She's at it again!!

Awhile back my husband's grandmother gifted me with several gallons of plum juice she'd carefully processed and frozen. She does not feel like doing the hard, hot work of canning any longer and was considering throwing out this last batch of juice she'd put away...I could go on about the sentimental value of this jelly...but I'm pretty sure you all are with me. I'm hoping that this batch wins a blue ribbon at the county fair that I can give to her along with several jars of jelly. Isn't it lovely?

To squeeze or not to squeeze...that is the question!

Yes, I know it's been awhile since I've blogged...but we are still alive down here in the frozen tundra of Oklahoma. And we've been canning, too! While we were snowed/iced in, I decided to haul out some of the apple peels and cores from the freezer and make jelly.

As soon as I started boiling these peels, I noticed the beautiful color of the juice. My mind turned pretty quickly to the county fair! Now, after boiling these peels, you let them sit overnight then strain the juice from the peels. To strain, I put all the pulp in a double layer of flour sack towel and hang it above a pot to let the juice drip out at an excruciatingly slow pace. Now, any jelly maker will tell you that you are NOT...I repeat, you are NOT to squeeze the pulp as it will cloud your jelly. This has always been tough for me because it seems wasteful (and you KNOW I hate wasting anything). I decided to do a little experiment and make one batch of jelly from unsqueezed pulp and another from the juice obtained from squeezing the pulp to get the remaining juice. Here, let me show you the results:





The jelly on the left is from squeezed pulp and the jelly on the right is from nonsqueezed pulp. Quite a difference, huh? Does this mean I will not ever again squeeze the pulp? NO WAY! I got a whole batch of jelly just from squeezing...that's five cups of juice that would have been thrown out. I think this double batch method works pretty well...one batch of nice, clear jelly and one batch of what we've decided to call "peasant jelly!" LOL! We don't really care about clarity when we're loading our PB&Js, doncha know?



Anywho...You'll be seeing this jelly again...she's going to the county fair for sure...and I think she'll bring home a blue ribbon!! BTW...that bubble you see just to the left of the words "Perfect Mason" is a bubble in the glass...not in the jelly. Aren't old jars fun?

Canning Pears

Pears were on sale at our local grocery, so I bought 15 pounds for canning. I ended up canning half of them and making pear-sauce (like applesauce) with the other half. Here are photos of canning:

The set up: You'll need a big bowl of cool water with lemon juice to keep your pears from darkening during processing.


I tried to waste as little as possible. A metal teaspoon makes a great tool for taking out the seeds.


Here are all the pears in the lemon water...waiting for the jars to finish in the dishwasher.


Hot water bath processing:


I didn't take any photos of the syrup, but I used a light syrup and did a hot pack, meaning that the pears went into the hot syrup for a period of time prior to being put in the jars. I believe I boiled them for 10 minutes, but please check the time prior to canning your own, just to be safe.

I put in some apple pie spice in a couple of the jars for spiced pears.




After scooping out all the pears from the syrup and topping off the jars, I was left with a bit of pear syrup...I hated to waste it...then I had a brainstorm. I added a bit of sugar and some pectin to make a lightly flavored spiced pear jelly. After the pears had boiled in the syrup, it was left with a nice flavor.


And in the interest of not wasting any of the pears, the seeds and skins went out to the chicken/rabbit coop.


After dumping the skins into the coop, I thought that I should have used them to make more jelly...similar to the apple peel jelly I've made in the past...oh, well...gotta keep the animals happy, too. :)

Fall is my favorite canning season!!

Because Fall is when the apples are on sale at our local grocery. Final count...18 jars of applesauce! One batch each of cranberry applesauce, chunky apple pie spiced applesauce, and skinny applesauce (applesauce with skins included :)



Chunky Applesauce:


Cranberry Applesauce:


Skinny Applesauce:

Apple Pie Filling

The apple pie filling won out! I used this recipe from Recipezaar. After doubling the recipe to account for the amount of apples I had, my yield was 10 quart jars of apple pie filling with some syrup left over. Here are some pics:



The coolest thing about this canning session? The jars! These are the jars that Homestead Man's grandmother gave to me. One of the is a Mason jar with the liberty bell with the dates 1776-1976 on the side. Another is an Atlas jar. It's so awesome to think of all the things she might have canned in these jars.

Apple Butter Recipe

Apples are on sale again!! Here's the recipe I used last year for Crock Pot Applebutter.

CROCK POT APPLE BUTTER

Put 3 quarts of apples, sliced thin, in a crock pot and cook overnight on high. Next morning, add 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 3 cups sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cloves. Cook all day on low. Tastes like old-fashioned apple butter that is cooked in copper kettle.

Here's the one I found for apple pie filling:

APPLE PIE FILLING

Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt

10 cups water
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 drops yellow food coloring
6 pounds apples

Directions:
1. In a large pan, mix sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add salt and water and mix well. Bring to a boil and cook until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and food coloring.
2. Sterilize canning jars, lids and rings by boiling them in a large pot of water.
3. Peel, core, and slice apples. Pack the sliced apples into hot canning jars, leaving a 1/2 inch headspace.
4. Fill jars with hot syrup, and gently remove air bubbles with a knife.
5. Put lids on and process in a water bath canner for 20 minutes.

I bought 18 pounds of apples tonight, so I have to decide whether I want to make apple pie filling, apple butter, or applesauce...decisions, decisions, decisions!

