The Stray Needle

Barking Mad!

2011-07-17T13:05:00.000-05:00

Now that we are in an area that rains we have tree frogs. They are everywhere and I'm in heaven. I love frogs! Just about every night this week we've had a visitor to our pool, which is still not up and running yet. It's a barking tree frog. A liitle different looking from the ones I grew up with in the deep south but a barker none the less. And of course those of you who know me personally, know I'm going to go pick it up and take pictures right? < insert maniacal giggling here>

Now here's the point of this post, and a funny story. Well other than I finally live in a place where I can catch frogs again. This little frog started barking the other night. The dogs went nuts trying to find the perpetrator of the noise since they had never encountered a barking frog before there's no telling what was going through their minds. Barking frantically back at it. Running all over the yard, up and down the fences until one of them found it. He just stood there and barked right back at it for a good 5 minutes. Frog, Gus, Frog, Gus, Frog Gus.... We finally had to make him leave the poor thing alone but not before laughing our butts off. Every night since has started with the frog climbing up on the pool ledge and barking at dusk followed by the dogs, all of them, egging it on for as long as we let them.

Cherries anyone?

2011-07-17T12:48:00.000-05:00

I found a really good deal on cherries the other day in the store. $1.99 a pound, out here that's cheep since they are normally $4 a pound and up. So I bought 3 of those useless zippered produce bags full. Landed 6.5 pounds. What to do, what to do, what to do? Had no idea, but hubby offered to eat all of them right then and there. Pulled out the canning books and nothing appealed to me so I just decided to put them in syrup and be done with it. Yes I saved out a handful for hubby but the rest went into the jars!

Canned cherries
6 pounds cherries (or a little more)
6 cups water
3 cups sugar

First you might want to pit the cherries. Or not, decision is totally up to you, just be sure to label them as unpitted if you don't. Wouldn't want any dental injuries in the middle of a midnight snack would we? For me, well I have this mid-evil looking contraption that was given to me a few years ago and it was claimed to be a pitter but, well, I have no idea how rolling cherries down across a ribbed wheel would work without loosing a lot of juice so I opted to poke them out with a heavy duty chopstick. Just hold the cherry and push it through the stem end. Takes a few tries to get it perfect and you'll get lovely stained hand for your effort.
Heat up water and sugar to boiling. Pack jars to half inch head space. Ladle syrup over them to half inch head space, make sure there are no bubbles and lid up. Boiling water bath 20 minutes for pints.
Landed myself 11 pints:

Pickled Cantaloupe, The Rematch

2011-07-08T12:34:00.000-05:00

So, remember that pickled cantaloupe recipe I shared last year? This one? Yeah, well it didn't get rave reviews, was actually called disgusting by one person (though hubby likes them, go figure) and the original link to the recipe is no longer working. But I shall persevere! I will try it again! I will make it edible!
And I did. We found a little farmer's market and landed ourselves 2 very large muskmelons. Hubby started eating on one but ran out of steam before he could finish it so I figured they'd be worth the experiment. I pulled out my Ball Complete book, love this thing, you need one, really, and found a recipe. It's on page 299. But I didn't have the whole spices it required so I tweaked it a bit:

Pickled Cantaloupe
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground allspice
3 cups white vinegar
2 cups water
13 cups cubed cantaloupe (peel and seed it first!)
41/2 cups sugar

Combine spices, water and vinegar, bring to a boil for 5 minutes, remove from heat. Stir in melon and let sit for about half an hour, covered please.
Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally and keep at a light boil for 45 minutes or until the cantaloupe starts looking 'translucent'. Ladle/pack melon and syrup into jars with 1/2" headspace, work out bubbles and water bath 20 minutes.

I ended up with 8 pints, but I used a little more melon than the recipe called for.

Leaving Texas

2011-06-15T14:51:00.000-05:00

Well. It finally happened. That move I mentioned a while back. It took 7 months, a lot of angst, rebuilding a credit score and in general a lot of aggravation. But it's done. I've now moved across country to the eastern seaboard where it rains. I've been here 3 weeks now. I finally got internet connection as well. So I must let you know what I had to leave behind in Texas.
First and foremost I had to leave friends. More friends than I've ever had in my life. I couldn't bring them with me. Some of them close enough to be surrogate parents, one of those women I would have forcefully packed in the car with me the day I left had I had room to stick her in there with all the critters. Friends that mostly accepted me for me. Which is a huge deal in Texas, I'm not 'normal' out there, though I'd probably fit in really well with those folks in Austin.
I had to leave one of the oldest quilting clubs in Texas. We were 12 members ranging from 35 to 90+. We only met once a week but we did beautiful hand quilting. I don't get to take quilt show trips with them anymore and have one member exclaim in the middle of a parking lot that the pie she just had was better that sex. Or spend and entire day quilt shop hoping. Or a day thrift store hoping with a few of the ladies.
I lost a very dear pet right before the move. My 100 pound puppy, Tesla. She was my first dog once we moved there and had a yard. 4 years was not long enough and I still tear up when I see a black great dane on TV or any huge black dog. Though I didn't completely leave her behind, I brought her urn with me.
I had to leave the food. Which in all honesty was perfectly fine with me since I couldn't eat out due to being allergic to peppers and tomatoes.
I had to leave the heat. Well no, I didn't get to leave it there, it followed me here. It was 103* the afternoon we left and 4 days later it was 104* here.
I had to leave the lack of rain, gladly I tell you, gladly. It's rained more here in 3 weeks than it did in the last 10 months there.
I had to leave my first house there. It was small. The carpet was old. The kitchen was minuscule but it was MINE. I had so many plans for it. Now though I have a bigger house, with acreage, 2 sheds and a massive shop. Time to start over.
I had to leave my peach trees. Hoping to start planting fruit trees here very soon (well as soon as I can find any for sale!).
I would like to say I left the drive to town but well I'm further out in the sticks now than I was there.

All in all I left a piece of myself there. That's never happened before. Texas somehow has a way of getting under your skin and taking root.

So I'm mostly settled in. Once the produce starts coming my way again I'll go right back to canning and post my progress. Along with a few projects I need to get done for the place, maybe some ideas on what to do with all the stuff already in the pantry, who knows what else.

So what have you done productive so far this year?

2011-01-07T20:46:00.000-06:00

Well, I have been cleaning house, making repairs, AND I canned a few things.
On New Years Day I botched a recipe for cranberries. I started out on one page of my Ball Compete Book and my helper (his name is Jefferson, he did a drive by tailing of the book while it was on the counter behind me) decided I needed to change to the page before to finish the recipe... I didn't notice this until AFTER I put the jars in the water bath. So instead of 'whole cranberry sauce' I made whole cranberry jelly. Either way it's still good, 6 pints and 3 half pints:

And today I attacked cauliflower. 2 heads, on sale this time of year out here, just couldn't pass them up so I set off to do something interesting with them and landed back at the recipe for the pickled brussel sprouts which is basically garlic dill pickles. This time though I didn't add the pepper at all since I'll probably be eating them at some point. Then, right as I was finishing the last jar of cauliflower and realizing I had a lot of pickle left, I decided to make a jar or two of carrots/zucchini/onions. Just for something different. Ended up with 5 quarts of dilled cauliflower and 2 quarts of dilled veggies:

A Chicken Story

2010-12-20T13:06:00.000-06:00

So how was your Sunday? Mine was a little hairy to be honest. Want to hear a story?

I stepped out yesterday morning to go check my chickens and give them their morning treat. I get to the pen and everyone comes running for the cup of milo I have in my hand. Everyone but Neo that is, at first anyway. Once I get a handful on the ground she comes flying out of the coop to hide behind me with my randy little silkie rooster right behind her. Junior met the bottom of my shoe. He's 7 months old, just really feeling those hormones kick in and she's been sole the object of his desire.
I look down and see red, literally, her back was nothing but blood. Junior must have really been feeling those hormones to mate her to that extent of damage. I toss the milo, scoop up Neo and refrain from starting chicken soup a la Junior. Once I get her in I find the damage is more extensive than I first thought. My first instinct was to cull her right then and there. But..............
Neo is one of our favorites. She was the lone chick to hatch out of a horrible incubator accident. She hatched with her umbilical area not quite closed and got to wear a bandaid for 2 days. She quickly became a people chicken. She never screamed inconsolably because she didn't have hatch mates. If it were up to her she'd be a house chicken happily.
So I decide to at least try. If I couldn't help her I'd put her down. She got a shower to clean away the blood and dirt and nastiness. She was not patient with this whole process either. I got her coated with antibiotics and set her up in an infirmary crate in the living room. Complete with fresh water, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, feed and a few other treats.
She stood there for at least 2 hours before diving into the eggs, once they were gone she perked up and decided to make a mess. She dumped the water out. This earned her loose chicken time in the kitchen while I cleaned out her crate where she generally had the run of everything and tried to sit with the cats. I didn't have the camera handy either!
This morning I get up to find she has dumped her water again. It's a ploy I tell you, she wants out of the crate. She then proceeds to throw a fit when she sees me getting a scoop of milo ready for the birds outside and tosses her feed all over the crate as well. If she's feeling well enough to do that she can wait for a bit while I feed everything else.
Once I get ready to address her needs for the day she is beyond mad. This from a bird I was ready to cull less than 24 hours ago. I let her out in the kitchen with a little pile of milo and cat kibble. She was just so happy to have the milo all to herself that she stayed put while I clean up, get more antibiotics on her and get the crate ready to go again. I get that done and she proceeds to go straight in, ignore the little nest box I picked out just for her and starts scratching around in the back corner:

Nest ready and set up she decides to come back out and play with the natives, meets Sumi on the way out:

Being the diva that she is she ignores the nice clean fresh water (which now has bailing wire holding it in place) and goes straight for the cat dish, which looks like it needs to be scoured yet again:

She decides the carpet is better for scratching and takes off for places unknown:

After a bit of chase the chicken, Neo is once again secured in the kitchen and of course this is unacceptable so she throws yet another fit and corners Timothy just for the shear meanness of it, all Jefferson can do is try to figure out how to remove the bedding chips from the water dish:

"A baby gate? Seriously? Just what do you think I am anyway?"

Jefferson on the other hand has located her nice comfy crate and decided to make himself home in her very well constructed nest. Neo was NOT having any of that:

After a good scolding she chases him right out of the kitchen:

And then decides it's time to go try and lay an egg:

She's been in there now for a few hours, scratching the heck out of that one corner, trying to make it just right for laying an egg. She turns into a squawking semi-broody hen every time any of the cats walk by.

I think she'll be just fine. She's acting like nothing has happened. Her wounds look good, already closed in the worst places, no sign of infection. So for the duration of her healing, I have a chicken in my kitchen.

2 years ago today Kelvin came home

2010-12-12T11:55:00.000-06:00

2 years ago today I brought home a skinny old man. He stank of too many things to count and had poo crusted over his backside. He weighed 34 pounds. He had been dumped at a kill shelter and no one else offered to pull an old geezer. Even the staff didn't think he'd make it through the neuter.

We couldn't bring ourselves to adopt him back out, even with all the rescues we had at the time. Something about him made us keep him.
He's gained his weight back. He now weighs close to 60 pounds. He was diagnosed with CRF and given 6 to 8 months in February of 2009. I think we kicked that time line out the window for a while. He still hasn't fit in completely with the herd here, mostly prefering to keep to himself though occasionally playing with our dane mix Tesla. He would rather spend his time on his bed or on the couch with the cats. He's a crotchety old man. Doesn't like change. Doesn't like me to leave for too long. Panics if I don't get him his hush puppies on fish Fridays from the gas station, he can smell them even 8 blocks over and gets all excited as soon as a whiff of catfish reaches us. I have to take him up there for them, he sits in the truck and drools down the side of the door until I bring 3 of them out. That's all he gets, 3, and he's ready to go home.

But now, he doesn't feel so good. We've been adjusting his protein intake and meds, trying to make it better but he's slowly starting to go down hill. We'll have another blood test in the next few weeks to know if anything has helped. Until then we are taking it one day at a time not acknowledging the affects CRF has had on him here recently. Not the strange change in tone of his bark from a wonderful basset bark to a screech. Or the ammonia breath that keeps getting worse. Or the fur loss. Or the days he has trouble eating. Or the overall lack of energy.

