Adventures in Canning: Apples and more Peppers...

and if Russia fires up it's malware, we may need it. 

Only one of our four apples trees gave us apples this year.  The trees seem to run on an every other year schedule.  Last year the other three had so many apples I thought the branches would break.

We had a wind storm that blew all the apples off the tree so it was just a matter of picking them up.  I'm guessing it was well over 25 pounds of apples.

7 quarts of apples and I still have a huge bag of apples.  I think they'll be prepped for baking and go into the freezer.

and

 a little bonus for after dinner.

I use lard for the crust and when I realized I had no lard I substituted butter.  We shall see how it turns out. We only have pie a few times a year, so this will be a treat.

The last of the peppers from the garden.  Who says man doesn't live on peppers alone?  They'd be wrong.

4 quart yeild

Adventures in Canning: Butternut Squash...

enough for a winter and spring worth of butternut soup.

We love butternut squash soup.  I make some with apples and ginger,  and some with curry.  An addition of some cream cheese makes it extra special creamy.  Before serving a splash of extra dry sherry is nice.

Butternut squash can be cured and successfully stored for up to 6 months in a cool dark place like a basement.  We don't have a basement and the barn would be too cold, so canning is my only real choice.

The store had a great deal at 25 cents per pound on winter squash.  Not sure exactly how much to buy, I bought way too much.  Oh well.

Usually when I make soup the squash is sliced in half, seeds scooped out, and roasted in the oven.  That way I can just scoop out the good stuff for the soup.

Not so when canning.  Oh, hell no.  It must be cut in half which is bit like cutting a giant steel ball bearing and then peeled.  It was ugly.

After cutting it up in chunks it was heated in boiling water for 2 minutes, loaded into quart jars,  fresh boiling water poured in, and processed for 90 minutes in a pressure canner.

Voila!

A total of 13 quarts of butternut squash (with one squash left over for soup tomorrow.) 

What I learned:

• Wear gloves when peeling squash.  It really sticks to your skin in a most unlovely way and is also very drying.
• Each average size squash will yield about 2 quarts.  The larger ones about 2 1/2 quarts.

First batch yesterday:

Second batch today:

Isn't it pretty?

Adventures in Canning: Pears...

and some things I learned.

• Pears do not ripen well on the tree and are picked unripened. They will ripen after picking by leaving them on your kitchen counter.


• To tell if a pear is ripe, press gently on the pear right next to the stem. If it is soft, the pear is ripe.


• Stone fruits (peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, etc) will not continue to ripen after picking.  Ripening indicates a build up of more sugar in the fruit which will not happen with stone fruit.  All they'll do is get softer, not riper, after picking.  


• Unfortunately, peaches, like tomatoes, are bred for shipping with thicker skins and are picked when still hard.  Now you know why your peaches become mealy after sitting on the counter.


• You can easily peel pears by blanching them in hot water for about 30 seconds and then putting them in cold water just like you do with tomatoes and peaches. I used a serrated paring knife to scrape off the peel. 


•  Hot packing definitely helps prevent "float."


• You cannot discreetly pass gas sitting in a office chair with  a mesh seat. Oooops - wrong post. Sorry.

The first two batches of pears before I was ready to drop dead of exhaustion.  These were carefully hot packed by heating in hot syrup.

After reaching the "Dear God, is this almost over" stage, I was not as careful heating the pears in syrup.  I ran short on my last jar and was frantically peeling and cramming pears into the not yet full jars.  Notice the float?

I ended up with 14 pints and 5 quarts of pears from one box.  I dearly love canned pears and cottage cheese with a whole bunch of pepper on top.  I know.  I'm weird...

Next up?  Nothing for awhile. 

 Oh, wait.  

There's some beets in the fridge waiting to be pickled.

Arrrrrrrgh!!!

Adventures in Canning: Peaches

are delicious.

Peaches prepped and ready to be sliced:

All done:

I have 14 half pint jars of sliced peaches:

Still to do:

These last peaches are becoming dangerously soft, so I will can them in quarts and only halve them instead of slices. 

What I learned:

1.  Have your canning equipment out and your prep area carefully arranged.

2.  Slicing the peaches in half, removing the pit, and using a melon baller to clean the pit area is best done before popping them in hot water/cold water to peel.

3. Use Fresh Fruit to keep the fruit from browning.  There are many home recipes online for keeping fruit from browning.  Personally, I think the extra time is not worth it.  Just buy Fresh Fruit.

4.  Before slicing, sprinkling with Fresh Fruit, and putting in hot syrup - use the rest room.  You do not want to be in the middle of jarring the peaches and have the "sudden urge."

My reward?

A entire case of pears to can.  Yahoo!

Adventures in canning: Orange Marmalade...

a challenge.