Wordless Sunday

Okay...maybe not wordless, but definitely LESS WORDS! In other news, we've had 3 inches of rain this weekend...nice, slow, steady rain! Boy, did we need it! I'm really hoping our ponds out at Willow Run caught lots of this glorious water from heaven!

Feelin' GOOD!

I pulled all the jars out of the pantry to reorganize and lined them all up on the table...take a look!

Blackeyed Peas...

I've shelled A LOT of blackeyed peas this summer! Here's a photo of the latest bag full.



In other news...my mother-in-law just gave me her pressure canner!! I'm dropping it off with the extension agency tomorrow to have it checked out then I can start canning veggies!!

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled....Pickles!!

...and some okra, too!

Peach Butter...

We've been gone on our annual ocean trip, so I apologize for the lack of posting. We did stop in Fairfield, Texas along the way and bought a peck of peaches from Cooper Farms. Today I made some peach butter following the directions found on this website. Here's a pic of it cooking in the good ol' crock pot:



I ended up with six jars of peach butter! I'm so excited to learn to make this because it's one of my favorite biscuit toppings! My next challenge will be pumpkin butter! Yummy!

In the garden, we've got tomatoes, okra, yellow squash, and cucumbers coming in like crazy! We're up to a reasonably predictable 3 eggs per day, but we lost one of our hens...Shirley...to a heat stroke (we think). She died on a day when it was 107 degrees outside. Per the girls' request, we buried her out back with a cross and everything.

If any of you have an amazing pickle recipe, please share! I've canned up several batches of dill and bread & butter that have been a bit disappointing.

Applesauce crisis...

We were down to two jars of homemade applesauce...not good...but yesterday I came across apples for 53 cents per pound! I got 15 pounds and made up some applesauce to replenish our supply. Crisis averted.

Discoveries made during the process:

I have discovered that crockpot applesauce has a brown color even if you add lemon juice, but stovetop applesauce will yield a color more like store bought applesauce. My kids don't seem to care either way, but it is nice to know in the case of making applesauce for other people.

I also discovered that I prefer to use pint jars because I feel like I've accomplished more when there are more jars sitting there cooling on the towel and pinging to tell me they're sealed. How silly is that??? I decided to use quart jars because the girls will finish a pint jar in one sitting, but was a bit disappointed in the number of jars I got from 15 pounds of apples. I may have to go back to the store and get another 15-20 pounds...at that price, it's hard to pass up!

I've also discovered that I like wide-mouthed jars best because they stack more easily.

I wonder what all of you do with your empty jars. How have you found to store them? I was putting them back into my pantry, but really would prefer to find a better place. After all, full jars are so pretty, but empties just take up space.

OAH chores...

Today:

• Cook the last of the blackeyes from the freezer (the smell of these cooking on the stove is so connected to summer for me...isn't it funny how our sense of smell is so anchored in time periods and emotions?)
• Check on applesauce supply...the girls are going through the applesauce I canned this fall at a record pace. I may have to consider making more next fall.
• Crank out some more newspaper pots
• Start two varieties of tomato plants (Cherokee Purple and Genovese...the rest will be started next week)
• Set up an area in the garage for the new plants near the South window

This weekend:

• Till up two veggie beds, one in the backyard and one in the west yard (outside the fence)
• Pick up a load of compost to topdress both beds and the remaining three raised beds
• Check at Starbucks for "Grounds for the Garden" to add with to the beds with the compost (Maybe also enjoy a Frappuccino with my Starbucks gift card from Christmas?)
• Plant peas and spinach
• Prepare to plant onions, potatoes, and beets (Tuesday)

According to the forecast, we're in for a beautiful weekend followed by a few thunderstorms early next week...perfect for prepping the gardens and getting early stuff in the ground.

On a side note, DH is going trout fishing this afternoon, so perhaps we'll have some fresh fish to eat over the weekend as well!

You wanna make some jelly????

As I was walking through Wal-Mart yesterday, I spotted one of those clearance carts they sometimes park randomly in the store. This cart was different, though....IT WAS PACKED WITH CANNING STUFF!! The boxes of pectin were marked 10 cents...no kidding. I bought 25 of them. They're good until 2011. Score!

I also got some Pickling Salt and Pickling Lime for 50 cents each in huge canisters.

The young boy who was checking looked at me a bit strangly...because of the pectin and because of the mystery veggie he couldn't identify. I explained that it was rutabaga and he continued to peek up at me through a veil of long curly hair. I further explained that our family wanted to try a new vegetable this week and rutabaga was in season, so there you go. Suddenly he thought this was a neat idea and said maybe he, too, would try to cook rutabaga. He wanted to know how you cook it and said, "Let me know how it turns out, okay?"

Apples, apples, who's got apples?

WE DO! They were on sale at our local grocery, so we took advantage of it and got 15 pounds of apples. I canned 7 jars of apple butter and froze four batches of pie filling. I had hoped to share some photos with you today, but my camera battery went kapooey, so you'll just have to wait a bit while it is recharging.

I couldn't help but look forward to our own trees putting out enough apples for us to preserve. It is so hard to wait! I know we're making improvements on our little chunk of Oklahoma that will really pay off in the long run, though, and I'm trying to be patient. It's a lesson God has been trying to teach me for years, peace and tranquility in the waiting, and I think He's found a way to get through to me in the garden...or at least force me to practice.

The girls have put their stamp of approval on the apple butter...they've already eaten the half jar that was not full enough to process.