We gave him at least 2 years he wouldn't have had. 2 years of cats and couches and treats and beds and baths. We are hoping for good news with the next batch of tests. Or at least better news than what we've been prepared for.

Fixing Loose Ends

2010-12-11T00:24:00.000-06:00

Nothing is quite like having to sort through your junk to make you want to tie up loose ends and finish all those unfinished projects. I found one the other day that has been 4 years in the making.
You see, in June of 2006 I got a chance to go to the big bead show in Milwaukee. I spent way too much and found a ton of cool things but one, or 2 actually, stood out in my mind. The first was a really neat clasp made by Qui, a company apparently no longer in business as I can't find them on the net anywhere now. It wasn't a cheap clasp either and it's silver. Then there were these black agate dragon beads in a stretchy bracelet I found in a bin at the Rings and Things booth. I put them away for a move and forgot about them until a year or so ago. I had taken them out, an idea hit me, I pulled all the components out and placed them together in a tray and promptly forgot about them again.
While I was cleaning up for this next move I found them again and tonight, well, I decided to finish the project.
Behold....... the bracelet it took over 4 years to make:

And I made it just the right size for my wrist, my skinny, abnormally thin sized wrist, so it's not going to be put up for sale ;)

Yep, I pulled the canner back out.

2010-11-19T16:44:00.000-06:00

So this move is deciding to take its time, keeping me in limbo and afraid to do anything. Yesterday I decided to go ahead and can something anyway. Namely because I was given some pears and really couldn't see letting them go to waste (yes, it's still warm enough here for pears!). I also had gotten a good deal on a large thing of pomegranate juice. Then there was all the last peppers from the garden that needed to be put up..... Well you get the idea.

First up is the pepper relish, there is no set recipe for this but I did write down what I did last year:

Pepper relish

2 medium onions, copped fine in the processor and dumped in the big bowl
4 medium carrots, done the same way
I think I had 30 jalepenos and 50 habaneros, not sure but chopped up the same and tossed in the bowl
2 tbsp dried basil
2 tbsp dried oregano
3 tbsp fresh garlic
4 dried tsen-tein chillies
4 dried cayenne peppers
Buzz the last 5 things in the processor with about a cup of apple cider vinegar until the dried chillies look like red pepper flakes and dump in the bowl, add 2 tsp salt and stir together. Add more apple cider vinegar if needed and let marinate over night in the fridge. Next morning heat the mix, boil for 5 minutes and pack into jars adding apple cider vinegar if needed. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes.

This year I only had jalapenos and dried new mexico chilies and I decided to let it marinate for a few days. I landed 9 pints:

Then there was the pears.... about half were a bit more soft than I like for canning in chunks so I made juice. Then I combined with the pomegranate juice, it was almost 50/50. Then I made jelly.
4.5 cups juice (pomegranate and pear)
3 cups sugar
1 pkg no sugar needed pectin

Bring juice to a boil, add pectin, boil 1 minute, add sugar, boil 3 minutes, ladle into jars and process in water bath for 10 minutes.

I ended up with 10-12 ounce jars, 4-6 ounce jars and 7 half pint jars:

Today I've processed 6 pints of pears that were given to me last night. They were just peeled/cored and chunked up with a light syrup, no picture as they are still in the water bath. And I found a bunch of tomatoes in the scratch and dent cart for dirt cheap. Made 9 quarts of chopped tomatoes.

Now back to the sewing portion of this long wait to get moved.............

Open Season

2010-11-06T23:10:00.000-05:00

It's that time again. Opening day of hunting season. The little town I live in has been gearing up for it all week. Cars, RV's, trucks, vans, off road vehicles coming in from sates all over, proudly displaying their gun racks fully loaded with rifles. Locals everywhere signing up for the Big Buck Contest, paying through the nose for hunting licenses, and setting their kids up with cool gear for their very first hunts.
It's a right of passage here in Central Texas and this little county is the hunting mecca, or so I've been told. Hotels, all 2 of them, are full. Restaurants are busy and the stores, all what, 5 of them are bustling. The county population has practically quadrupled.
Not that I mind or anything. I'd be willing to go hunting if I had someplace to put a whole deer or 3 or whatever my limit is. It's just, well, I FORGOT it was Opening Day Saturday when I ventured out mid-morning today wearing my tie-dye frog jacket. Boy did I stick out like a sore thumb in a sea of camo or what? Hunters bringing in their morning kills to the forestry service's Deer Check Point near the dollar store gave me odd looks. I was even asked if I was afraid I'd be mistaken for a deer.
So with the town full to nearly capacity and me not wanting to cause blindness in the hunters while they had their lunch I came back home and started laundry. Well, what else does one do on Opening Day if not hunting and drinking?
I also finished up the 2 quilts I had sent out to be quilted, I mentioned them here.
The first one up was started 2007 I think, I finally put the thing together in 2009 and put it away until I could find fabric I liked for a backing. Here's the final product from a Slash a Stash pattern given to me back in 2007:

And that backing I finally found, a really interesting Batik. The lady who did the long arm quilting, Heart of Texas Quilting, tried out a Santa theme in the quilting, you might be able to catch a hint of it on the back:

Now the other one, the one where nothing was matching per-say? Well, get ready, it's a bit different.....

See? Like I said, it doesn't all go together but it works. At least for me it does, and I'm not the type of person to care if my socks match. And the backing:

I also started work on another tablecloth, sort of an odd take on a kaleidoscope pattern. But you'll have to wait until later to see it.

Mills County Quilt Show

2010-10-17T13:13:00.001-05:00

So yesterday I take a break from sorting, and go to a quilt show that I've actually entered a quilt in. It's the kitten quilt a few posts back, entered into the wall hanging division. I'll tell you how I did later in the post.
Anyway, it's a long drive from nowhere to get to nowhere but several of us from the Voca Quilt Club do this every year. And many of us place in the divisions we enter. We always enter hand stitched pieces, since that's what we do the most of and it's a dying art form that is being pushed aside by the big name fabric companies in favor of the faster machine quilting. Most entries in these shows now are machine pieced.
This was my 4th year attending and my second year entering. Last year I landed 3rd place (peoples choice voting) behind a first place heavy machine quilted boot and a second place Dick/Jane panel that had been loosely stitched. My entry was hand appliqued passion flowers and hand stitched, all in batiks. But that's ok, I at least placed! And this was the quilt (notice, the first place winner to the right, remember that....)

And a close up if you'd like to see it:

We arrive today and begin to sort through all the entries with our ballots in hand. The show's theme category this year was "Western". I finally make it back to the section of wall hangings and there to my surprise, shock and possible horror was my kitten quilt sitting to the right of that same boot from last year..... I about had a heart attack until I saw that it had been entered into the theme category instead of the wall hanging category. No way was I willing to lose to the boot again this year!
As the votes were being tallied we did our shopping, they had a nice 'general store' section with leftovers and scraps and such from their club/guild members and I landed myself a bunch of pre-cut, pre-marked and in many cases pre-hand sewn pieces and parts, all for $5. I won a door prize right near the end, 2 patterns, holiday baskets and plaid chickens on log cabin like blocks.

And so, our winnings for this year, one of our group won second in the Western category with red work cowboys and first in the contemporary category with a hand stitched, hand appliqued, quilt! Another of our group won second place in the contemporary category with a name quilt (Voca quilters names). As for me..... I placed second this time, loosing first place to a more honorable foe, machine embroidered chickens. I can handle that, I liked the chickens, they were cool looking for machine work ;)
My quilt if you don't want to go hunting back through the old posts: Curiosity and the Kitten

Changes in the air and lime jelly

2010-10-04T22:00:00.000-05:00

So I bet you've been wondering where I've been huh? What I've canned lately?
Well I have done a few things, I'm working on a gallon batch of sriracha, I put up more candy apple jelly, finished off the watermelon jelly finally and experimented with key lime jelly but......
Life has a way of letting you know you can't get comfortable for too long. And now it's a cross country move to keep us on our toes. It's a job for hubby, a real job, with decent pay and benefits and a relocation package. We can't afford to turn it down.
So, we are trying to get as much done as we can to prep for this little adventure.

But onto the lime jelly experiment.........

I found a bunch of lime jelly recipes out there but decided to try something a little different since I can't find liquid pectin out here. Granted I can make some but well..... I was lazy. So I did this a bit different. I had 4 pounds of key limes which I juiced and was about to toss the skins when I had an epiphany, I had to get my $2 worth out of those skins! I tossed them all in a pot and added a couple cups of water and brought it just to a boil, then backed it off to a simmer until the skins started turning dark, about 10 minutes. The house smelled fabulous! I strained this and added to the lime juice to make 4.5 cups of lime 'essence'. Then I proceeded as follows:

4.5 cups lime juice/essence
4 cups sugar
1 packet no sugar needed pectin

Bring lime juice to boil, add pectin, bring back to boil for 1 minute, add sugar and stir it really well (I had trouble with lumps for some reason this time) bring back to boil for 3 minutes, ladle into jars and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Landed me 7 half pints and a bit for taste testing.

Just so you know, this stuff is TART and about 10 days on it's still only semi set at room temp, gels nicely in the fridge though. If you like sweet, I'd add another 2 cups of sugar. But I like my tart stuff!

Summer in a Jar

2010-09-18T16:33:00.001-05:00

When you think of summer, what fruit comes to mind most often? Usually it's watermelon. And what do you do when you find yourself with 3 watermelons that are bigger than your corning ware serving platter? Especially since they would go sour before you could eat all of them?

Two words. Watermelon Jam/Jelly.

Now don't look at me like that, it's possible, it's good and I have spent all day working on it! Since this can be called either jam or jelly I'll let you decide what to call it for yourself, but I will tell you how to make it.

First lets start with the melons. The obvious question is 'how?". Actually for me there were a few more colorful explicatives added to that when I was researching how to make this stuff because everything I found started with watermelon cubes that had already been deseeded. So how did they do that? I certainly can't even fathom so here's what I did.
Hack melon in half, then into quarters, save out a quarter for eating, then slice as far down as you want so that you can get all the melon off the rind. I took a nice long knife and sliced the melon right off the rind into a bowl, I didn't make them pretty little squares or anything, just sliced the melon off. Once the melon is done or the bowl is full, whichever comes first, hack at it a bit with the knife then take a potato masher to the hunks. This gets the juices going. I then pulled out my stick blender and finished attacking the contents of the bowl on LOW speed, since at least on my little crappy branded one I know that setting won't actually cut up the seeds. Pour the slush through a colander to catch anything you missed with the masher or stick blender and the seeds. You can attack this again with the stick blender to further extract more puree.

Continue this until you get through all of the melon meat. For these 3 (2.75 actually), I'll say medium sized melons, I ended up with a whopping 4 gallons plus of pureed pulp. Far more than I expected. Now at this point you can save the rinds for making pickled watermelon rinds but... I have chickens, I like the fresh flavor of the eggs that goes with feeding them something other than straight feed, so they got all the rinds and trust me, there won't be any sign of them out there tomorrow, heck, maybe not even tonight.

So 4+ gallons of watermelon puree.... great googa-mooga.......

Watermelon Jelly/Jam

4 cups pureed watermelon meat, no seeds please
1/4 cup lemon juice, bottled please
1 package no sugar needed pectin
2 cups sugar

Heat watermelon puree and lemon juice to boiling, yes it smells different nothing to flip out over, add pectin and mix in really well. Return to boil for 1 minute, add sugar, mix in really well, return to boil for 3 minutes. Ladle into jars, cap, process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Makes about 6 half pints, about, you might have some left over for taste testing. This will take about a day to set from what I understand, we'll see.

With as much as I had waiting on me I doubled the batches, yes I know this is a sin to the canning gods and snobs but I did it anyway. Otherwise I'd sill be working on them! I stopped after I ran out of sugar and I still had over a gallon of juice left. I tossed it in the freezer and will attack it again after I go into town and replenish my stock of sugar and pectin. So far I have ended up with 23 pints and 15 half pints just from 3 gallons of puree:

A time to sew

2010-09-18T16:01:00.000-05:00

I bet you've been wondering what I've been doing this week. Well..... without much coming in to can at the moment I cleared off the table and pulled out the fabric.
First it was finishing a top that has been sitting around for about a year. It's now finished and waiting at the longarmer I decided to have quilt it for me. You'll get pics when its done since it's a larger quilt! I also started and finished another larger top out of a stack of 6.25" squares I found hiding in my stash. I have NO clue what I had intended them for, they don't exactly go together but there was 117 of them. Enough for a quilt with a large set of equally non matching borders. I actually found enough oddball material in the stash bins to make a backing and it has been sent off to the longarmer. You'll get to see it when it's done as well.
Should be about a month for both.