I've discovered that like with beets, the world is evenly divided into those who love orange marmalade or those who cringe at the thought of eating it.

I happen to love it and in a moment of insanity decided, "Hey, how about making your own?"

Well, okay then.

Out came my trusty canning books and then a trip to the internet to compare methods.  I think there as many ways to make orange marmalade as there are oranges in the world.

I, however, being a purist, decided it had to be real marmalade concocted without added pectin (which according to marmalade snobs is not marmalade, but orange jam.)

I finally settled on my own method after consulting Alton Brown, Ina Garten, and sundry other resources. 

Some methods just slice the oranges leaving all the pith.  This could make the marmalade unnecessarily bitter.  Instead, last night I peeled the oranges with a vegetable peeler,  cut the remaining pith off  and held it in reserve (along with the seeds), and sliced the peel into little sticks.  I chopped up the orange innards, added the little peel sticks, two sliced lemons, and a quart and a half of water in a big stainless steel pot.  I simmered this for about 10 minutes, put a cover on it, and stuck it out on the deck to chill out over night.

This morning I tied the pith and seeds up in muslin and threw it in the pot.  The pith and seeds provide the needed natural pectin.  I simmered this for about 45 minutes and removed the muslin bag.

After adding the correct amount of sugar (translation: a ton of sugar) I brought it to a boil.  I boiled, and boiled, and boiled for about a week - okay, maybe it was only about an hour or so.  It seemed like a week.   After reaching 220 degrees on a thermometer, I did the freezer plate test method and ascertained it had sufficiently jelled to can.

I put it in 1/2 pint jars and water bath
 processed for 10 minutes.

I now have 7 jars of luscious orange marmalade.

Was it worth the work?

After tasting it, all I can say is, "Eat your heart out Smuckers!!!"

Later today I'll take delivery of 24 pounds of peaches and 28 pounds of pears to can. 

Just enough extra for breakfast tomorrow.

Adventures in canning: Roasted tomatoes, plums, and more beef...

except I froze the roasted tomatoes.

I heard a rumor that the SCoaMF  went golfing yesterday.  Does he have no shame?  Silly question.  How does it feel America, for that sock puppet to rub your faces in his doo all the time?

My second youngest Italian prune plum tree is loaded with fruit.

Packed whole and raw with a bit of cinnamon stick and a few cloves in the jar.  Added extremely light simple syrup. Processed in water bath canner for 25 minutes. I have at least another 7 or 8 pints to do tomorrow.  These will be lovely on Greek yogurt for breakfast

Easy way to do tomatoes for the freezer.  I slice them and put them cut side down on rimmed cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with Italian seasoning.  Roast at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes until the skins start to show color (or even burn a little.)  Let them cool for a few minutes and use your kitchen pincers to pull off the skins.  Most of the seeds will stay behind when you scoop it into a freezer container. 

Ready for freezer...

 

Three pints of beef pressure canned for the pantry.  Lesson learned?  If you're going to go to the trouble of monitoring a pressure canner for an hour and 15 minutes, make it worth your while.  I really should have bought two or even three rump roasts and processed 8 or 9 pints. 

Adventures in canning: Sweet cherry peppers and beef stew...

couldn't be easier.

The cherry peppers were my major goal when planting all the pepper plants.  All the other peppers were just companions for the cherry peppers.  Anyone who gardens knows that when ordering seeds a sort of insanity ensues wherein you order waaaaay more than you need.

I crammed in some banana peppers to fill up the spaces between the cherry peppers and added some onion. 

These will be delicious stuffed with feta cheese.

The store where I work had a good sale on boneless beef bottom round rump roasts.  This meat came from the Double R ranch.  It's perfect for beef stew.

From their website:

Double R Ranch is an exceptional quality premium beef brand from the heart of the Northwest. Located in the Okanagan region of Washington State, the “Double R Ranch” sits on 70,000 pristine acres and is recognized for its raising of high quality cattle, as well as for its commitment to animal well-being and environmental stewardship, the preservation of its picturesque land and native wildlife, and the recycling of resources to create a model of sustainable beef production.

Robert Rebholtz, Sr. had vision to produce the highest quality meat products in the Northwest. And the Double R Ranch is the “heart and soul” of this vision. Beginning as ranchers themselves, the Rebholtz family takes great pride in leading by example when raising the cattle that ultimately carry the Double R Ranch brand name. While the Double R Ranch itself cannot raise the numbers of cattle to support the beef brand alone, it is an integral part of a sustainable beef production model that supports numerous farmers and ranchers in the Northwest United States and Canada who share the same values and commitment to their livestock.

I might mention that Mr Rebholtz is everyone's image of a what a handsome rancher should look like.  But - more important than that - he didn't take offense when I referred to his steers as "cows."  Now that's a gentleman.

