Winter Canning

Aren't these so pretty?!  We are lucky to have a year round farmer's market not too far away.  The kids and I picked up some carrots for snacks, soups and all sorts of other yummy carrotness recently.  As we did not get the amount of canning done that we had planned on this year I decided to get some extra pickles made for us.  These are spicy pickled carrots and I'm thinking they are going to be very spicy.  We all love pickles but only Jack and I really like the heat so we'll see how they go over when it is time to pop them open in a month or so.  I would like to say that next time I'm making anything with a brine I should probably not do it an hour before bed because that is a smell that hangs around! 
This is the book that I found the recipe in.  I love that it is broken into seasons and it fun to read not just to pick up for it's recipes.  Do you have this book and have a favorite recipe from it?  Or do you maybe have a favorite way to preserve carrots or other winter root veggies?  I would love to hear them.

Jam Failure

First off please forgive the amount of crap on my kitchen counters, I could make excuses but really we just know that it just happens sometimes right?  Please let me not be the only one....   Anyway Jeff and I had our first batch of failure to seal jam.  This is the batch that was made at my jam making class, if I had to guess it would be because they were moved before they cooled completely.  But that's totally a guess.  You could tell these just weren't right because the strawberries had oxidized and it was just an off tint.  They smelled fine though but we just were not going to take chances.  Have you ever had a batch go bad?

Trying to Surface

    Oh My Goodness!!!  I always forget how insane fall gets around here.  We've had so much going on as a family I'm not sure which end is up some days.  This hat is a project that I've been working on for Jeff for a few weeks Jack is modeling it for me.  I don't have a pattern for it but it is just a basic beanie style.  One thing I do love about this is the way that the increases create this awesome spiral effect.  It's pretty neat. 

   I'm also working on another hat for Molly for her birthday.  The whole family loves the Harry Potter books and movies, she decided she needed a house scarf and we found a pattern for one of the knitted hats that Hermione wears in one of the movies to go with it.  I'll show you that later as it actually starts to look like a hat.

   We have 30 quarts of tomatoes put up and a ton of other stuff to.  30 quarts is not going to last us through the year but we have not been able to harvest as much from our own garden as we had hoped.  The weather turned really cold and most of our tomatoes have simply stayed green.  This last week we've had some gorgeous days in the high 70's so maybe we will get a few more jars but I'm not going to hold my breath.  What have you guys been doing?  Any good canning recipes I should try with all those green tomatoes?

We Love Pickles!

Last week was a little crazy here.  Poor Jeff had to leave for a week in San Diego for work so it was just the kids and I.  Luckily we have wonderful friends who helped keep us busy :)  Sunday we had a canning get together with our next door neighbor and we all made pickles, 57 pints and 6 half pints!  Without three of us working on the cutting and whatnot we would have been up to the wee hours of the morning I'm sure.  It is so nice to have friends to can with isn't it?  We tried a few different shapes this year hopefully they all turn out crisp and yummy. 
Here's the recipe we used for these babies (it's from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook).

Kosher Style Dill Pickles

2 1/4 lb. pickling cucumbers
3 3/4 C. water
3 3/4 C. cider vinegar
6 TBSP pickling salt
3 heads of dill per jar
1 clove of garlic, halved, per jar

Clean cucumbers.  Remove stems and slice off blossom end.  In a large sauce pan bring the water, vinegar, and pickling salt to a boil (be careful this gets friggin' hot!!!).  Pack cucumbers loosely into hot sterilized pint jars that have the garlic and dill already in them, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Pour the brine (water, vinegar, salt mixture) into the jars still leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Wipe jar rims and seals with lid and rings.
Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Let stand 1 week for the best flavor.

Blue Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend!  Our good friend Heidi took the kids and myself blueberry picking for the first time ever.  Her son is Molly's age and all three of the kids get along like siblings (a little fighting a little getting along it all works out).  We picked 9.25 lbs of berries and the kids probably ate a few pounds themselves.  We all got home and cooled off it was a hot day.  Heidi and her son came back to our house and we had blueberry pancakes for dinner and then I got to show her how to make jam!  I love getting to show people things that I love so much.  We made a spiced blueberry jam and a cherry berry jam.  We still have a ton of blueberries left.  Many of them are going to be frozen for future use.  Heidi and I are also thinking of getting out the dehydrator and drying some.  Both of us have dehydrators but neither of us have used them, this might be the perfect opportunity to do so. 
I'm linking this post up the the Homestead Revival: Barn Hop #22 just click on the link below and and see what everyone has going on.

 

Homemade Lemonade

Last weekend we had a family BBQ.  It was wonderful :)  I had very much wanted to be over the top and do everything from scratch but the heat and time made me step back and only do a few of my intended projects.  One thing I did get to do was make fresh from scratch Strawberry Lemonade.  I followed the recipe from the Ball Canning book.  It was delicious!  On the tart side instead of the too sweet side and we found out that it was extra delicious when mixed 50/50 with unsweetened sun tea.  The recipe for this lemonade is on page 192 in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. 

Jam Making Class

     Wow what a great crazy night!  Last night Photo Dude and I taught our first Jam Making class for our local Community Education department.  The room we used was hot!  Felt just like canning in July for sure.  We made a strawberry-honey jam and while that was in the canner I showed them how quick you can whip up a batch of freezer jam.  Strawberry jam is probably my favorite and isn't that color just so pretty!  The class was a lot of fun and I can't wait to do more canning classes again in the fall.

 P.S.  If you were in my class last night here is the recipe for the bread I made that I brought with me.

We must be crazy

Wow we've had some crazy stuff going on at our homestead. My sister of the heart came over two weekends in a row with my nephew so that she could learn how to can her own things. We started with simple freezer jams and moved to our favorite Dilly Beans. During the weekdays between visits I got a lot of peaches canned and some jalapeno jelly. When Nikki came back we got a ton of pickles made (a half bushel makes A LOT!! of pickles!) more freezer jams for Nikki to take home, spaghetti sauce, and we started on tomatoes for me to can. A lot of the tomatoes ended up getting frozen so that we didn't loose them it has been a rather bizarre growing season in our region this year. Oh and I also boiled and froze potatoes! It is an experiment that was born from being given about 10 pounds of potatoes after having just purchased a 5 pound bag myself.
So the run down of things done so far this year
28 pints of dill pickles
11 jars of jalapeno jelly
12 pints of dilly beans
5 quarts of tomatoes in jars
4 pints of tomatoes in jars
9 pints of spiced peaches
15 pints of peaches in syrup
9 freezer gallon bags of spaghetti sauce and a whole lot of freezer jam in two different flavors and whatever ended up in freezer bags. Whew! That was a lot! The tomatoes that were frozen are going to get thawed and put up in jars as soon as we get an extra minute. We've got to do at least one more 1/2 bushel of tomatoes for jars. Soon the pears will be in, along with apples from my favorite orchard. So much to do but so worth it all winter long.

Jar Sorting

Wow time sure has flown here. I can't believe that July is gone already. The Fourth of July tomato has been giving us little red tomatoes every day and they are so sweet and delicious. Everything else is getting there. We look at the number of tomatoes on each plant and can't wait to get canning. The kids helped us count the jars, lids and rings this weekend so we knew what to buy more of. Those wide mouth pint jars were so great that those are on the list of 'can't have enough', there are tons of the quart jars just waiting for tomatoes. Life is good.