I also decided to finish off my sunflower tablecloth that has been sitting around for about a year simply because when I took it to the local quilting thing the day I finished it, it was greeted with a shriek from an occasional member who hates sunflowers more than I hate pink. I brought it home and put it up, hoping I'd get back to it after her few weeks with us were past but.... I forgot about it until I was cleaning out the closet the other day!
Shame on me. I had everything ready to go on it though so I pulled it back out, ironed it up and started playing with the ditch stitching foot on my machine. It didn't come out too bad, I did run out of thread though, had to settle for another variegated blend since what I started with is not made in that size spool anymore. Which is fine really, you can't tell the difference.
The batting on this, since I didn't want it fluffy or see through flat, is an old thin white cotton tablecloth I picked up at the thrift store for 50 cents. I have enough left over for place mats if I want to make them. It's 50" x 50".

So here it is, covering the laundry pile from view:

Now as for what to do on the weekend...... I landed 3 free watermelons!

Sriracha

2010-09-13T12:52:00.000-05:00

Sriracha sauce. Or otherwise known by the logo picture as "Rooster Sauce". It's a spicy chili garlic sauce found on the table at most Chinese restaurants. It's easy to make. Really!

What you need:

Jar, whatever size you want, I used a half gallon jar since I planned on making a lot (next time it will be a gallon). You might want to start with a pint jar.
Peeled garlic cloves. Note, if you use a metal utensil to help you peel them, they will turn blue during the vinegar phase of this recipe, it's ok, still edible!
Dried chili peppers, half serrano and half chili de arbol or dried cayenne (note, I could not find serranos so I used equal portions of dried new mexico chilies, chili de arbol and dried 'asian hot pepper' (according to the package), omitted the habanero)
2 habaneros
White vinegar
Pickling salt

Fill jar half full with garlic cloves. Remove stems from chilies and discard but do not dump out seeds. Add chilies to fill completely full, you may have to cut a few down to fit them in. Add salt, I used a tbsp for a half gallon but we don't use a lot of salt so thinking a tsp for a pint should be more than enough for most people's tastes. Slowly add vinegar to the jar, filling the voids and making sure to jiggle any air bubbles loose. Fill to top of rim, cap with a tight fitting lid and let sit 3 or 4 days. Check it every once in a while, topping off the vinegar if needed.
Once the chilies have rehydrated fairly decent, pour it all into a blender or food processor and puree away! Just don't lean too close and inhale the fumes. If you want it thinner, add more vinegar.
If you've made a small batch pour it back into the jar and just refrigerate it, otherwise pour it into a stock pot and boil for 5 minutes. Again, avoid inhaling the fumes if you can. Ladle into jars with about 1/2 inch head space and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
Of course, my jar was actually a half gallon so I got 4 pints:

Teriyaki Sauce

2010-09-13T12:28:00.000-05:00

I decided to add this sauce in though we've already been making it for well over a year and it's refrigerated instead of canned. Not sure I'd refer to it as teriyaki though, tastes far different!
I was roaming along in a thrift store one day last summer, looking for interesting cookbooks and read the following title, "Make Your Own Groceries". Looked interesting, was a whopping 25 cents so I grabbed it. Once I got home I did some research and boy was that an eye popping experience. Apparently this book goes for $33 just for the paperback version, I've found prices up to $116 for the hardback version which is what I have. Published in 1979, ISBN 0672526719. After reading through it, I like it, it has a lot of cool ideas for sauces, mixes, etc. If you can lay your hands on a copy it would be great for reference!

On page 78 there is a recipe for teriyaki sauce, I decided to try it, since the book is hard to find and out of print I'm tentatively posting the recipe:

2/3 cup water
2/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dark rum
3 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp freshly grated ginger, or 1/4 tsp dried

Combine all ingredients in a plastic container with a tight fitting lid. Let stand at room temp for 2 to 3 weeks. Pour into a clean bottle, seal well and store at room temp.

Now, we did this and have to note that the 2 to 3 weeks is for a light fermentation. It tasted great, though watered down a bit. Was a great addition to steamed rice and fried rice. But... well we wanted more flavor and larger volume so we started tweaking this a bit and after a year have finally settled on a recipe we like enough to keep a jar on hand all the time. In fact we save our soy sauce bottles for holding this!

1 10 oz or so bottle of your favorite soy sauce (ours is San J low sodium tamari)
1/2 of a 750 ml bottle sake, we use Gekkeikan, sometimes we use 3/4 of the bottle if we are using regular sodium soy sauce
1 large head of garlic, peeled
1 hand of ginger, about the size of your hand
1 cup Allegro marinade (if you can find it, otherwise a 1/2 cup of worcestershire should be fine)
1/4 cup sugar

Hack up the ginger into slices, chunks whatever. Do the same with the garlic. Combine everything into a decent sized jar with at least 2 inches room at the top and a tight fitting lid. Make sure the sugar has completely dissolved into the liquids. Let sit for at least a month in a cool dark spot.
Strain out the garlic and ginger, though you do want to squeeze out the remaining liquid and add to the rest, pour into bottles and toss in the fridge.
Here's what we have left until I can get into town and buy another bottle of sake:

Plum Sauce

2010-09-11T16:01:00.000-05:00

So, continuing with the Chinese dipping sauces, today we attacked Plum Sauce. It's really almost a barbecue type sauce. I searched the web and found several recipes that sounded decent like this one But as usual I did a bit of tweaking to accommodate my ingredients on hand

1.5 pounds dried pitted prunes (really, dried plums is all they are)
3 tbsp dried minced onion
2 cups water/fruit juice (or enough to cover the prunes if 2 cups is not enough), I used a combination of apple and white grape
4 tbsp powdered ginger
4 tbsp minced garlic, I buy it in the big jars and keep handy for just such occasions
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup rice vinegar or 1 cup cider vinegar or like I did, a combination of both
2 teaspoons Chinese Five Spice Powder (or equal portions of ginger, clove, cinnamon, anise, cassia buds)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I'm leaving this on as optional, add as much as you like, within reason)

In large heavy saucepan, bring prunes, onions, water/juice, ginger, 5 spice and garlic to boil over medium heat; cover, reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until prunes and onions are very tender, about 30 minutes.

Buzz with stick blender until smooth and all prunes have been thoroughly pureed; stir in sugar, vinegar, salt, soy sauce. Bring to boil, stirring; reduce heat to low and simmer for another 20 minutes. At this point, taste test it, check for seasoning. If it seems too thick thin down a little with equal portions of vinegar and fruit juice. You want it pourable/dip-able, not pasty.

Fill and seal jars; process in boiling water bath for 30 minutes.

Makes about 4 pints. More or less, depending on how thin you make it and how much you taste test it.... and how much hubby eats while you aren't watching.

Next attempt at sauces.... Sriracha. I already have it started, have to wait a few days for the finished product but... want a sneak peak while it's marinating???

Duck Sauce

2010-09-06T15:42:00.001-05:00

You've seen them, the little packets of orange colored sauce you get with your Chinese take out. Well, I got to visit a newer Chinese restaurant about a half hour drive from here last week. There is only one other in a 40 mile radius and it's not that great. This one though, was FABULOUS!!!!! I'm now craving good Chinese food again but as usual for living in a rural bit of nowhere, the condiments are hard to find to say the least. So... I made my own duck sauce today. I combined a couple of different recipes and came up with something pretty close to my favorite store bought duck sauce I can get in the big city.

Canned Duck Sauce

1.5 pounds dried apricots
4 cups water (or fruit juice like apple, white grape, pineapple)
2 cups sugar
1.5 cups good rice wine vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
4 Tbsp powdered ginger
1 Tbsp dried onion flakes
2 Tbsp soy sauce
Optional 2 Tbsp red pepper flakes.

Pulse dried apricots in processor until fairly fine. Bring apricots, water and onion to a boil and reduce to a simmer for an hour, stirring frequently to prevent sticking or scalding. Once mostly rehydrated and mushy add sugar, vinegar, ginger and soy sauce, bring to a boil for 2 minutes, ladle into jars and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes on half pints and 15 minutes for pints. Makes 8 half pints.

Notes for this:
This is a thick sauce, you can water it down a bit with fruit juice if you want after you open a jar.
Taste it, adjust heat to your tastes, I can't have the peppers so I add a lot of ginger instead.
You can also make this from fresh apricots or plums, just pit and cook down into mush without the water.

A lesson in penny pinching

2010-09-05T20:02:00.000-05:00

Lets lay it all out here, I have to be cheap, it's how we are able to eat right now. In addition to all these things I'm canning for later use I also have a fairly full chest freezer, and 2 fridge freezers full. And a fairly decent pantry of store bought goods. I'm guessing we could eat for 3 months before we run out. Right now we don't have much disposable income, and what we do have goes into food for us, the necessities and animal feed.
You are probably asking how I can buy and keep this much food, right?
Lets start with the basics. Meats and Produce. Those are your largest ticket items for the most part. There are store sales if you can catch them and there are what I call the used meat bin and the scratch and dent produce cart. I can usually snag the nice expensive hormone free grass fed beef for half price or lower in the "reduced for quick sale" bin. Those meats which are expiring that day. I pick through, look for the best deals, and either toss them directly in the freezer or cook them that day. Same goes for produce that doesn't look perfect, and if you've ever had a garden you know that produce isn't perfect. Bananas can go directly in the freezer and be thawed out for use later. Most everything else will need a little bit of prep before freezing, say chopping/blanching but they can still be tossed in the freezer. Or you can can them in some form or eat right away.
Our little bitty local store also will mark down damaged goods to half price or lower. Torn 5 lb bag of sugar? 99 cents. Tortillas that have been crinkled on one side? 99 cents. Etc. Those deals I am always on the look out for. Staples like flour, dried beans, rice, etc I buy in bulk. Saves money and road trips to the store. I also take full advantage of BOGOF sales. I rarely cut coupons since I can almost always get the generic store brand for cheaper. I don't make a large circuit of shopping places each week either, I live in the middle of nowhere and that is just not economically feasible. Instead I keep a list of things for each place where I've found it cheapest and stock up when I'm ever in that area.

Just to give you an idea of how this helps lets examine dinner for tonight. Beef and barley stew.
1 pound stew meat, or whatever you can lay your hands on cheaply, tonight was the hormone free large chunks of stew meat cut into small pieces, cost $2.50
1.5 cups dried beans, my choice tonight was half pinto and half red kidney beans, bought in bulk on sale, so maybe 20 cents total
1 cup pearled barley, I got a good deal on the organic stuff but maybe $1
1 cup frozen baby lima beans, 25 cents possibly
1 tbsp dried onions, it was a free-be with another purchase but the container is normally $2, so lets say 10 cents
1 tsp dry cilantro, dry ginger, dry oregano, salt, I buy all this in bulk maybe 20 cents total
Beef bullion to taste, but a cube or 2 cost 5 cents each
2 bay leaves, 2 cents?
Water, gallon to a gallon and a half, have no idea on cost since it's tap water.
Cook this in a crock pot for 6 to 8 hours

Overall price, not including water or electricity? $5.27, and that's using a more expensive cut of meat and organic barley. This amount of stew will give you at least 8 servings, so around 66 cents per bowl.
For us that's dinner tonight and lunch for the next few days. Add a loaf of day old french bread at 90 cents and you have a really good meal on the cheap.

This was just a lesson in food, imagine the savings and deals I find at thrift stores and yard sales and clearance racks!
The key is to be flexible and think ahead, way ahead if needed!