Here's the fixings:

I forgot to take a picture of the jars before processing, but they looked like this pic all nicely layered.  All the ingredients went in raw and I used beef broth with a splash of hearty red wine for the hot liquid.  Any thickeners will be added afterwards as they are discouraged before pressure canning.

Into the pressure canner for 90 minutes and viola... 

The finished product:

Seven quarts of beef stew.

Be sure and see my post on Ten Buck Friday

I'm off to work so I apologize in advance for making you wait for comments to be approved.

Adventures in Canning: What to can...

is as important as what not to can.

Some items are harder to safely can than others.  My Hansel eggplants have started to spit out bunches of delightful little critters and so I decided to make Caponata, a Sicilian eggplant dish chock full of sweet and savory goodness.

Hansel eggplants grow in clusters.  You can harvest them starting when they are only an inch or two long.  This is my first year growing them and I doubt whether I will ever go back to traditional eggplants.  These eggplants have no bitterness, almost no seeds, and the you don't even have to peel them. 

The longest one I harvested was about 9 inches and the smallest was about an inch.  Hansel's are very sweet and can be thrown on the grill as is.

After doing careful research, I decided the freezer was a better place to preserve the Caponata.  Since it is essentially a low acid combination of foods, the processing time could be very hard to calculate and I was worried that an hour or more of pressure canning would turn the mixture to mush. 

I tweaked a combination of recipes to get just the taste I wanted using eggplant, tomatoes, celery, onion, garlic, green peppers, green olives, capers, golden raisins, and a few tablespoons of grated unsweetened chocolate (see links at bottom or post for recipes.)  The one item I didn't use was pine nuts (pignoli) since you must obtain a bank loan to acquire the little beasts.  I'll add toasted slivered almonds to the mixture before serving and, truth be told, it's just as good as pine nuts.  Or, if you're allergic to nuts, leave them out all together.  It's not the end of the world.

I roasted the sliced up eggplant rather than frying.  Eggplants are like little sponges and when you fry them they soak up untold masses of olive oil.  It's not the additional olive oil that drives that decision - it's the extra cost of using so much expensive oil.  A simple toss with oil and Kosher salt if sufficient for roasting.

Caponata is most often served as an antipasto on crusty little pieces of toast (crostini.)  However, the leftovers that didn't get put in the freezer will be heaped on toast this morning and served with our fried eggs and smoked hot Italian sausage.

I put the caponata in 1/2 pint freezer safe jars and ended up with 10 jars to use this winter.

 This is not our caponata on toast.  I was too busy eating to take a picture, but if I had, it would look just like this picture except we heaped way more caponata on our toast.

 You'll see variations in the following recipes.  Don't get all OCD about making this.  Just concentrate on the basics and mix and match.  This is what makes you a cook...

For instance, Anne Burrel uses a bulb of fennel in her caponata.  It never would have occurred to me to use fennel, although I'm sure it would be good.  Maybe next time.

Anne Burrel recipe 

Mario Batali recipe

Ina Garten recipe


 Next to can?  Beef stew.  I'm waiting for a good sale on roasts.

Adventures in Canning: Chili...

without beans.

I'll add beans later before serving.  I didn't want to mess with dried beans and I was afraid canned beans would turn to mush after processing for 80 minutes.

This is not intended as a discussion on how to make authentic chili.  There are as many different chilis as there are chili makers.

Sometime I make it with big chunks of stew meat, no beans, and add things like beer.  Other times I make it with ground beef, pinto and kidney beans, with a few healthy splashes of burgundy wine.

One thing I always use is a ton of chili powder, cumin, garlic, and parsley.  When I see a recipe using 5 lbs of ground beef, six cups of tomatoes, and two tablespoons of chili powder like I did earlier today, it moves me to say, "That's just wrong!"  Good heavens.  Two tablespoons of chili powder for a huge pot of chili? 

Today's chili?

The ingredients:

Banana and jalapeno peppers from the garden, celery, onion.

San Marzano tomatoes from the garden, supplemented with a few cans of chopped tomatoes.

I used about 6 lbs of ground beef from Costco.  It was $3.49 per pound which is a very good value because the Costco ground beef is only about 9% fat.

I softened the chopped celery and the onion pepper mixture just a bit in a saute pan and dumped it in a big pot to join the tomatoes which had been peeled, cored, and chopped.  I browned the ground beef to a pink color and added it to the pot.

I put it on the stove to simmer and added the spices. 

I can't tell you how much of anything to put in chili.  Your chili and tastes are not going to be the same as mine.  We like spicy.  You may not.  Just add and taste until you get the flavor you want.

I do like to add a bit of Kitchen Bouquet Browning and Seasoning Sauce to deepen the color and today's batch had a nice big splash of burgundy wine.

