needed more cat food and chicken feed, so off to the local farm store in town. If I drive just a little further, maybe a mile or so, there's the library. I debated going there to borrow movies. Worked out in my head if I borrowed them today, they'd need to be returned on Saturday. Oh what the hell, it's HOT and staying inside where it's a little cooler than it is outside and watching movies sounds good to me.

Right across from the library was a pick-up truck full of corn, a local farmer selling his wares. Hmm, I wondered how much he was selling them for, and if he'd give me a discount for buying a bunch? So I walked over and much to my delight, instead of the standard $5/dozen everyone seems to be charging around here, he'd charge me $4/dozen for buying 10 dozen corn. $40 total. Then the wife said she would knock off an extra $5 to make it $35!! Yes! I was pretty happy with that, so I forked over $35 and then he gave me an extra dozen of "bad corn", where just the tops had been eaten a little by worms, but still good, but you know, people can be fussy. $35 for 11 dozen corn makes me happy-- a better deal than the chain grocery store I had been buying corn from and I saved on gas and taxes, too. Plus, I helped out a local farmer. He even said that by me buying all that corn, might cut his time in the hot sun short, waiting to sell his truckload of corn. So every body's happy!

Then while I was leaving the food store, the construction crew was hard at work, constructing new curbs and the cement truck was partially blocking my way. The construction guy saw me and goes, "Hey baby, you need to get out? You going that way baby?" I nodded and he watched for a space in the traffic and then when I could go, "You can go now baby." Totally made my day. I told Andrew when I got home and he told me I was his baby. Well of course I am! But it's nice when a stranger calls me baby and in a non-creepy way too!

On the way home, I turned up the volume on my old Madonna CD and sang along to songs that I memorized way back in high school. I find it amusing that my girls wonder how I know all the words to the Madonna songs and they don't realize that those songs are older than they are. Needless to say, I came home in good spirits.

I canned some of that tasty corn-- 7 quarts tonight. We'll eat some for dinner tomorrow and I'll work on the rest of it afterwards. I gotta add, I love that pressure canner!! I think with this corn, after I can the rest of it, I'll have enough put away for the winter until the next corn season. Bonus-- the pressure canner cans tomatoes faster than the water canner! Yay!! Tomatoes are coming in pretty good now, and I canned what I had on the counter before they spoiled-- 4 pints worth. I think after tomorrow, I'll have some more to can. We're also eating them in sandwiches, out of hand, taco toppings, etc., because what's the point of canning them all if you can't enjoy some now?

Recipe for Canned Corn

I've been asked to share my recipe for canned corn. I confess, I am always tweaking recipes and it's rare that I follow a recipe exactly as it is written. I can't help it--I usually think it can be improved if I added cinnamon or pepper or an extra dose of vanilla. The same goes for when I am using a recipe for canning jams. The recipe I use for canned corn comes from a recipe I modified a little bit. A dear friend of mine, who is mennonite, gave me her family cookbook and in it are all sorts of lovely recipes; each one I've tried has been declared delicious by my family. She gave me the cookbook when I asked her about canning and said there were some recipes in there for canning. I thought it very generous to give me the cookbook when it was only our 2nd time meeting each other! Anyway, The recipe in the book is for freezing corn and is as follows:

• 4 qt raw corn, cut off cob
• 1 c sugar
• 4 tsp salt
• 1 qt water

Boil all ingredients for 15 minutes. Set pot in ice cold water. Cool completely. Ladle both corn and liquid into freezer safe containers. Freeze. 100 ears of corn equals 12 quarts.

The very first time I made this, we were eating the corn right out of the pan!! Oh my! The sugar and the salt make a great salty-sweet flavor and it's Gretchen's favorite corn! She can always tell which corn I am using-- the store bought or my frozen corn. When I got the pressure canner, the instruction/recipe book included different canner recipes; the corn one is a basic one:

Boil corn on cob for 3 minutes. Remove from water and slice kernels off cob. Pack jars with corn then pour boiling water over corn, leaving 1 inch headspace. Pressure cook for 55 minutes using 10 pounds of pressure.

I modified the recipe a little bit and put a cup of sugar and 4 tsp of salt in the water to get that salty-sweet taste my family loves. I had some left over that wasn't enough to fill a jar for canning, and we tried it and it's as yummy as I hoped it would be.

