FoodSaver and Bulk Meat

Since we've moved out into the country and have a large pantry, I've really gotten into the whole "food storage" thing. For one thing, I don't have to worry about getting snowed in. That doesn't happen often, but my neighbor tells me they were snowed in for over a week once, unable to even get out of the driveway (which we share with them).

But mostly, it's a heck of a lot more economical if I buy in bulk or when things are on sale. I also save trips to the store by always having something on hand for dinner.


Here's a lovely pork loin that was on sale this week. I snagged it.


$2.99 a pound is a good price by any standards. Meats here go on sale for ridiculously low prices (compared to Atlanta) but the produce selection is poor, frequently wilted, and expensive. That's okay, I have a garden. I'll happily take the cheap meat.


We like boneless pork chops so instead of buying boneless pork loin chops like I used to do, I get the whole loin and slice it up into thick chops myself. I could probably ask the guy at the meat department to do that for me, but I just never have bothered. Boneless is easy to slice!


I put three chops in each bag and seal it up. Then I label it and put it in the freezer. This loin yielded 5 packs of three chops each, plus a leftover end that I'll use for soup or fried rice. $3 for a pack of three thick boneless loins. You can't beat it.

Hot Pepper Jam/Relish

This summer I tried making jam for the first time. I've canned lots of stuff, even meat, but jams and jellies have always seemed daunting to me. I think it's due to a traumatic childhood experience when I made "fudge" at my Aunt's house. I was in high school, I think, or early college. I'd bragged and bragged to her about my great fudge, and one time when I was visiting, I made some.

It didn't set.

It was raining outside, and I blamed the weather. I still do. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. We ate sticky tarry chocolaty goodness with spoons and almost lost our teeth in the process. So I'm understandably wary of things that should jell or set.

We had an extra long growing season this past summer and the peppers produced at the last minute, in great quantities. Had it not been for the extra two frost-free weeks, we'd have had a meager harvest from our dozen or so plants, but as it was we had an abundance of peppers. So, I set out to find things to do with all those peppers. One thing I tried was hot pepper jam (or relish). I got the recipe from the little paper fold-out in the Sure-Jell box. They call it relish, but I call it jam.

Hot Pepper Relish (or Jam)

*4 cups stemmed, seeded, and chopped peppers
1 cup cider vinegar
5 cups sugar

*Approx 2 medium green peppers, 3 medium red peppers, and 10 large jalapeno peppers. I used a mixture of bell, Italian, and jalapeno.

1. Fill boiling water canner half full and bring to simmer.
2. Wash jars and bands in hot soapy water, rinse well. Bring lids just to a simmer then cut off the heat.
3. Measure exact amount of peppers, 1 box Sure-Jell, and apple cider vinegar into 6 or 8 quart sauce pot (yes it needs to be this big!). Add 1/2 tsp. butter or margarine to prevent foaming, if desired (I did).
4. Measure exact amount of sugar into separate bowl.
5. Bring pepper mixture to a full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly.
6. Stir in sugar quickly and return to full rolling boil for exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and skim off any foam.
7. Ladle quickly into prepared jars, leaving 1/8 inch head space. Wipe jar rims and threads, cover with lids. Process in a boiling water bath for ten minutes (you may need to add water to the canner to ensure the jars are covered by 1 to 2 inches).
8. Put jars upright on a towel and allow to cool for 24 hours to ensure a seal. If one doesn't seal, reprocess or eat it first.

You see why jams and jellies make me a nervous wreck? Just look at step 6. Return to a full rolling boil for exactly 1 minute. Well I spent a good 20 seconds just wondering if I was looking at a full rolling boil or if it needed to bubble just a little more strongly and consistently. My timing could have been off by half (or more), and timing is critical to a proper jell.

And another thing! How do you measure *exactly* 4 cups of chopped peppers? How finely do you chop them? What about air space in there? Do you pack it down? Do you make it so the tops of the peppers reach the four cup mark, or do you let it go up over the mark a bit, to compensate for the places where the peppers don't quite reach the mark?

Things like this keep me awake at night.

As it turns out, the relish/jam was a grand success. It tastes FABULOUS with cream cheese on bagels or crackers. I think it would be fantastic on a turkey sandwich, too, but haven't yet tried it. I give this recipe A+++. Will prepare again.

Pizza! Pizza!

We made pizza the other night. We've made pizza before, but we always bought the pre-made crusts. I've been afraid of pizza dough for some reason. Maybe it's all that tossing. Didn't Lucille Ball get into trouble trying to make pizza? She probably did, and I probably saw it, and I'm probably subconsciously scarred for life.


My cookbook says if I want dough for two twelve inch pizzas I mix
1 package yeast dissolved in 1/3 cup warm water
4 cups flour
2 Tbsp oil
2 tsp salt

Let it rise for a couple of hours, punch down, let rest 5 minutes, then spread with hands or roll out.

The dough looked really small, and we had company. I figured the company (young men) could eat a 12" pizza each, so I made a triple batch. It was HUGE after it rose. It rose again during cooking after being spread out into the cookie sheet pans. Next time I'll make the sides much thinner.


I used home canned marinara for the sauce (one pint per cookie-sheet sized pizza) but you can use 2 cups tomato sauce plus 2 tsp oregano.

The first one was pepperoni and bacon with a bag of mozarella cheese.
The second was pepperoni and frozen italian peppers from the garden with a bag of mozarella cheese.

I had enough dough left over to make a ton of breadsticks and I still fed a little dough to the dogs. And now I'm not afraid of pizza dough any more.