Canned Bruschetta

2010-09-05T19:24:00.001-05:00

Kinda weird you think? That's what I thought when I found the "Bruschetta in a Jar" recipe in the Ball Complete book. But I decided to try it with a few extra tomatoes I had gleaned out of the scratch and dent produce bin this week. Go buy the book or borrow it from the library to get the recipe!
Smells great though it's not on my list of edibles because in addition to the pepper allergy, I have issues with tomatoes, just not as bad. So I ended up with 3 pints and 1 half pint:

An apple a day

2010-09-04T21:18:00.000-05:00

Or somewhere around 20 pounds. Again, another deal from the scratch and dent produce cart. 4 bags at .99 a bag. Pretty sweet deal! So what to do with the gala, granny smith and red delicious finds? Well, hang on to your seats, it's been a loooooong day.
(BTW, save your peels and cores for the last recipe in this post)

First up was Caramel Apple Jam

6 cups peeled, cored chopped apples, gala works good (I took a stick blender to them in the pot after they cooked a bit)
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups brown sugar
3 cups white sugar
1 package powdered pectin

Heat the apples, water, lemon and cinnamon on medium heat about 20 minutes or until soft. Add pectin bring to a boil, add sugar and bring back to a boil for 1 minute. Ladle into sterilized jars and water bath for 15 minutes on pints.

I made a few batches and ended up with 9 pints, 1 half pint

Then I tried an 'Apple Pie in a Jar' recipe but I tweaked it a bit and call it Apple Pie Jam, it's already a HUGE hit just from what didn't make it into a jar.

Apple Pie Jam

1 cup raisins, dried cranberries or dried cherries (or all 3) pulsed fine in processor
12 cups peeled, cored chopped apples (granny smith is best, though I did toss in the very few red delicous that I had)
1 cup unsweetened apple juice
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 pkg low sugar pectin
4.5 cups sugar

In large stockpot combine apples, lemon, apple juice and bring to boil. Reduce heat and boil on low until the apples begin to soften, this is where I pull out the stick blender and chop them down a bit. Stir in dry fruit, cinnamon and nutmeg and make sure to mix well. Add pectin, bring to boil for 1 minute. Add sugar, boil 3 minutes. Ladle into jars, water bath for 10 minutes on half pints, 15 minutes on pints.
I made two batches, netting 10 pints and 3 half pints, plus enough saved out to taste test for another pint.

Now... why did I save the peels and cores? Well to make apple juice from them of course. Call it thrifty Toss them in a stock pot, add a cup or so of water, slap a lid on it and bring to a boil. Once everything is sufficiently mushy, pour into a jelly strainer and drain, or you can do like I do and drain through a large cotton napkin set in a colander over another pot. If you don't get enough juice for the recipe, no problem, just add a little unsweeted store bought apple juice to even things out. And what to do with the spent peels and cores? Keep the basset out of them while you're working and give them to the chickens when they cool off!
Then you can make jelly, or more specifically....

Candy Apple Jelly

4 cups apple juice
1/2 cup red-hot candies
1 (1.75 oz) package powdered pectin
4 1/2 cups sugar

Bring juice and red hots to full rolling boil over medium high heat, stirring constantly until most of the red hots have dissolved. Add pectin, boil 1 minute. Stir in sugar; return to full rolling boil. Boil for 2 minutes, continue stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; skim off any foam and remove any undissolved candies. Pour into jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust caps and process for 5 minutes in boiling water bath.

I made 2 batches and ended up with 11 half pints, plus another we tossed in the fridge for taste testing.

Yes! We have no bananas.....

2010-08-27T22:00:00.001-05:00

Actually we had a lot of bananas today. The local grocery store had them on sale for 15 cents a pound! Granted these were the scratch and dent slightly used models but still, 15 cents a POUND!
I bought a few.... say somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 pounds. My freezer isn't that big. What to do? Banana butter and banana jam! Here are a few shots of what I spent most of today on:

Banana Jam, 4 quarts, 8 pints, 20 half pints (the color on that shot is off, really, they look just as good as the first)

And the banana butter as seen in a previous blog entry here, 4 pints

Now I bet your wondering about that banana jam recipe, right? Well first let me explain what I have found while looking for canned banana recipes....

Obviously bananas are a low acid fruit and really should NOT be canned without additional acid added. In fact many official places say the only safe way is to freeze the jam but, I found a few other sources that suggest the addition of lemon juice, these are those professional canner types. So we add lemon juice, but what else can you do to help? Apple juice and sugar. This is a home consumption thing too, so don't go trying to sell this at farmer's markets, most have a thing against banana jams for the official reason listed above.
For the jam:

5 cups chopped bananas
5 Tbsp bottled lemon juice
Apple juice
1/4 tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg, ground clove
1 pkg no sugar needed pectin (I'm really liking this stuff)
3 cups sugar

Place bananas and lemon juice in a large measuring cup and add apple juice to reach 5.5 cups. pour into large stock pot and add spices. Bring to a boil and partially mash or puree the bananas a little. Add pectin, boil 1 minute, add sugar, boil 3 minutes. Ladle into jars with 1/2 inch head space and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes for half pints, 15 for pints and 20 for quarts.

Or you can ladle this into freezer containers, allow to cool and freeze.
Or you can ladle into jars and put in your fridge.

Curiosity and the Kitten

2010-08-27T21:40:00.001-05:00

Well I finished it. Finally. Had enough time off from canning to actually pick the needle back up and finish the last few stitches. I call it... Curiosity and the Kitten. I'll let the pictures speak from here on out, there are close-ups of some areas and a shot of the back.

Canning the sauce

2010-08-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

Had another 25 pound box of tomatoes show up. This time though, I decided to sauce them. Relatively easy honestly, there's a basic and herbed sauce recipe in the Ball Complete book that I followed for the most part. But since I don't have a food mill, I peeled, cored and seeded the tomatoes before cooking them down. As I was peeling, coring and seeding I just chucked the cleaned halves of the tomatoes directly into my stock pot. Once it was full I put it on to start cooking while I finished the rest. I didn't add any water, just the collected juice from the seed pulp. Added the remaining tomatoes once the amount I started with had reduced enough to do so.
After everything softened up a bit I took out my handy stick blender and pureed the tomatoes in the stock pot. Left them a little chunky, not too much but enough to have some texture. As for the herbs, I added granulated garlic, dry basil, dry oregano, dry onion flakes, salt, balsamic vinegar and a bit of red wine. All to taste. This I let cook a while until everything seemed nice and combined flavor wise but it still seemed a bit 'thin' so I added in 2 cans of tomato paste. This is a normal addition for our regular sauce anyway. Let it cook a bit more and it was ready.
Poured them all up and processed according to the lovely requirements in the Ball book and viola, 7 quarts and 3 pints of ready to use tomato sauce.

Cantaloupe Jam

2010-08-20T15:08:00.000-05:00

I received another 3 cantaloupes the other day and of course I can't let them go to waste!! So what to do other than pickling them? What about jam or preserves? Works for me! I used this recipe in post 3696 but I needed to tweek it a bit because, well, I'm not going near another orange for a while and I may be giving some of this to diabetic and sugar sensitive friends. I also wanted it a bit smoother for my own texture preferences. So here's what I did:

Cantaloupe Jam
5 1/2 cups cantaloupe mush, I pureed the cantaloupe instead of a fine chop, there are still a few pieces in it though, this is roughly one cantaloupe
1/4 tsp orange extract
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp powdered ginger (get the good stuff here, not the stuff that's been sitting in your pantry for a year already, try getting china no 1 from the Spice House, I swear by it)
3 cups Sugar
1 Pkg No sugar needed pectin

Combine cantaloupe mush, orange extract, ginger and lemon and bring to boil. Add pectin, bring to a boil for 1 minute. Then add sugar and bring back to a boil for 3 minutes. Ladle into hot, sterilized half-pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust lids and process in boiling water bath 10 minutes.
Makes 7 half pints

Thank you so very much for this recipe Vfem! I landed 8 pints and 6 half pints from 3 cantaloupes!

Roasted GarlicJam

2010-08-18T20:40:00.001-05:00

Sounds good doesn't it? Makes you want to go out and buy a loaf of crusty bread for smearing or roast a nice big pork sirloin so you can spoon it on doesn't it?

Yeah, that's what I thought. And let me tell ya.... it's good! I just had a little bit of the stuff that didn't make it into a jar and it's fabulous. Sweet but not too sweet with a vinegary kick to it.

Roasted Garlic Jam

5 heads garlic

Cider vinegar, 1 1/2cups plus approx 1 more, see recipe instructions

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup lemon juice, bottled

1 1/2 cups unsweetened apple juice

1 pkg no sugar needed pectin

3 cups sugar

Day one:

Separate garlic cloves, do not peel, and roast in cast iron skillet on medium heat. Alternatively this can be done in the oven, as long as they get some color and the skins become loose, do whatever you prefer. You don't want these to be mushy, just lightly roasted. Once all are roasted, remove from heat and allow to cool. Peel skins off if they haven't already come off and slice off the hard 'root' end of each clove.

Pulse in food processor until nicely minced, add 1 1/2 cups cider vinegar and pulse a few more times. Pour mixture into a container and refrigerate overnight.

Day Two:

Add enough cider vinegar to garlic mix to make a total of 4 cups, add balsamic, lemon juice, and apple juice and bring to a boil for 5 minutes. Add pectin and boil 1 minute. Add sugar, mix really well and boil 3 minutes. Ladle into jars with 1/2 inch head space and process in water bath for 15 minutes (sea level).

Makes about 8 half pints.

I have 6 half pints and 1 pint

Another lesson in orange

2010-08-16T22:51:00.000-05:00

Conceding defeat to the marmalade round I decided to check out what else I could do with the remainder of these oranges. I found this on the Pick Your Own website. Looked simple. Looked easy. Looked quick. Thus began the peeling of oranges and lemons. I had enough for 2 batches and enough Sure Jell to be more than sure I could make it work!

Yeah, well so much for me being prepared.

The first batch I followed the recipe on the link but noticed a few things. First the citrus separated from the solution once the sugar was added and stayed on top. Then as I was pouring into jars the syrup was congealing on the funnel, which I took as a great sign. But I ran out of fruit before I ran out of solution so 3 jars were just syrup. Got them processed and 10 hours on they aren't setting, still syrup. Which may just be because it is a citrus and they don't always set immediately so I'll withhold judgment for now. Though the amount of water and sugar did seem to be excessive. The effort landed me 6 half pints and 3 pints.

The second batch I decided I would do my thing, since the marmalade was already a bust and the rindless marmalade seemed syrupy before I put it in the bath to process. What could go wrong? How much more could I screw it up? I started with the amount of citrus the recipe on Pick Your Own suggests. I left it the same since that's what I had. I decided to use the no sugar needed stuff and 2 cups of apple juice instead of water. Then, while that was cooking I measured out what sugar I had left in the open bag, right at 3.5 cups. Sounded good to me. Dumped it in and 60 seconds later was ladling an unseparated 'jam' into my jars. It only netted me 3 pint jars but 9.5 hours on they are beginning to set!!! AND the chunks of citrus are suspended throughout instead of all at the top. Hopefully this is a success, I'll cross my fingers.

The money shot, the 3 that are starting to set (2nd batch) are in the front on the bottom. The 3 that are mostly syrup (1st batch) are in the back and the ones on top are syrupy with chunks of citrus (1st batch).

Will I do this again? Well, I'm really not sure, it all depends on if that second batch tastes decent and passes the 'not pancake syrup' test.

Gingered pears

2010-08-16T16:01:00.000-05:00

What do you do when you find a really good deal on something? Buy it, get it home and then figure out how you are going to deal with it. Such as my luck a couple of days ago with pears. So I started looking for a good recipe in my Ball Complete book (page 69). I found a recipe for Ginger Pear Preserves and decided that was it, for all the pears. Spent a few hours peeling, coring and chopping the pears, juicing and zesting limes and I was ready. Had enough for 3 batches. First batch in, I couldn't get to gel stage no matter how long I cooked, it ended up as mush. It started getting darker in color so I jarred it up anyway and hoped for at least a soft set. Second and third batches I decided to use Sure Jell and went ahead and attacked the pears with the hand blender, same color developed and they still haven't set. So I'm figuring that either the fact that I used beet sugar instead of cane sugar had something to do with it or the hard water residue on the pans complicated things. Don't know. I'll still have a very delicious ginger pear glaze though, I'm already envisioning this on pork chops, as a salad dressing, something to spice up a boxed cake mix with, lots of ideas!!
6 half pints and 8 pints

Orange you glad I tried it?