I canned another 13 pints of corn for a total of 27 pints so far. The grocery store extended their sale on corn this week, so I plan on getting more corn for sure. I scored another wooden crate when I asked the produce worker at the store for a whole box of corn. They were happy to let me take the whole thing, which holds 48 ears in one crate. I thought they'd want it back to send back to the farmers to reuse them, but I guess they don't do that. I wonder if they throw all those crates away?? I better ask the next time I get more corn.

Anyway, let me know if you try these recipes. The sugar and the salt really add to the corn and make it taste great! Happy freezing or canning! :o)

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Pressure Canner Love

I don't know what I was so nervous about, working with that pressure canner was pretty easy! I am so glad I got one and I'm already dreaming up other food to pressure can!

My very first pressure canned batch of corn-- 14 pints total.

I love the fact that it holds 10 pints (reg. mouth) at once, so that'll speed things up, but the downside is, it takes a whole 55 minutes to do one batch of corn. Now I understand why my friend's Grandma got so upset when one of her two pressure cookers broke and she immediately sent her husband to the store to buy another one. He ended up going from store to store before finding one and came home about two hours later. It was my very first time helping to can tomatoes and I didn't really understand what all the fuss was about. Having 2 pressure canners going at once would definitely help things go faster, but maybe later. First, I want to be skilled at using this one, then in a year or two, I'll buy a second. Or maybe when I get frustrated at the wait time, I'll send Andrew off to the store to get me another.

In the middle of me working on the corn last night, Andrew called from work and told me he was going to his friend Jim's house after work to pick up some peaches. We had a storm roll through in the late afternoon and Jim's neighbor had peach trees. The wind knocked a lot of peaches to the ground and the neighbor shared them with Jim, not wanting them to go to waste. Well, it was too much for Jim, so he called Andrew wanting to know if we wanted them. Well, sure! I'm not going to turn down free peaches!

We got four bags of peaches, some of them were badly bruised, but most of them were salvageable. Jim's lady hinted at peach butter, so I took all the smushed peaches and made up a batch of peach butter.

I started out with a full pot of peaches, about double the recipe in the Ball Blue Book, and it simmered for the next 5-6 hours before it was thick enough to round up on a spoon. Those peaches were juicy! I spiced it with a teaspoon of cinnamon.


I ended up with 6 pints of peach butter. I'll share them with Jim and his Lady, since he was kind enough to give me the peaches. There are enough good peaches left over to make peach cobbler and to eat out of hand. I had to fend the kids off the peaches so I could make sure I have enough to last a couple of days.
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Kind of funny how things work out-- I've been wanting to stop by the farm stand and pick up some peaches, but every time I'm out by the stand, I never have enough money on me (they only take cash), so I don't stop. I've had a real craving for peaches lately, I haven't eaten any this year yet. Then unexpectedly, we get a bunch of free peaches! Nice! I'm going to save some of the pits and plant them, see if I can get any to grow. It'd be nice to have a peach tree to replace the one we have now. The peaches never grow any bigger than a ping-pong ball. Any tips on getting a peach pit to grow? Do I need to let it dry or can I plant it now?
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Corn Woes

My corn isn't growing so well. I am frustrated about that-- I l.o.v.e. corn. The first year here, they hardly grew past a couple feet tall. Second year, they were growing great and we were just about to harvest the ears when raccoons beat us to it and left very little for us-- maybe a few dozen. Third year, I didn't bother. Last year, I got less than a dozen, and the rest of the corn stayed small. I wasn't going to plant any this year, but I had some seed leftover so I used that up. The corn is iffy-- some of it looks alright, some of it is still puny. I'm ready to throw in the towel on growing corn. Another part of me wants to keep trying, figure out what works and keep at it. Maybe with the chicken poop I'll be cleaning out soon, I can compost that and till it into where I plant the corn next year... I just might give it another try next year. I love corn too much to just give up on it.

