Spring has sprung . . . or has it?

With spring comes canning season. Sunday we canned 19 pints of Texas red grapefruits. That was before minus one that broke in the water bath ;(

Then today they are calling for up to an inch of snow!

SpRiNG??

I am not a prepper, I am NOT a prepper, I am NOT a PREPPER!

No, we just like our food fresh from our own pantry!

Wednesday we went to the Excelsior,MO Mennonite community. We bought this 1/2 bushel of peaches for $12.

So over the weekend I put up 21 pints of peaches.  I also canned 11 pints of pinto beans and 9 pints of chili beans.  

I then rewarded us with this lovely peach pie!

I also made 5 pints of pizza sauce. I froze it in individual containers, 25 in all! Not pictured is the 6 pints of spaghetti sauce that I made at the same time. 

The blacksmith made soap the past few days. On the left is a pumice soap, similar to Lava. On the right is a mild Castile soap.

It's been a very productive weekend.

I repeat, I am not a prepper! (Not sure about the blacksmith though) We just love our fresh stuff!

What have I been up to?

We've been experimenting with our wild turkey.  We have several packages in the freezer since the blacksmith got two birds this season. 


For this meal, I ground the turkey using the meat grinder attachment on my Kitchenaid mixer.  I then browned it and added a package of taco seasoning. Oh My Gosh, were they good. No way could you tell it was wild game. As for the beans, they are my home canned pinto beans, thank you Judy for the recipe!

Later in the week, I ground another package for burgers. I added bread crumbs, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, onions, and salt and pepper. The blacksmith then grilled them and added some BBQ sauce.

They were excellent!

Today I tried Judy's recipe for Pork n' beans. Same link as above. 

The taste was as good as Van Camp's.  I ended up with 6 1/2 pints. Since I haven't opened a jar since they were canned, I can't give you a full review. I will say, they looked a little over cooked and dry. Perhaps, I should have added more broth as they cooked. Time will tell. 

Sewing has been high on my priority list. I found this clothes pin bag pattern in a quilt magazine given to me by my friend Tom. I made 3 of these cute little bags. Do I have a real clothes line?  No, but that won't stop me.  Oh well, they will just look cute hanging in the laundry room. I bet Margie, that I gave the purple pansy one to, will find a use for it.

The first part of May, I won a give away from Dar, a fellow Missourian. Her generous package included a charm pack, a big spool of thread, a package of quilting needles, and some fat quarters. I immediately pulled out my charm pack book and found this pattern. It will make a great table cover come fall. I love the colors. 


I've also been blogging over at O B Blacksmith.

Stock the shelves

I've been a little under the weather the past two weeks.  But yesterday I got my butt in gear and got busy. The blacksmith and I canned soup.  I know it's summer and soup is good in the winter.  But it can also be  a quick meal when you're sitting in the AC. 

The neighbor son gave us two big beef roasts.  So we made vegetable barley soup.  We canned 7 quarts and 7 pints from two roasts. 

We picked up two fresh chickens at the butcher shop.  I saved a few pieces to fry for dinner and the rest went into chicken stock soup.  From those two chickens, that cost $14, we got one meal of fried chicken and 8 pints of soup. That's not bad at $1.56 a meal, plus a few carrots, celery and onions. 

Soup. It's what's for dinner

Before I sign off, I just have to show you what that redneck neighbor  son was up to last night.  He pulled our trailer home using his four wheeler. Not to mention it was loaded with chairs he was returning. 

Canning vegetable soup minus one.

I love to can. I follow Canning Granny and I've used several of her recipes. After canning oranges and grapefruits from her recipes, I knew they were true, tried, and tasted. 

So we decided to try her grab and go vegetable soup, with a couple of exceptions. 

Granny used hamburger, the blacksmith wanted chunks of beef. I used a 2 1/2 lb chuck roast. I cubed it,  placed it in my 4 qt. pressure canner, added 4 cups water, salt, and pepper. It was then pressured cooked for 12 minutes. That produced nice, tender beef. 

I used 4 potatoes, 2 stalks of celery, 2 carrots, 1 onion, and about a quarter head of cabbage. I used the strained beef broth and brought this to a boil. It then cooked about 10 minutes. 

After that I added 2 pints of tomato juice, 1/2 c quick cooked barley, a package of our frozen corn and a tablespoon of beef soup seasonings, and a little more water (I just didn't measure it). I waited for the entire pot to come back to a boil.  It was then ladled  into pint jars. 

It was  pressure cooked in the big canner for 75 minutes at 15 pounds of pressure. 

We now have 9 pints of beautiful vegetable soup. 

MINUS the fresh green beans that I spent 47 cents on. They were hiding in the refrigerator!

The Garden's end

It's a bittersweet day. The garden got a killer frost last night. I guess all good things must come to an end.

On yesterday's post I talked about the green tomato pickles. Since we knew the killer frost was imminent, we decided to try our hand at making some.

We picked all that was left which came to about 11 or 12 pounds.

We cut them up along with some onions and sprinkled them down with canning salt. They sat overnight in the refrigerator.

The next day, they were drained and a pickling solution was made.

The end results was 5 quarts and one pint. Now the waiting starts, 3 weeks before they can be sampled.

Here is the recipe we used for sweet and tangy green tomato pickles.

We also canned the last of our turnip kraut. 42 pints. We've done this before and here is a link to previous post on making turnip kraut.

And so we close another canning season with the shelves stocked full. 228 pints, 53 quarts jars, plus 27 qt bags in the freezer full of corn, not to mention the 15 gallons of blackberries. Now if the blacksmith bags a deer, we will be set for awhile!

Okay so this day didn't go as planned EITHER

I was up by 8 o'clock, peaches had to be canned. I fed the dog, and made the coffee.

The blacksmith made us breakfast of sausage and scrambled egg burritos while I peeled peaches.

As I finished up the first kettle of peaches in medium syrup, I ladled them into 12 pint jars. About this time the blacksmith got an important business call. He is usally my carrier.

I thought I can carry these jars to the garage. Yes we can in our garage to keep the heat out of the house. He already had the two pots heating up.

I opened the door ahead of time, knowing the tray would be heavy.

I made it fine walking through the kitchen, and the mud room, I stepped down into the garage . . .

and then this HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I screamed!

The blacksmith hung up the phone and came to see what was wrong, with my hands over my face he grabbed me. I wasn't hurt, only my feelings. He salvaged 3 pints.

There was no use crying over spilled milk peaches. I went for the scoop shovel and a bucket.

And so our day continued.

Back to peeling more peaches. I canned 10 more pints.
I made 3 half pint jars of peach syrup and canned 7 pints of peach salsa.


After that we canned 8 pints of pinto beans. Thank you Judy for the recipe.

We stopped about 3 for brunch, or lupper as it turned out to be. I made BLT's and the blacksmith cleaned some corn on the cob.

After fueling up, the blacksmith worked up all the tomatoes to make salsa, as I chopped the onions, peppers and garlic. We ended up with 10 jars of yummy salsa.

By 7:15 the dishes were done. We were exhausted. But darn we make a good team.

 

And now we are enjoying some warm banana bread and a POT of coffee.

Lesson learned, don't cry over spilled milk. . . .  life goes on.


102 degree was the high today.