2010-08-14T21:52:00.000-05:00

I saw a copy of The Farmer's Wife Canning and Preserving Cookbook a few weeks ago and copied down what I thought was the most simple orange marmalade recipe that I had ever seen. Just in case I ever decided to make it, you know? Recipe hoarder that I am. Well, I finally bought the book and started on a couple of batches of this stuff since I was able to get about 10 pounds of navel oranges on sale yesterday. It's on pg 67, English Orange Marmalade c. 1913. Since this recipe is in a book that's being sold I'll refrain from posting the recipe.

Anyway, I had forgotten how much I disliked the smell of oranges until about halfway through the 3 hour cooking process. Then I couldn't get the pulp to reach a gel stage, so it had to cook even longer. One thing I did do was take the hand blender to it as the rinds were not cooking down like they are supposed to. After 3 hours they were still fairly stiff, this changed after I blended them a bit, they softened up quite a bit within a half hour. We were hitting the 5 hour mark before I considered the stuff ready to toss in jars, I'm hoping it sets. This will be one recipe I probably won't try again unless it gets rave reviews!

I did end up with 12 half pints and 5 pints that were literally pinging as I set them down on the towel to cool. Has to be the fastest vacuum I've ever set on a jar. If they don't set they will be a very orangy pancake syrup!

Now for the rest of the oranges.......

Brussel Sprouts. Yep I pickled them.

2010-08-13T20:54:00.001-05:00

So I found another interesting recipe and decided to try it. You can find the conversation here post number 3703, follow it a few posts and you get this recipe:

Hot spiced Brussels Sprouts

2lbs Brussels Sprouts
21/2 cups water
4 heads dill
21/2 cups vinegar
1t cayenne pepper
4 garlic cloves (opt)
3T pickling salt
4 heads dill (opt)
2 jalapeno peppers or 1 habanero pepper

Cook whole Brussels sprouts until just tender. Pack in hot sterilized pint jars. Combine water, vinegar, salt, dill, cayenne pepper, hot peppers (left whole but cut top off and take out seeds). Wear gloves when working with hot peppers. Cook vinegar solution for 10 minutes. Remove hot peppers and pour over Brussels sprouts, leaving a 1/4-inch headspace. Add a clove of garlic, 1 extra dill head, a slice of hot pepper in jar (optional). Adjust sterilized lids and process pints 15 minutes in boiling–water bath canner. Makes about 4 pints

I doubled it. Not having any fresh dill heads I used dill weed, 1 tsp per pint and 1 tbsp per quart. I also used chilies de arbol in the jars as well. Gave me 2 quarts and 4 pints. I used apple cider vinegar since white vinegar was not specifically called for in the recipe.

A little bit of Chow Chow

2010-08-13T20:42:00.001-05:00

And no, not the big fluffy puppy either. Southern chow chow relish. Usually made with green tomatoes and red bell peppers. Well, I switched those two items to ripe tomatoes and green bell peppers and followed a fairly simple recipe.

6 cups ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 medium to large head cabbage, chopped
2 large onions, chopped
3 peppers, chopped
1 c. salt
1 qt. vinegar
2 cups sugar
2 tbsp. celery seed
2 tbsp. mustard seed

Combine tomatoes, cabbage, onions, peppers and salt. Let set overnight. The next day drain, add other ingredients. Cook 1 hour on medium heat. Pour in jars and seal. Water bath 20 minutes.

I made this easier by not salting the tomatoes which were already falling apart, the knife was crushing them fairly well as it was. I also pulsed the veggies in the food processor since it can chop finer than I can. I ended up with 9 pints.

Green Tomatoes Anyone

2010-08-13T20:22:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine was wonderful enough to gift me her green tomatoes from a plant she was having to pull up, along with a few ripe ones as well. What to do? Pickled Green Tomatoes. Her recipe too.

Green tomatoes, sliced
Onions sliced
½ cup pickling salt
1 c. white sugar,
1 c. dark brown sugar,
1pint cider vinegar,
2tbsp mustard seeds,
1 tsp celery seeds,
2 bay leaves, crumbled

Sprinkle the cut up tomatoes with salt and let set overnight, then drain the water off, before making the pickles. Bring vinegar, sugars and spices to a boil with your onions in it slowly for ten minutes, then add the tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes before putting in the jars.
Let sit four to six weeks before eating

So I made it again this year and processed it this time instead of putting it in the fridge. Water bath for 15 minutes. I used 12 cups of sliced tomatoes and one really huge onion and ended up with 4 quarts.

Ok... so I cheated this time

2010-08-10T17:15:00.000-05:00

I picked up a packet put out by Mrs. Wages. The Kosher Dill one. I decided to try it. With the last of the cucumbers and a few I begged for, and a few zucchini and onions I tossed in because I didn't think I'd have enough, I made the last of my cucumber pickles this year. This does not mean I won't consider pickling something else, keep that in mind!

After listening and reading reviews from people and several sites I decided to up the flavor quotient just a tad by adding a clove of roasted garlic and 1/2 tsp dill weed to every pint (1/4 tsp to the half pint). I also added some Pickle Crisp to each jar. For those of you thinking they stopped making it, you were right, they apparently started making it again this year! I was lucky enough to lay my hands on a jar.

So anyway, the pickles. I decided to do them in spears since most were too gangly for pint jars and ended up with a bunch that were just right for half pint jars. Knowing someone will inevitably want a jar, these will be available for gifts/trade/etc. What I ended up with is 8 pints, 5 half pints of the cucumber pickles and 3 pints, 2 half pints of the zucchini pickles. All had a sliver or two of onion in them as well.
The cucumber pickles:

And the zucchini pickles:

I am now ready to put the canner to bed for a few weeks but..... I have green tomatoes coming tomorrow.. they are getting pickled!

Ruby red white peaches!

2010-08-08T21:38:00.000-05:00

I pulled the last bit of peaches off my white peach tree the other day and there wasn't quite enough to make a batch of peach butter and jelly is just not one of my things. I mean if I'm going to have to peel them anyway I don't want to just toss away the flesh and keep only the juice. It's a fiber, whole fruit thing, I know. So I just peeled, pitted, quartered and packed into jars with an extra light syrup. 25 minutes in the water bath and viola, 7 pints of ruby red syrup with peaches. They look cool don't they?

And before you ask, yes, they will eventually settle to the bottom, same for the apples in the previous entry, it takes a few days.
I also made 12 more half pints of banana butter today. Apparently it's a big hit for peanut butter sandwiches around here and has become a "when are you making more" thing. This time though I made a very large batch and it took forever to cook down. As a result it browned a little more than the last batch. But that's ok, it tastes the same.

White apples

2010-08-07T21:00:00.000-05:00

While at the farmer's market in town today there was a lady selling white apples. I decided I'd get them, almost an entire plastic shopping bag. I had no idea what I was going to do with them honestly. Jelly? Apple Pie Filling? Apple butter?
Once home I decided I'd just can them in extra light syrup from the Ball Complete Preserving Book (seriously, go buy a copy, lots of good stuff in there).
Yeah. My hand still hurts from peeling, cutting, coring (don't have a fancy coring/slicing gadget that works!). But it's done and I have 12 pints cooling off as I type this.

Not that I've ever heard of white apples but I can tell you this, they are a bit on the tart side, very dense flesh similar to kieffer pears and you really should peel them before you slice them up, that light color skin blends in really well and makes it difficult to see what you have and haven't peeled in a bucket of slices.

A peck of pickled peppers

2010-08-07T20:45:00.001-05:00

Well, maybe a half to three quarters of a peck.

Looks pretty doesn't it? Yep it does, but for me it's also a terrifying sight. Just one little piece of those could set off a really bad allergic reaction where my throat starts to swell and my lungs feel like they are underwater. It's like a massive asthma attack.
Now you are asking why I would even get near the things, right? Well I can handle them as long as the fruit has not been cut or any juices have been exposed. Hubby LOVES them, well so do I but that doesn't count. So I don my pepper 'hazmat' suit consisting of elbow length rubber gloves and either a respirator (if I'm cutting them) or a handkerchief over my nose and mouth, and set to work.
What's the recipe? Well I was playing on BYC and visited the canning thread, it's post number 3573 here
Posted by chickencrazymamahen
I grow robustini and pepperoncini's and this is what I do. Soak the peppers 24 hrs. in a solution of 1 C lime and 1 C salt per gallon of water, in the fridge. Rinse well, cut 2 slits in each pepper and crush lightly with hand to open slits slightly; pack in jars.

Brine*:
3 C white vinegar
1 C water
3 TBSP sugar
1 TBSP pickling salt
1 garlic clove per jar

Mix brine together (except garlic) and bring to boil, boil 5 minutes; place one garlic clove in each jar. Fill with boiling brine, when adding hot brine, mash peppers some with wooden spoon so brine will enter peppers. remove air bubbles. Cap and process 10 minutes in boiling water bath, start counting as soon as jars are placed in boiling water.

*for each 4 qts. of peppers, triple brine.

I figured this would have to work for habaneros and jalapenos as well so I tried it, though I did make a few changes to suit hubby's tastes. The garlic was roasted cloves that I keep in the freezer, and I added a half teaspoon each of mustard and coriander seed to each jar. Also, instead of slitting the peppers, I opted for poking holes in them with a corn cob holder fork thing so it looks like I have miniature pepper sucking vampires in my kitchen attacking my peppers. I put at least 8 holes in each, at least! Yet another tip found somewhere on the web. Sure did make it easier on me, I didn't have to don the respirator while working.

What I ended up with:
7 pints of habaneros

And 4 pints of jalapenos

And the bonus is I only needed 1 dose of benadryl for the entire day and I won't have to do this again for a couple of years!!

Peach Butter

2010-08-06T15:02:00.000-05:00

Well, my canning adventures have slowed down a bit with the lack of incoming cannable goodies, though I did get a bunch of habaneros today that will be processed by tomorrow, they are getting limed tonight. Anyway, in my 'slow' time I figured I'd give you the low down on my peach butter. Not the stuff in the Ball book, mine.

Whole Peach Butter. Interesting concept. Whole peach butter. But you ask, isn't all peach butter whole? Nope. I shall explain......
I have 4 peach trees on the property. Most of them give me golf ball sized, white flesh, tart peaches. Do you have ANY idea how hard and time consuming it is to peel that many peaches? I do. It ain't pretty. And the skins don't just slip off when you blanch them like they are supposed to. So I asked myself how not to waste them. I came up with an idea and tried it. It was an absolute success.

Since I have so many I decided not to measure anything up front, just fill pot and go, taste for sweetness, make sure it gets to a soft set and get it into jars. The directions go like this:

Pick the peaches, if you have some dropping already that aren't fully ripe, that's fine, get them too, helps form the gel. Wash them off in just plain old water and let them sit in the water until they cool down to room temp, this helps with the peach fuzz, which I swear is identical to fiberglass and can be really itchy.

Once ready get the BIGGEST stock pot you own, set it on the lowest heat setting you have, pour in a little water to keep from scorching and start with the peaches. All you do is cut in half, remove pit, evict any worms and their mess (no pesticides used here), remove anything bad, toss in the pot and repeat until the pot is as full as you can get it. Put a lid on it and leave it alone until the peaches start breaking down. Stir it at this point and it should have reduced down by a third. You don't have to do anything here but remove the lid and watch it but.... I add more. Yes, you read that right, I start adding more, I fill it up as full as I can get it and keep cooking it on low.
Here's what that looks like:

Looks like a gloppy mess doesn't it? Well that's what it's supposed to look like so keep cooking down, stir it on occasion, leave the lid off. I have to keep my stove on low otherwise it burns the natural sugar in the peaches and I loose a batch so for me it's a loooong process, takes 2 to 3 days. You can also do this in a crock pot set on low, with the lid propped up on one end, overnight I'm told but..... I've burnt a batch by ignoring it like that. If I use the crock pot I watch it really closely, if it starts getting really dark or supper sticky on the edges I turn it off for a few hours and stir, eventually I turn it back on again. I also set the lid on top of bamboo chopsticks over the crock so that the mush can evaporate.