Corn at the farm stands around here is pricey-- most sell for $5 a dozen. Ouch! As much as I hate to do it, I get my corn from the big chain stores, they sell for about $3 a dozen or less. We easily eat a dozen for one meal between the 7 of us. I asked around, trying to see if anyone would give me a discount if I ordered a large amount of corn, so that I can put some away for the winter. I'd like to try and not buy any metal canned foods from the store. No one is willing to cut a deal. So when the chain store has their corn on the cob on sale, I am buying a few dozen here and there to freeze and put away for the winter. I feel a little better when I know the chain store I am buying from gets their corn from a farm in Pennsylvania. Not exactly local, but closer to us than Florida or Georgia.

When freezing corn, I recycle the spaghetti jars and use those for the corn kernels. There's a certain brand of sauce that uses mason jars, a little less than one quart size and I buy those when they're on sale. (hopefully I wont have to buy any this winter with all the tomatoes I have about to ripen soon!) I use a mennonite recipe and the corn gets frozen in liquid-- water with salt and sugar added to it. I don't like loose frozen corn kernels, I think they taste tough, but after trying this recipe, the corn tastes as if I just put it in there! Very good and Gretchen, the picky eater prefers this corn over the metal canned ones from the stores.

My Mom gave me an early Christmas gift and bought me my very own pressure canner today! I was lamenting the fact that freezing the corn was taking up precious freezer space and I was going to have to limit it to about 40 jars-- one jar per week until the next corn season. But now, with the pressure canner, I am going to be able to can the corn and keep it in the pantry instead! I have 9 of those less-than-one-quart spaghetti jars in the freezer now, and I'll can the rest, so hopefully I can put away 100 quarts instead of only 40. I look forward to pressure canning my chicken broth and other things I normally freeze and freeing up space for other foods.

First, though, I need to get over my nervousness about using a pressure canner. I have heard enough horror stories about them, so I am a little worried, but I'll be sure to read, read and read again, the instructions on how to use it. I'll be pressure canning my first batch of corn tomorrow, so wish me luck!

Why I Do What I Do

It's not such a big thing now, with more and more people having gardens and preserving their own food, but when I started doing it a little bit before my first child was born in 2002, I had many people question it. Why? You can buy it from the store, you know. Isn't it too much work?

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My own mother often wonders why I do this, partly because it is a lot of work, and partly because she remembers her mother telling her it's cheaper and easier to get it at the store. My grandmother had no choice, she had to preserve her own food. She had no car and lived out in the country on very little income. For her, it became drudgery. It was something she had to do if she wanted to eat in the winter. She didn't have any other options, but she made sure to make clear to her daughters that they would be better off buying from the stores and did not pass on any of her knowledge of gardening, butchering, and preserving. She had high hopes for my mother and aunt to go to college, graduate and get good jobs so they could buy what they needed from the stores.

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I do this because I want to, and because I can. It isn't drudgery for me. Not at all. I enjoy the whole process, from beginning to end. I love planting the seed, nurturing it and watching it grow, seeing fruit ripen and then plucking it at its' peak. I love doing the prep work it takes to get a tomato ready for canning-- to dunk the tomato in hot water, slipping the skin off, chopping or leaving it whole and placing it in the jars. I enjoy the steam from the water bath and when they're done, hearing that 'ping' from the lids that tells me it sealed.

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I wish I could have picked my grandmother's brain; to have the chance to ask her how she did certain things. But she probably wouldn't have shared her knowledge with me. She was tight-lipped about things and often told my mother to "mind her own business" when asked anything.

I had to learn things the hard way, by trial and error, by devouring books and instructions and other people's blogs. I have only recently started to feel comfortable with experimenting, deviating from the recipe to add my own twist, no longer afraid that I'll botch the whole canning process. I feel confident now in my skill to make jams and sauces and I want to take the next step in food preserving. I'm ready to tackle the pressure cooker so I can try preserving other food, like corn and potatoes and meat.

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Sure, I could go and buy what I need from the store. But if you have never tasted home-preserved tomatoes or home-made jams, you don't know what you're missing. Before my garden, we used to buy tomatoes year-round, never really tasting the difference from store-bought summer tomatoes to store-bought winter tomatoes. After the garden and we grew our own, and I didn't can my own tomatoes yet, we'd buy tomatoes in winter and wonder why we are wasting our money on tasteless tomatoes? We no longer buy tomatoes in winter anymore, preferring, instead, to eat what I have canned and when we run out, we will (im)patiently wait for our garden-grown tomatoes.