I added it hot to pint jars and processed it for 80 minutes at 13 lbs pressure.

If you are new to canning, please follow the recommendations for your altitude.  Also, even if your canner is new, have the gauge checked.  My new canner gauge registered one pound low, so I have to add one pound pressure for my altitude and another pound to make up the lower readings.  Your local extension office can test your canner gauge.

Results?

Viola...

Eleven pints of chili for the pantry.  And all eleven have already tested positive for a seal.  Yay!

I used the left over tomatoes, celery, and onions to make some pizza sauce.  After cooking it down and adding traditional Italian seasoning (including a healthy dose of home grown fresh basil), I put it in 1/2 pint freezer safe mason jars to place in my newly organized freezer.

I left out a bit of chili for dinner as well as two chunks of ground beef for burgers on the grill.

 

Adventures in Canning: Raw vs Hot Pack and a question about Ferguson, MO...

which is better; raw or hot pack?

(NB - this should have been posted hours ago, but a transformer close to our house blew, sounding much like a small bomb, and our electricity has been down.)

For Kathleen, my gentle-souled friend who blogs at My Daily Musing (and anyone else who is as sick of politics and the ongoing general mayhem as I am.)

But quickly - an observation about the goings on in Ferguson, MO. 

As of the census of 2010, the population of Ferguson was 21,203. The percentage of people who identified as black was  67.4% (I believe it's higher now.)  The number of blacks protesting rioting is about one to two hundred.  If I've done my math correctly (always a concern) the blacks number about 14,240 of the overall population.  If 100 blacks are rioting, that means that 14,140 of them are not rioting.

In addition, using the total figure from the 2010 census, if the population is 21,203 and only one to two hundred are rioting, that means that 21,000 people of whatever race are not rioting.

Let's go a step further.  If the population consisting of the non-rioters is approximately 21,000, how is it that one to two hundred people are holding this town hostage?

Now it seems the governor of Missouri has declared a state of emergency and enacted a curfew, because people that loot are going to respect a curfew?  It reminds me of the time many, many years ago when they changed the closing time of the liquor stores in St. Paul, Minnesota from 10pm to 9pm, because most robberies of liquor stores happened between 9 and 10pm.  No, I'm not kidding. That's what passes for logical thinking in libtard land.

I ask again, why are 21,000 people being held hostage by one or two hundred people?  And why are the police standing around letting them loot?   Seems we've gone from one extreme to the other.

Any thoughts on this?    

Onward:

Last week, I canned my first chicken.  I used the hot pack method which entails pre-cooking the chicken until it's not quite cooked completely, and then packing it into the jars hot.  I had approximately 10 lbs of chicken breasts.  It filled 6 quarts. The processing time was 90 minutes, which seems like an eternity when you have to repeatedly check the gauge to make sure proper pressure is maintained. 

It also made a big mess in the kitchen with the extra pots and such, and made the chicken look all stringy. 

The store had another sale on chicken breasts this week for $1.77 per lb, which was even cheaper than the last sale.

These chicken breasts were nicer in appearance than the bagged ones and after considerable research, I decided to raw pack the chicken.  I cut it up in chunks, crammed it raw into pint jars, and added a smidgen of canning salt and a dab of Better Than Bouillon.  No liquid is added, as the chicken will make its own broth.  How cool is that? 

Processing time for pints was 75 minutes. I ended up with 9 pints of chicken. 

I'll never hot pack chicken again.

This time I made sure I had something to occupy my time in the kitchen during processing.  I made a batch of gazpacho for dinner, and the 75 minutes of processing didn't seem like a prison sentence.

While the pressure canner was cooling, I put together a batch of zucchini garlic dills to be water bath canned.

While they were processing, I prepared more banana peppers for canning. Someone remind me next year not to plant so many pepper plants!

Aren't these purple jalapenos pretty?  They'll be even prettier stuffed with cheese, wrapped in bacon, and cooked on the grill.  I also chopped some up for the gazpacho. 

Next up to can: The San Marzano tomatoes - the absolute gold standard for paste tomatoes.  San Marzano is an heirloom variety that doesn't have a very pretty bush, but produces like crazy. 

I use the Florida weave method for staking my tomatoes because as you can see in the pepper picture, our soil has lots of rocks.  Ever try to shove a tomato cage into rocky soil? 

A note about cleanliness in the kitchen: 

Bleach is your friend.

Use it.

Cutting boards, counters, sink, dish drainer, and utensils.

 Wash your hands often and well - particularly when handling stuff like chicken - or you can wear disposable latex gloves.

After dealing with the chicken, everything in my kitchen was swabbed or soaked in a Clorox solution.

To close we must have our obligatory kitteh picture.