Once everything looks good and mushy, I like to bring out the stick/hand blender and puree it right there in the pot, less mess that way. And keep cooking down. Once it gets down to about half the volume at of the pot, taste test. It should be fairly thick and near sheeting off a spoon at this point, if not keep cooking down. Mine is tart due to the type of peaches, but it's really tasty.

This is when I add sugar. It's usually about 1/4 of the volume of peach mush, I eyeball it honestly. For my crock pot it's normally 4 cups, for the stock pot it's normally 6 cups. After getting the sugar completely mixed in, cook it down to the level it was at before the sugar was added. By this point it should be sheeting off a spoon and will be a soft spread once canned.

Fill jars slowly to help avoid air bubbles, the bubbles are almost impossible to get out of this stuff once they are there. Leave 1/2 inch head space. Water bath for 20 minutes.

At this point in the year I have canned 25 pints, 3 quarts, and 2 half pints. Right now I'm fighting with the green beetles over the peaches so I haven't put up a batch this week, I should have enough for at least one more batch tomorrow.

And to give you an idea on yield, my 7 quart crock pot if filled and topped off with more (like what I mentioned before) normally gives me 7 pints. My stock pot filled and topped off with more can give me up to 9 pints at a time.

Nope, it's not your everyday fare. It's not even spiced, though you could do that before you fill your jars if you wanted. But it is WHOLE fruit and nothing but fruit and sugar. No artificial anything, no fillers, no crap. And for hubby, he likes making peanut butter and peach butter sandwiches on whole wheat nearly everyday for lunches and snacks. I just hope I made and can keep making, enough to last until next year when the peaches start dropping again.

Off to finish cleaning the peppers and to find where I hid that bag of lime.....

Pickles, the old way

2010-08-01T22:34:00.000-05:00

After reading several books on preserving as well as several other blogs and forums I decided to give fermented pickles a try, just to see what all the hype was about. I'm glad I did.
But first a disclaimer: If in doubt, throw it out. Don't risk your life if you don't think something smells right, looks right, etc. just because you want to try something new.
That said and out of the way.... this is what I did:

Wanting to try this for a while I started looking for a pickle crock. My budget screamed at the prices of a real pickle crock and I nearly gave up even thinking about trying this until I had an epiphany in the middle of Wal-Mart. I was in the cooking gadets section, looked down and saw a glass cookie jar for a whole $8. MUCH cheaper than the $50 to $60 (+ shipping) a crock would have run. So I bring it home and pull up the one recipe I would be willing to give a try, after all it's Alton Brown's recipe and his normally work the best for me.

5 1/2 ounces pickling salt, approximately 1/2 cup
1 gallon filtered water
3 pounds pickling cucumbers, 4 to 6-inches long
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon dill seed
1 large bunch dill

Combine the salt and water in a pitcher and stir until the salt has dissolved.
Rinse the cucumbers thoroughly and snip off the blossom end stem. Set aside.
Place the peppercorns, pepper flakes, garlic, dill seed and fresh dill into a 1-gallon crock. Add the cucumbers to the crock on top of the aromatics. Pour the brine mixture over the cucumbers in order to completely cover. Pour the remaining water into a 1-gallon ziptop plastic bag and seal. Place the bag on top of the pickles making sure that all of them are completely submerged in the brine. Set in a cool, dry place.
Check the crock after 3 days. Fermentation has begun if you see bubbles rising to the top of the crock. After this, check the crock daily and skim off any scum that forms. If scum forms on the plastic bag, rinse it off and return to the top of the crock.
The fermentation is complete when the pickles taste sour and the bubbles have stopped rising; this should take approximately 6 to 7 days. Once this happens, cover the crock loosely and place in the refrigerator for 3 days, skimming daily or as needed. Store for up to 2 months in the refrigerator, skimming as needed. If the pickles should become soft or begin to take on an off odor, this is a sign of spoilage and they should be discarded.

I followed this recipe to the letter with the exception of the pepper flakes, I have allergies and peppers are #1 on the list. I did change how the crock was to be set up, I used a butter dish lid to put over the cukes and turned the glass top upside down to hold everything under the brine. Worked pretty well actually. Here's the hardware:

I placed my crock in my main pantry, where the cats would not be able to mess with it and knock it over. Started it on a Monday evening, checked for flavor on Thursday and decided to wait a few more days, they just weren't quite fermented through yet. Saturday they were ready and I put them in fridge receptacles this morning. Let me tell you, the house smelled wonderful all week, all dill and garlic. It was nice. The brine did get a little cloudy, but then again our AC isn't on all the time and it doesn't get below 80 even when it's on so it was a little warm. They taste so different it's amazing, and the crunch! Wow! On my to-do-again list!

What I tossed in the fridge today:

Jamming Onions

2010-08-01T22:04:00.000-05:00

I found another recipe that I wanted to try, Caramelized Onion Jam. Sounds great doesn't it? I found it here

4 whole garlic bulbs
1 teaspoon canola oil
5 cups chopped sweet onions (1-1/2 pounds)
1/4 cup butter, cubed
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup bottled lemon juice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1-1/2 teaspoons ground mustard
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
6 cups sugar
1 pouch (3 ounces) liquid fruit pectin

Remove papery outer skin from garlic (do not peel or separate cloves). Cut top off garlic bulbs; brush with oil. Wrap each bulb in heavy-duty foil. Bake at 425° for 30-35 minutes or until softened. Cool for 10-15 minutes.
In a Dutch oven, saute onions in butter for 30-40 minutes or until lightly browned. Squeeze softened garlic into pan. Stir in the cider vinegar, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, ginger and cloves. Bring to a rolling boil. Gradually add sugar, stirring constantly. Return to a boil for 3 minutes.
Add pectin; bring to a full rolling boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; let stand for 3 minutes. Skim off foam. Pour hot mixture into hot jars, leaving 1/4-in. headspace. Adjust caps. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

I followed everything almost exactly with the exception of the mustard powder, you guessed, I was out, so I substituted more ginger instead. But..... it didn't gel as well as I would have hoped, it still tastes totally awesome though. Can't wait to try it as a glaze on chicken or pork tenderloin!

Pickled peppers

2010-08-01T15:53:00.002-05:00

Instead of trying to find some way to use all hubby's peppers before they go bad I decided to pickle them when we get enough to fill a jar. The recipe is simple and is a per pint basis.

1/2 tsp each black peppercorns, coriander seed, minced garlic, pickling salt, granulated sugar
1bay leaf
Vinegar
peppers to fill the pint jar, we have all hot peppers but use what you have.

Dump spices etc in jar, slit the peppers in several places or slit all the way through the bottoms so that the vinegar can enter them. Heat vinegar on stove and pour over peppers, kinda mash around with a spoon or something to help empty the air pockets in the peppers and top off with vinegar, allowing 1/2" head space. Water bath for 15 minutes (for longer term storage) or toss in fridge. Let sit for 2 weeks before using.

Totally Eat-able

2010-08-01T13:16:00.000-05:00

I ran across the most interesting recipe on one of the forums I frequent and it was just so out of the ordinary that I had to try it. Zucchini Candy, which can be found here with additional little tid-bits. I know what you are thinking, something along the lines of 'what the heck' but trust me, it's awesome!
Zucchini Candy
10 cups peeled diced zucchini 1/2 inch cubes
3 cups water
2 pkgs. unsweetened Koolaid
2 1/2 cups sugar
Peel zucchini, dice, removing seeds. Mix the liquid syrup together. Add zucchini. Bring to a boil and them simmer for 25 min. Drain. Put on dehydrator trays. Dry 14 hours at 125 degrees. Turn pieces over and dry another 4 hours. This will feel dry and not sticky when done. Store in jars or other tightly sealed containers.If you dip in sugar when you turn them, they will be more like "gum drops" on the outside.

Knowing my dehydrator and it's tenancy to eat diced foods I just peeled, scraped out the seeds and sliced into crescents about 1/4" thick (I wasn't thinking by that point, I was just hacking away, next time they will be a bit thicker). Based on what I had seen mentioned about the amount of syrup I decided to just add zucchini until I couldn't fit anymore in the amount of syrup, possibly around 15 cups but since I didn't measure, I can't be for sure.
I used the black cherry flavor Koolaid, since it's one of my more favorite flavors and filled my dehydrator almost to capacity. Then promptly forgot about it until this morning, say 18 hours? I let it cool and started retrieving the gummy worms, ahem, zucchini. Mine were still a bit tacky so I tossed in some granulated sugar and ended up with this:

5 cups of totally insane 'candy'. And it's delicious!! I so wish I had my own zucchini this year!!
Imagine candy that's somewhat good for you, has fiber, can count as a veggie serving, looks fun and tastes great. I'm already planning flavors for the next batch. I may have to get out my spare dehydrator.

Trying something different

2010-07-30T20:56:00.000-05:00

I have a couple ripe peaches and wanted to experiment. I used the same recipe for canning liquid that I used in the pickled cantaloupes and ended up with 2 pints of pickled peaches. I have enough of the liquid mix leftover to make more if these turn out ok, or it will be used on another cantaloupe if they don't. We'll see.

A half bushel of tomatoes

2010-07-30T20:51:00.000-05:00

Sounds like a lot doesn't it? But it's not, especially once all the seeds are removed and they are cut up. That was my day today... tomatoes, skinning tomatoes, seeding tomatoes, chopping tomatoes.....
So what did I can? Salsa, Italian tomatoes and just plain tomatoes. No big ground breaking recipes here, just your normal things from the Ball Complete Book of Preserving.

Salsa, 5 pints:

Regular old canned tomatoes, 4 quarts:

Italian Tomatoes, just plain tomatoes with a little basil, oregano and garlic added, 6 pints:

Banana Butter

2010-07-29T18:41:00.000-05:00

Was at the grocery store and found a nice big bag of reduced price bananas that were starting to turn brown, still good, but needed to be eaten or used straight away. At 15 cents cheaper than normal, the price was decent. I have several banana jam recipes but they are all overly complex and I don't have half the ingredents so I did a search and came across this one.

banana preserves!
so we had four bananas that were going bad and were into the banana-bread range, but we had no flour or eggs, so i found this recipe instead:

banana preserves:
4 bananas
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 c sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice / few shakes of cinnamon, ginger and cloves

mash up the bananas with the lemon juice
put the mash into a pan and bring to a boil, stirring so it doesn's splatter all over and kill you
once it thins out and breaks down some, throw in the sugar and the spice and bring back to a careful, non-killing boil
reduce heat and stir for 15 to 20 minutes while it simmers and thickens
jar up and seal (i do the boil-the-jar-while-everything's-cooking method)
made two moderately-sized random jar fulls
ate the last tablespoon or so on toast and it makes the regular bread taste like banana bread

oh, and i threw in the last maybe half-teaspoon of light rum which really didn't change the flavor at all, but maybe brandy or sherry would be a nice addition.

First off, I love the humor in the recipe and the simplicity is great! I didn't add the rum though. I tripled the banana count but only used 3 cups of sugar (seriously, why does everything have to be so ridiculously sweet?) and 6 tablespoons of lemon juice. Once it started cooking down I took out my hand blender and pureed it. Let it cook down by half and it was sheeting off a spoon. Processed 10 minutes.
Landed myself 7 half pints.

Pickled Cantaloupe

2010-07-29T16:36:00.000-05:00

I managed to land myself 2 free nearly ready to eat cantaloupes yesterday. I'm not a fan. Hubby already had a large amount of watermelon to eat and probably would not get to these before they were past edible. So what to do? Hit the books and google searches. I didn't like most of what I saw, especially the ones where you cook it for an hour. Then I found this little gem
Source: Southern Living July '99 (Carolyne M. Carnevale, Ormand Beach, FL

3		lemons -- thinly sliced
2	cups	water
2 1/2	cups	white vinegar -- 5% acidity
7		cinnamon sticks -- 2 inches each
24		whole cloves
2	large	cantaloupes -- cut into bite-size pieces

Bring first 5 ingredients to a boil in a large saucepan; reduce heat, and simmer 5 to 7 minutes.
Pack cantaloupes into hot jars; add hot syrup, filling to within 1/2 inch from top. Remove air bubbles; wipe jar rims. Cover at once with metal lids, screw on bands.
Process in boiling-water bath 10 minutes. Yield: 6 pints

This one I had to try. I didn't have any cinnamon sticks on hand and wasn't about to pay a fortune for that amount so I used ground cinnamon instead, 3 tablespoons. And apparently I had extra large cantaloupes because I ended up having to double the liquids to fill all the jars. Ended up with 6 pints and 6 half pints. I made sure to add a lemon slice or two to each jar as well.