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I didn't think I would taste a difference in store-bought potatoes versus home-grown potatoes, but I can! I really can! The same goes for nearly everything I can grow myself versus buy in the store. So after learning all this, how can I ever stop? How can I ever give up the freshest, juiciest, tastiest home-grown or home-preserved foods and go back to buying bland, flavorless, preservative-packed store-bought food?

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I'm sure my grandmother is looking down at me, shaking her head at me, while I sweat over a hot stove, boiling hot water for dunking tomatoes in, washing hundreds of jars and lids, while fending off 4 children. Go ahead granny-- shake your head, but I'm not going to stop.

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::Mountain Mama Wares Shop Update::

Whoo!!

I finally have all my homemade jams and jellies for sale in my

Mountain Mama Wares shop on Etsy!

Please click on the link in the right sidebar to go and visit.

I have 3 flavors in 1/2 pint sizes available:

*Crazyberry*

*Rhuberry*

*Wild Grape*

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I also have a Sampler set in 4 oz sizes,

but I have only 5 sets,

so if you want some, order fast!

Random Tidbits

I have some random things and pictures I need to unload out of my head. You know the feeling, stuff that clutters up your brain and rattles around in there until you decide what to do with it. Well, I've decided to put it all in one post, tidbits and stuff that's happened this month, sort of a way to sweep out the old and welcome in October! Dang! October already? Really?

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The garden is still giving us tomatoes. The temps are going anywhere from the 60s to the 80s during the day and drop to the 50s and sometimes lower at night. It was pretty chilly today, most of the windows stayed shut, so I may have to pick all the green ones and make that green tomato salsa I've heard about. We haven't been overwhelmed with tomatoes but I did manage to can 10 pints of chopped tomatoes and it looks like I may be able to can a few more tomorrow.

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One day, when the husband had a day off from work, I made up some pie crusts and chopped up some apples for making and freezing mini apple pies. Hubby picked up a mini pie maker at a yard sale somewhere so we tried it out and it's a nifty little thing. One side cuts out the crust, other side folds and seals the edges.

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Pretty soon, the girls took over and edged me and the husband out of the pie-making operation. We ended up with about 50 mini pies to go in the freezer and the ones with ripped crusts got baked and eaten. They were tasty! I also made and froze 2 regular size pies. I planned to make 4, but my pie crust was not cooperating with me that day and kept crumbling. I gave up and pressed the crust into a rectangular cake pan and made a deep dish apple pie with crumb topping. We are still eating that, it was so good, but it's a lot of pie! I would make it again if there was going to be a crowd coming over to eat.

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I finally used up the last of the apples from the 6 bushels we bought. I canned another 6 quarts of applesauce tonight for a grand total of 70 quarts! I originally planned to can 100 quarts, since the 52 quarts I canned last year didn't make it to the next apple season, but I got to thinking-- Baby is not eating applesauce daily like he did before, so 70 ought to do it. Plus, I'm tired of apples. I'm tired of peeling them, coring them, chopping them, stirring them, eating them. And being chased by bees when I take the apple leftovers to the compost...

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My coupon-cutting is time-consuming, but effective in saving us money. I have to do my "homework" to search out different websites for coupons and deals and then sit down to match up coupons with prices for cheap deals. I am not complaining, we are eating well. My local food store had a bargain sale on store-brand mac 'n cheese for 10 cents a box and spaghetti for 59 cents. The husband loves spaghetti, it's his #1 favorite meal, so we eat a lot of that, at least once a week. And I love mac 'n cheese-- who doesn't? With trying to save money, I have been making it from scratch, but with a deal like this, I'll happily buy some. The photo above is what happens when you let your 3 year old put away pantry items: boxes of spaghetti and mac 'n cheese stacked anywhere she could put them. We ended up buying 60 boxes of mac 'n cheese (do the math, that equals $6!) and 60 boxes of spaghetti.

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I made a meal tonight that cost less than $2.00 to feed the 6 of us:

1 box of mac 'n cheese- .10

1/2 lb ground beef- .75

2 tomatoes- free (garden)

1 carrot- .20

1 tube biscuits- .75

Total: $1.80 for a yummy tomato/mac 'n cheese/beef (with grated carrot hidden in the sauce) dinner

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The bright side of saving all this money is that we have a little extra money for other things-- like fixing my van. We have been having trouble with it lately. The tires needed to be replaced- they were bald in front and leaky in the back; we had to pump air into the back tire before we went somewhere. Bought 4 new tires and now something else is happening to the engine. It sputters and lurches and then shuts down. Our neighbor mechanic is working with us, replaced this and that, still no go. Hopefully we will pinpoint the trouble soon and it won't cost too much.

I have been "trapped" at home lately, because the one vehicle that works is the husband's truck, which is a stick-shift and 6 of us don't all fit. I am counting my blessings, we have a truck that works and if that means I have to stay home and give him the grocery list to shop for me, then so be it.

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I think my head is not rattling anymore. Thanks for listening. :o)

Lost...

I've been lost in my little world,

drowning in a sea of apple peels,

and surrounded by little (not so green) men.

Since I last posted, I have made and canned 25 pints of various jams

and made 27 quarts of applesauce.

I also just turned thirty-six.

Mom was here for a few days, she called in sick to play hooky with us.

She puzzled over puzzles with the kids, while I busily worked in the kitchen.

We took her to the halfway point to meet Uncle who then took her back to their house.

We hit the thrift shops and came home,

only to discover that she forgot her car keys and my dear, sweet Husband

drove 2 1/2 hours, one way, at 8 o'clock at night, to drop her keys off at her work

and did not come back home until after 1 am.

Thanks Honey!

My son, my Baby, is making up for being the bestest, sweetest baby ever!

He is getting into EVERYTHING!

Nothing is safe.

He has broken several dishes and glasses;

ripped countless pages of magazines, books and newspapers;

dumped the dogs' water bowl too many times to count;

climbs furniture only to get himself stuck at the top;

wreaks havoc in my pantry if I happen to leave the door open;

and loves splashing in the toilet water.

His redeeming feature?

He's so dang cute while doing it!

It's a good life here, in my little world.
I don't mind getting lost,
as long as I am surrounded by the ones I love.

Coming Soon...

Remember these??

Hopeful jam entries for the County fair

Winners!

When I make my jams and jellies, then share with family and friends, I always get lots of compliments between licking fingers and lips. I get told often that I should sell some, but how and where was the question. I approached several farm markets and stands to inquire about selling my jams, but they either already have jams for sale, or give me vague answers about getting a business license and getting my kitchen inspected by the 'powers-that-be'.

Then I checked Etsy and I realized I had the answer the entire time! Etsy allows me to sell my homemade jams! Eureka!! So I have been hard at work these past couple of days, making and canning fresh jams and jellies to put up for sale in my Etsy shop. I always have too many for us to eat up, but canning has become my addiction. I am always looking at a fruit and wondering, "Can I make a jam out of that?" We are a jam-loving family and we go through several jars a week, and that alone tells me how good my jams are.

So-- As soon as I get some pictures, I will be selling some of my hand-canned jams and jellies, including my Prize-Winning Blue Ribbon Rhuberry jam! (My second-place winner, Crazyberry will be for sale as well!)

Now I'm off to buy more jars!! :o)

Harvesting and Canning

All the apples are gone. They were made into crispy apple chips, dried apples and eaten out of hand. It was nearly a week of daily morning and night peeling and slicing, before I finally ran out of apples. Good thing, I was starting to get sick of arranging apple slices neatly on the dehydrator trays for maximum effect.

My break from apples won't be for very long, they just advertised Gala apples and I like to use those in my applesauce, along with jonagolds. As soon as the jonagolds are ready, I'll buy several bushels of each and get to saucing!

After I made the Damson plum liquors, I waited a little too long (I got busy with the apple chips) to make plum jam, and found that about half had gone moldy. I was able to salvage enough for two batches of plum jam and the rest went to the chickens and compost. It was my first time making plum jam and it's very good! When I mentioned the jam to my mom, her eyes lit up and she said she has not had plum jam since she left home for college. My grandmother had a plum tree behind the shed and made jam with the plums. I am eager for my mom to taste my plum jam and see if it compares to my grandmother's.