Pickled Red Onions

2010-07-29T16:25:00.001-05:00

So we were sitting there watching Food Network and Throwdown comes on. Caught a glimpse of a pickled onion recipe and had to try it, it was the Oaxaca Dog episode. Though I had to make it can-able. So I tweeked Mr. Flay's recipe a bit.

The original:

3/4 cup fresh lime juice
3/4 cup distilled white vinegar
3 tablespoons super fine sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 serrano chile, slit down center
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh oregano leaves
1 large red onion, peeled, halved, cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices

Combine lime juice, vinegar, sugar, salt and chile in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook the mixture until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.

Put the onion slices in a small bowl. Pour the warm vinegar mixture over and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to 48 hours, stirring the mixture a few times.

My version:

1 cup lime juice
white vinegar to cover onions by about an inch
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons pickling salt
2 tablespoons dried oregano leaves
3 pounds red onion, peeled, halved, cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices (we used the last of ours straight out of the garden after they had been cleaned up and dried a few days)

Toss it all together in a large plastic bowl, cover and let sit overnight.
Next day, bring to a boil, ladle into jars and process for 15 minutes. Any liquid left that did not fill a jar would be great for pickled eggs! This gave us 3 pints and 3/4 pint of extra soaking liquid.

Taking a stab at gardinere

2010-07-16T14:58:00.002-05:00

We lived in Chicago for 5.5 years. One of the condiments hubby liked was the gardinere served on top of the roast beef sandwiches. I haven't wanted to even try this due to the amount of oil in most recipes that would prevent water bath and possibly even pressure canning so I passed.
That is until this year. I decided to do this my way, which is ignoring all the directions and making it up as I go. This is what I ended up with:

Want to know what I did? Yeah, well so do I!
Here's the general gist:
Veggies. All different types, diced and placed in a bowl with salt to draw out water. What veggies did I use?
Hmmmm...... cauliflower, yellow squash, onion, celery, green bell peppers, jalapenos and carrots
After letting the veggies marinate for a few hours, I didn't count, I was working on everything else I was canning, I drained and rinsed them well before tossing them in a stock pot where I covered them by an inch of white vinegar.
To this, while the mix was heating up to a boil, I added celery seed, dried whole chilies, red pepper flakes, mustard powder and dill powder (yeah, having to wait on those to arrive in whole form) and about a cup of sugar.
Once this hit a boil I ladled into jars and started processing, the pints and half pints for 10 minutes and the quarts for 15.

I'll add olive oil to these as needed once the are opened. For now though they get to sit and marinate for a few weeks.

Plum butter crazy

2010-07-16T14:45:00.001-05:00

I was lucky enough to be given 2 of those plastic shopping bags nearly full of plums, most of which were on the border of over-ripe. What to do with so many? 2 words. Plum. Butter.
I don't have a recipe for this, it's one of those things you kinda learn by watching reading and experimenting but here's an idea of what you do.
Grab the largest stock pot you own, well in my case I had to, but it still didn't hold all the plums at first.
Turn on burner to medium add a tiny bit of water to keep fruit from burning at first and start piling in the plums, whole or pitted, I decided to do them whole and fish out the pits later. Cook until they begin to break down stirring occasionally and add more if you have them.
Once all are added, reduce heat to medium low, possibly even low, and just cook until the plums have reduced by half. At this point I fished out the pits with my fry spider then pulsed a few times with my stick blender to break up any large skins.
Keep cooking this down until it starts to sheet off a spoon, this is where I add sugar to taste, usually only 1/4 the total mass of total fruit. If I have about 8 cups of fruit mush I'll only add about 2 cups sugar, but this is our taste, we don't like things too sweet. Cook until it gels on a cold plate, you can find directions for this in most canning books and sites, ladle into jars and water bath can at 15 minutes for quarts.

Whole fruit, not a lot of sugar. Great for sandwiches, toast, or anything you want to spread a little fruit on.

Once our peaches start ripening we'll do the same with them.

More bread and butter pickles

2010-07-16T14:33:00.001-05:00

With more of our very own cucumbers we decided we'd like to try bread and butter pickles, the same recipe I used for the zucchini. Not as big a batch this time only 5 quarts and 2 pints.

These look a bit cloudy for a reason. I am waiting on mustard seed, I ran out in the middle of the season!! Shame, shame, shame. But then again I wasn't planning on doing that many pickle recipes that called for it! So in order to get these preserved before it was too late (my spice order should be here Monday as we don't have Saturday service for large packages) I used powdered mustard seed instead.

Crisis averted and veggies saved for later use.

A time to shrivel

2010-07-16T14:27:00.001-05:00

Well I tried my hand at one of my grandmothers pickle recipes and learned a lot. I've always heard people talk about lime pickles and decided to give her recipe a try.
This is the recipe:
* 7 1/2 pounds Cucumber
* 2 cups pickling lime
* 2 gallons cold water
* 2 quarts white vinegar
* 4 1/2 pounds sugar
* 1 tablespoon pickling Salt
* 1 tablespoon pickling spice

Dissolve lime in water. Pour over cucumbers and let sit 24 hours.
Drain, rinse let soak in fresh water for an hour and repeat 2 more times for a total of 3 hours.
Mix together vinegar, sugar, salt and spice, bring to boil and let cool.
Pour over cucumbers and let sit overnight
Boil in vinegar mix 35 minutes and then pack into hot sterilized jars

This is what I ended up with:

A bit shriveled no? Well, I did them whole, didn't slit them or take off the little bit at the blossom end, that was a crucial step not known at the time. I'll know better next time though!
These are our very own cucumbers from our very own garden. Many things are coming in now so it's time for stocking the pantry!! Stay tuned for more kitchen stuffs!

When the garden gives you zucchini... or not....

2010-07-13T16:03:00.001-05:00

So our garden isn't cooperating fully this year. We have had NO squash of any type, none, zip, zilch. Which is a pity really since I actually love zucchini. What to do? Well you go visit a farmer's market on a Saturday and start asking around for a large amount, someone there is bound to have enough for a decent price. In my case, I landed two very large boxes full of zucchini for $10, at least 2 bushels worth!

What to do with all that zucchini before it goes south? Well you divide it in half, surf the internet and all your cook books for ideas then decide to make zucchini bread and butter pickles. Two days worth of prepping and canning later you end up with 8 quarts and 11 pints of pickles (unfortunately one of those pints exploded in the water bath on me so technically only 10 were finished). The picture is only a small portion of what I canned.

What to do with the other half? Save some out for fresh eating and slice the rest up for stewed zucchini, spend a couple of hours cooking it all down and toss it in the freezer.

Want the recipes?

Bread and Butter Zucchini Pickles:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1636,148176-228207,00.html

As for the stewed zucchini? Well.... we've never written it down, never measured anything, so here's the best rendition I can figure...
3 to 4 medium to large zucchini, trim ends and slice supper thin. I do this on a little 70's style plastic mandolin.
1/2 medium onion diced
about a tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste.
Toss it all in a sauce pan and cook on medium low until basically mushy, usually 30 to 45 minutes. Eat or dump into freezer containers.

This can be done with yellow squash as well. Add as much zucchini or squash as your pan can hold if you want.

Buiding a small frame for quilting

2010-06-17T18:33:00.000-05:00

As a quilter in a SMALL house inundated with 7 very active and mostly furry cats, I have trouble finding a place to work with the quilting needle. Especially during the dreaded spring/summer shed. I decided to do something about it, something light and portable and secure so if the fuzz butts do jump on it, it won't break. After combing the internet for ideas, I came up with this.

As for what it is, well it's simple. Schedule 40 1" PVC and a few pipe clamps and furniture corners I found at a green house supply place, littlegreenhouse.com. I ordered the longer sections of the clamps and cut them myself with the miter saw, saved a little cash that way. The PVC was bought locally in 10' lengths and cut down to sizes I needed to be comfortable while working. The two shorter arms can be interchanged with longer lengths of PVC giving me an enlargeable work area when needed. And above all, I can pick it up, walk it down the hall and into another room if I want. Or I can pop the top off, hang it and store the rest out of the way if I'm not working on the piece in it for some reason. Hence the obvious, DON'T GLUE THIS TOGETHER!

PVC furniture corners are great, very sturdy and easy to place and forget. There are a ton of places you can buy them online but I chose to get them from the same place as the clamps, one shipping charge instead of 2.

It takes a bit to manhandle the clamps on the first few times you try but once they are on, they don't move. Even after a 20 pound cat decides to jump up on the frame and use it for a new padded hammock. You can use as few or as many of the clamps as needed, they are removable and re-positionable.

And it looks as if you are getting a sneak peek at the embroidered cat quilt which is now in the frame. Providing I get time to work on it this weekend, it should be completed next week. We'll just have to see how the next few days want to behave.

Here Kitty Kitty

2010-05-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

So I have a little side project going for a wall hanging. I was looking for something different and came across this set of cats in needlecrafter.com's free pattern's directory. I had to have them but as per my usual thing I ignored the thread color directions and used what I wanted .

I got them done pretty fast actually, only took me a week for all four but it has taken me nearly 2 weeks to figure out what I wanted to do with them. I finally figured it out. Last night actually! I will be using these fabrics in a scrappy version of a Garden Maze pattern.

The empty muslin sections will probably have cat related quilting but I haven't decided yet. May even put in some embroidery, have no idea. We'll see which muse starts talking when I get to that point.

Jacobean Attic Windows is out of the frame!

2010-05-12T21:27:00.000-05:00

So the majority of the hand stitching has been completed. We finished the frame portion of the work about a half hour before the end of our workday today and had enough time for a quick picture. If you click on the picture above you should be directed to a very large version of this if you would like to see the stitching pattern closer.

Now comes the fun part..... I get to go back over it and fix anything we missed or accidentally messed up. Then I get to trim it up and add the binding. That I have to think on, still haven't decided what to bind it with, maybe more of the black pattern, maybe, maybe not. And considering the large number of shedding animals in my house right now (7 cats 6 dogs) I will have to confine all work on this to my bedroom where no critters other than hatchings are allowed so it's going to take even longer.

But the hardest part is done.

Now onto the next project..... embroidered cats..... Stay tuned for pictures, I have a decent camera now ;)

Voca Quilt Show 2010

2010-04-18T17:46:00.009-05:00

So I hope I've figured this out right and added the link to my site where I'm hosting the quilt show pictures!

Voca Quilt Show

All in all it was fairly good. The rain stopped for a while and the roads that had been closed due to low water crossings being flooded were eventually reopened. I arrived at 7:30 am to get pictures of all the quilts without interruption, hoping to get them without the flash on the camera but that didn't work out so well, there was just not enough light coming through the windows because of the clouds! Oh well.... it is what it is.

We ordered out for a hamburger lunch and took turns sneaking into the kitchen to eat. Many brought hand work to keep their fingers busy during the slow times.

Once we reached the end of the show and the ballots were counted, I managed to win a 2nd place ribbon in the wall hangings group with this entry:

It may have taken 10+ hours to put this show up but it only took 2 hours to tear it down.

Now that I have some free time.... I need to get back to playing with the needles. Well, as soon as I clean up the house and reclaim my sewing room from the cats that is. Could be a couple weeks yet.