We have gotten 4 eggs so far from our chickens. I think it is a possibility that some of the chickens are laying in the woods, because there should be more than just four. We passed some one's home with a pile of rolled up chain link fencing for sale. I think I'll stop by and see how much they are asking, and if it is reasonable, get some for making an enclosure around the coop. Fall is in the air around here, and fallen leaves will make it hard for me to search for eggs, so as much as I want them to free-range, I also want them to lay eggs in the coop.

Our tomatoes are finally starting to come in. It was just a trickle these past couple of weeks, with a tomato here and there. When I was canning the plum jam, I had enough tomatoes to can a quart. Only a quart, I know, but it's a start. Checking on the plants today, I am hoping that by next week, I'll have at least enough ripe tomatoes for 10 more quarts. Not even enough to last the whole winter, but that's what I get for not being more careful where I put my tomato and pepper starts and then getting a puppy that thinks the plants were for her to chew on. I consider myself lucky to have found tomato starts when I did. So I'll take what I can get and have better hopes for next year's garden.

I am considering getting a bushel of tomatoes from the farm market, they ask $15 for a bushel, but every time I inquire about them, they tell me not today, maybe next week. Meanwhile, there are plenty of tomatoes for sale on the table. I suspect they pick the best looking ones for sale and save the ugly ones for canning tomatoes. This is what makes me hesitate.. Why can't they just sell me a bushel of those tomatoes when I want them now? Maybe I'll just do without and concentrate on apples. I will miss not having rows of pretty canned tomatoes in my basement, but I have plenty of other lovely canned goods to make up for it.

I am also harvesting items from the stores, buying a little extra here and there, when we can afford it, to get ready for the winter months. My step-mom taught me some tricks for shopping with coupons, and I am getting some pretty good deals, now that I know where to find them. Recently at the rite-aid, they had a pretty good sale for certain items-- buy one get one free type sales and combined with manufacturer's coupons, store coupons and rebates, I managed to get about $75 worth of items for about $15. I'm pretty pleased about that. It's a thrill to see the total on the register go down, down, down and walk away with quite a few bags of items.

I am trying a batch of peach wine. It's made the same way I made the strawberry wine and it is smelling mighty fine. I strain the peaches out in a couple days, then add the sugar, stir daily for another week, then divide into gallon jars and let it sit for a couple of months. I won't wait a year this time around, before checking them, to make sure I don't end up with 50/50 vinegar and wine.

I am going to enjoy this little break from canning anything, catching up on things I need to do around the house. I have a project going on right now and I look forward to sharing it with you as soon as I am finished.

County Fair 2009

We went to the County Fair tonight.

A photo of the kids before going in,

just in case we got separated and I would have a picture to show.

I wasn't going for smiles, just documentation of their clothing.

I made a beeline to the homemakers building to check on the results of my jam entries.

My Crazyberry jam (center, left) got a red ribbon for 2nd place.

My Rhuberry (center, right) got a blue ribbon for first place!

yay! I'm happy!

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I wonder how they judged them, though, because they were not opened.

I guess they judge based on how they look in the jar?

I think it would have been "Best of Show" had they tasted my jams!

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Time for rides!

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The girls got on this one and then when we got in line for another ride, the guy asked for tickets. "Tickets?" we asked.

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Apparently, things are different this year. Last year, the kids got to ride the kiddie stuff for free, but there was a hefty entrance fee. This year, the kids got in for free, but rides are now ticketed.

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I counted 7 kiddie rides-- the merry-go-round, the elephant ride, race cars, baby train, baby ferris wheel, space ship (but the lift didn't work) and alligator bouncy thing.

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2 tickets per ride, per kid. $1 each ticket equals $2 per kid times 3 kids equals $6 per ride.

--OR--

Buy unlimited rides in the form of a bracelet for $12 per kid times 3 kids equals $36.

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Yeah, um, no.

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We compromised with the girls:

One more ride and they could have cotton candy.

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They enjoyed every minute of that merry-go-round ride!

Baby kept me company while we waited for Daddy and the girls.



The girls liked their very first taste of cotton candy!

"More Daddy! More!"
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We enjoyed the Fair. Next year, we'll have to remember to take out a loan first.
At least the kids seemed to understand why they couldn't go on all the rides, and they are happy. Before they went to bed tonight, Oldest told me she had fun at the Fair. And then she drifted off to sleep, probably dreaming of bouncing on blue and pink cotton candy clouds.