Soup and a show

2010-04-16T22:22:00.004-05:00

So first, let me explain.....
I was hungry. Really hungry. I've been helping set up a quit show that will be going on tomorrow and it's been raining, really raining and well, I needed some comfort food.
So dinner tonight was matzo ball soup, homemade from scratch by me:

Now about that show......
The Voca Quilt Club, of which I am a member, is hosting a quilt show to benefit the Bluebonnet CASA group on April 17, 2010 from 10-4. It's an advocacy service for children.
We are displaying quilts from the community in a people's choice judging.
My roll in all this? I'm the youngest of the group, I have the muscle, youth, stamina and know how to build the displays so they didn't have to figure out how or who to do it. I offered and I'm officially done. I built most of the things at home and we've had several work days up here to finish.
We started setting up on Wednesday and this is how far we got:

A better look at the bases that will be holding up these quilts:
Thursday we started hanging quilts, I say we though in reality a group of other ladies handled the actual hanging of the quilts with ladders and such. I'm not so big a fan of ladders. I on the other hand did a lot of heavy lifting of tables, stands, placing antique quilts on the stage for display and such.
After we got done, this is just a small shot from the front of the room, I'll add more tomorrow from the show itself:

Today, Bobbi (another of us 'youngsters') built a shelf for the back room to hold all those displays when we aren't using them. I'll have a shot of that later. Just too exhausted to even think about finishing this entry!

Will have show pictures in the next few days. Wish us luck!!!

Pickled Silkie Eggs

2010-02-14T16:33:00.000-06:00

Pickled silkie eggs.
Oh the horror! The humanity!
The... the... the... yummy goodness!!!!

So what, you ask, is a silkie and why are the eggs different? Basically a silkie is an ancient breed of chicken that has feather issues that make them look fuzzy, in the States they are bantam sized. These are a few of our silkies. See? Fuzzy.Being as they are smaller chickens they produce smaller eggs. In the picture below you shall find eggs, clockwise from top center eggs are laid by Ezzy, Red, Joe, Bertha, Freak, Panic and Mayhem. The one in the center, the little one, was laid by Sweeny, the girl in the front in the picture above.

Now.... about those pickled eggs. Why pickle them? Why not? I have yet to have a silkie decide she needs to set eggs so I save them for a week, just in case. Every Sunday I take all the eggs from the previous week, hard boil them and pickle them. I get 3 eggs a day on average from my 5 silkie girls, giving me around 18 + a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Let's start this how to with the jar. I will use nearly any glass jar that I can close air tight. In today's case it's a roasted peanut jar. This is one of the larger ones, right at a quart, will be a nice fit for 18 eggs. We shall follow the jar on this journey.

So, while those eggs are boiling, get your apple cider vinegar warmed up. I use 2 cups with 1/2 tsp pickling salt (not iodized salt please), and 1 tsp sugar, in a sauce pan over a medium low burner. I put the spices in the jar itself. 1 Tbsp onion flakes, 1 Tbsp whole pickling spice (that's this week's recipe, I vary what I use/add, no two batches are the same with the exception of the pickling spice).
Once the eggs are boiled and peeled and still warm, pack them in the jar, just don't cram them in and break them. I just drop them in as I unpeel and rinse them, no shells wanted in the jar.
Then you pour the warm vinegar mix over them and jiggle the jar to get out all the little air bubbles. Cap it tight and toss in the fridge for a week or so before eating. Yep the fridge, I'm too chicken to try leaving these out on the counter or canning them. Tastes the same I swear!
Last week's batch, I actually had 30 eggs from the silkies so I made an extra jar. They are tainted with hot sauce and tsien-tsien chillies (jar on the left).
Now that we have a taste for the pickled eggs, and trust me a jar of 18 only lasts a week, all the girls will decide to set the same day and we won't get any silkie eggs for at least a month while they hatch and raise their broods!

Making do

2010-02-12T11:30:00.000-06:00

What do you do when it's freezing cold outside at the jobsite and you've already lost 60% of your income? You make do with what you can find instead of buying those new insulated coveralls!
Hubby is working out in the rain and mud, he gets cold easy and several layers of clothing just aren't cutting it so we had to find another option. And we did. We lucked up on a set of lined bib overalls that were at least one size too big, 6 inches too long in the legs and missing a button for one of the straps... but they were FREE!
Last night I set to work with a quick repair to at least get hubby a day or three of warmth while I wait on the zipper issues to magically resolve themselves in my head. You see, the legs are zippered all the way down. I had thought it was just a boot zipper and knew I had replacements so I could take off the extra length and replace the zipper. Nope, full leg zipper, from thigh to ankle and they are about 5 or 6 inches too long.
Anyway, the quick repair. I had to recreate some sort of fastener where the button was ripped out. Knowing this would happen again should I replace the button I decided to make a hook. I pulled out my heavy duty denim patches, which didn't match either, patched the hole left by the button, ironed it on (still fighting with Onyx for the iron I might add) and sewed over it with my machine. Good. Looked tolerable.
Nice and secure but what to make the hook out of? I remembered the large coil of bronze wire I had stashed away but it wasn't as thick as I remembered, only 12 gauge, so I had to think. We have a roll of bailing wire outside, no, decided that was a last resort. Then I remembered that bag of old wire hangers. Bingo! I hunted down the lineman's pliers, the ring pliers, and a few other of my jewelers/wire working type pliers and set to work. Once finished I tacked it on with doubled upholstery thread to get him through today, I will go back and cover with denim later this weekend to protect those threads.
Then I had to address the fact that this thing was meant for a tall person and the back was just too long and the straps were as well making the whole overall puddle around his waist. I made him hold really still while I set to work pinning up the back for a temporary fix until I had enough time to actually go in and take apart the seams and redo the sizing. I took the heavy thing to my machine and had to fight to get 3 layers of denim and lining to fit under the foot! Oh the horror! I broke 2 needles, and the machine fought back, birds nesting in all the wrong places but I got it done. It doesn't look pretty but it's functional for now.

Now to figure out the zipper issue, I'm thinking about possibly moving the brass stops on the bottom of the zippers up to where I need them and just hacking off and hemming like I normally do with his pants. Just have to figure out how to undo those brass stops.

Jacobean Attic Windows

2010-02-10T19:03:00.000-06:00

So I finally got the borders added to the quilt Tuesday morning and had to fight a rather insistent cat while marking everything for quilting. Onyx was being an absolute royal pain and decided that the table where I was working was where he needed to be. Whether it was sleeping, jumping, attacking thread or fabric or just generally being his normal annoying self, the table was the point of his attention.
After finally getting it marked up, folded and tucked away in a cat proof bag I started worrying over the backing. I finally decided on that blue paisley:

So I sewed it together to make it wide enough and had to again fight with Onyx, though this time it was over the iron. The little devil knocked it off several times while I was attempting smooth out the massive wrinkles in the fabric. After ironing the whole thing 3 times without getting the worst winkles out and having a rather large knot on my heel from the monster's last attempt to kill me I gave up and prayed it would stretch out straight on the frame.
Then I pulled out my last roll of batting, it was high loft. I panicked. This is for a group of hand quilters, I was afraid it would be way too thick. But I unrolled it and fluffed in the dryer anyway. To my shock when I pulled it out it wasn't as high lofted at I envisioned so it got to go with me to quilting.
After much vacuuming, finagling, pinning, repinning, stretching, rolling, pulling and smoothing we got the quilt into the frame today. Here is a side view, I'm having to stand on top of a chair to get this much of the quilt in the shot! Top of the quilt is to the right.

Since this quit will be for my mother in return for buying me the bundle of panels, it has pink it it. I am not a fan of pink, if this quilt were for me, it would be blue or purple instead of pink!

We only work on Wednesdays from 1 to 5 so it will be a couple of months before you get to see the finished project, but for real hand quilting with those tiny stitches, it will be worth the wait!

Oh.... and I guess I ought to introduce Onyx. He was a rescue in September 2008, just a few days after we lost our beloved Topaz. When I picked him up I nearly lost what control I had on my emotions. He looked very similar to Topaz and had an attitude to match. He still has the attitude, in spades!

The Jacobean Quilt, a needle work rescue story

2010-02-08T13:13:00.000-06:00

Back over the summer when my parents were visiting we stopped in a thrift store and found a large amount of embroidery panels, 14 of which were finished. The embroidery was excellent and the price, though high, was tolerable. So... my mother bought them, handed them over and told me to finish them. These panels were from the 70's!
They came with the instructions and color chart for a floss that is no longer made but after many, many thrift store adventures I found all but one. So I divided up the panels, half for me -all unworked- so I could ignore the color chart and half for her including the ones that had been started. I finished them, they look almost identical to the original needleworker's stitching, but they were stained unevenly. So I washed, still stained and dingy. Tea dying to the rescue and they were all even colored. I cut them down to 12.5" and started designing a quilt that would suit my mother's taste.
The panel:

After some rifling through my stash and a forced order of fabric, since I didn't have enough of the green leaf print, these are the colors I've picked:But what to do about the block pattern? I drew out many different possibilities but none of them struck me as appropriate for this embroidery.... then I had an idea. Really large attic windows, and I mean really large! But I had to figure out which way looked best:

or

I finally settled on one and started sewing up the blocks. The one I picked:

The black and leaf green fabrics will be borders to this quilt making it a total of around 88" x 88", close to queen size. It will also be hand quilted by the Voca Quilt Club, of which I am a member. It should go in this week (Wednesday 2/10/10, geeze this is cutting it close to the wire) as my turn to put in a quilt is up! Next blog entry will show the whole finished quilt top in the frame and the backing I have yet to decide on. Probably going to be a light blue paisley but I haven't finished searching my stash yet.

What about chickens?

2009-10-27T20:09:00.000-05:00

Ever thought about where your eggs come from? No, they do NOT spontaneously appear at the store. They are NOT manufactured in a food processing facility. They are made by chickens. Hens (female chickens) lay one egg a day at most even without a rooster around and NO the eggs aren't baby chickens, especially if there isn't a rooster around. Even if you do have a rooster, it doesn't mean you have a baby chick in the egg. For it to have a chick in it the hen has to sit on it for 21 days, incubating it so that the egg develops into a chick and that's only if it was fertilized by a rooster.

I get the strangest questions about chickens and eggs, if you really want to know more do a little research or visit www.backyardchickens.com

Now, about my chickens. I've just started back into chicken ownership. I have 3 Easter Egger pullets (EE's), 3 New Hampshire Red pullets (NHR's), a mixed breed hen, an EE chick and three mixed breed chicks. I have more mixed breed eggs and 3 silkie eggs in the incubator, set to hatch near November 6. My hen has stopped laying due to molting and the 3 NHR's should be laying big brown eggs any day now, the 3 EE pullets.... well I should be getting blue tinted eggs come spring.
Here are my 'girls'

Red the treat hog:
Bertha, the shy one:
Josephine, the crooked comb
Esmeralda, she only tolerates me for treats:

My 3 EE's, who are still terrified of me. Top row left to right, Freak and Panic and the bottom girl is Mayhem:And last but not least the 6 week old chicks, top to bottom Seven (EE), Karate Kid (mutt), Danielson (mutt), and Miagi (mutt):

If all you've ever heard about chickens is that they are stupid, loud, nasty, filthy, dirty creatures that don't deserve a spot in your yard.... Well you need to think again. They are only as 'nasty' as their owners let them get. Most hens aren't loud, roosters on the other hand can be. Stupid I'll give you but it's all a matter of perspective. Having chickens give you eggs, entertainment, and bug control. Look into chicken ownership and participate in the 'Slow Food' movement, though I'm not sure who would consider a chicken slow.........

Why am I doing this?

2009-10-08T13:10:00.000-05:00

Seriously, I have no clue. I guess it's just another way to be creative.
I have far too many hobbies that use needles and have stepped on more than a few stray needles. They hurt, make you pause for a second to retrieve them and are generally an aggravation. Then you go on your merry way and eventually you step on another one. I guess that's what I am, a stray needle.
Not sure how often I'm going to update this, my hobbies and interests keep me hopping, though I will strive for at least every month.

Hobbies for these stray needles:
Quilting, not just piecing bits of fabric together and handing it off to someone to finish, I'm talking quilting, the real deal with little needles and lots of thread and a thimble that doesn't have a hole in it.
Sewing, yes I do still sew somethings by hand.
Applique, not with the machine either. I cut out my pieces and turn them under and out comes that needle.
Bead weaving, not just loom work either. I am partial to RAW (right angle weave) and Peyote stitches at the moment.
Needle tatting, still not proficient with it though.
Embroidery, no easy way out here with a machine, no I do this by hand, with needles. And we aren't talking cross stitch either, no that would be too easy.
Beaded embroidery, same thing as above but with tiny beads added to the mix. Can you tell I'm a glutton for punishment yet?

There are a few more I think but can't remember since I don't do all of this every day.