Caribbean One-Pot Stew

So, I've got these sweet potatoes that aren't storing well. I canned some, and I went to allrecipes.com to find good ways to use sweet potatoes. Tried this Caribbean stew this weekend and WOW, I loved it!! My husband liked it, said it was interesting, very good. It knocked my socks off. Here's how the recipe looked on allrecipes.com:


INGREDIENTS

* 1 pound sweet potatoes
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 2 tablespoons minced ginger
* 3 garlic cloves, minced
* 1/4 jalapeno, minced
* 2 stalks celery, diced
* 1 green bell pepper, diced
* 1 small onion, diced
* 1 pound pork loin, trimmed and cut in 1/2-inch pieces
* 1 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 3 (16 ounce) cans BUSH'S® BEST Dark Red Kidney Beans, rinsed and drained
* 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
* 1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth

DIRECTIONS

1. Prick sweet potatoes with fork and microwave on high for 6-8 minutes until tender. Set aside. When cool, peel and cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Heat olive oil in large stockpot. Add ginger, garlic and jalapeno and saute until soft, about 2 minutes. Add celery, green pepper and onion, and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes.
2. Season pork with cumin, salt and pepper. Push vegetables to one side of stockpot and add pork, browning on all sides. Add BUSH'S BEST Dark Red Kidney Beans, tomatoes, broth and sweet potatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 25-30 minutes, or until pork is tender. Taste and adjust seasonings. Garnish with a spoonful of relish made from 1 cup chopped pineapple, 2 sliced scallions, and 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro. Serve with hot sauce, if desired.

Here's how it went when I prepared it. I don't have lots of fresh produce on hand. Round trip to the nearest grocery store is 44 miles, 80 minutes, and about $7 in gas. I don't go very often and consequently I rarely have fresh stuff on hand unless it's gardening season.

Put dehydrated celery, onion, and ancho peppers in boiling water to rehydrate. I could have used bell pepper but wanted some mild heat from the anchos. Toss in a whole serrano pepper because I don't have any dried jalapeno peppers and please, one quarter of a jalapeno just sounds TOO wimpy!

Put "some" dried kidney beans in a sauce pan (a third of the one pound bag? maybe more?), cover generously with water, bring to a boil for two minutes, and leave to soak for an hour.

Microwave some sweet potatoes, cut into chunks. Later on when adding to the pot decide you need more and add them uncooked. Works just as well and will leave them all raw next time.

Pull some boneless pork loin chops out of the deep freezer (we buy whole pork loins when they're on sale and slice them into chops). Cut into cubes, toss with cumin, powdered ginger (use 1/3 as much as you would fresh grated), salt, and pepper, and brown in stock pot along with the garlic. Add rehydrated veggies and saute with meat and garlic for a little while.

Dump in a can of diced tomatoes, the kidney beans, the sweet potatoes, and a pint of rabbit broth because I'm out of chicken broth but have plenty of rabbit. Let simmer for a while.

Open a can of chunk pineapple and put a scant half of it in the blender. Add a bunch of chopped up chives out of the garden because we have no scallions, and some dried cilantro. Whir together.



It was exploding with flavor. I absolutely could not get enough of it. My mouth danced.

I think it is way cool that I can have an exotic gourmet tasting dish like this without even having to run to the store.

A+++. Will definitely cook again.

Vacuum Sealing Jars

We have a vacuum sealer. We use it to vacuum seal our chicken and rabbit into bags before freezing them. We also buy boneless pork loins on sale, cut them into thick boneless chops, vacuum seal in meal-sized portions, and freeze for later. It's real nice having stuff in the freezer and not having to worry about going to the store (40 minute drive one way), especially in bad weather.


Another thing I like to use the vacuum sealer for is bulk purchased dry goods like chocolate chips, nuts, and dried fruit. Vacuum sealing is NOT a substitute for canning. It doesn't kill any germs. Vacuum sealing in a mason jar is only a substitute for vacuum sealing in a bag. Mason jars fit on a shelf better, though, so for non-frozen items I use jars.

In the photo, the jar on the left was sealed in December 2006, almost a year ago. The jar on the right was sealed November 5 2007, the same day the photo was taken. The older chips have whitened ever so slightly, but you'd never notice it once you put them into some cookies.

I bought two huge bags of chocolate chips at Sam's wholesale this weekend, so I'm set for another year. Cookies, anyone?

Canning Beans, Step by Step

KathyJo asked me recently about canning. I think everyone who undertakes canning initially worries about two things:

Will I poison my family?
Will the canner blow up?

If you follow tested and proven canning techniques and timing, canning is a source of healthy delicious food. It feels so good looking at your jars of home canned food sitting on the shelf; I can't explain why, really. It feels much better than looking at store-bought metal cans with attractive paper wrappers.

I canned some green beans this weekend, and here's how I did it.

1. Wash the jars. This is just to make sure they're clean. You want to get the dust off, you don't need to sterilize them.

2. Get your food ready to put in the jars. This usually means washing, trimming off bad spots, maybe heating it up if the directions say to. For beans, you just wash, string, and snap. Trim out any bad spots.

3. About 30 minutes before you think you'll be done getting the beans ready to go into the jars, put water in your canner (see your owner's manual for the amount to put in). I also put jars in at this time, with some water in them to keep them from trying to float. Turn the burner on high to get everything hot. You're not trying to sterilize anything here, just getting everything hot. When canning, you want to avoid going from hot to cold or vice versa. Rapid temperature changes cause the jars to break. We're after getting everything hot, not sterile.

4. Finish getting your food ready while the jars heat up.

5. Fill a tea kettle or sauce pan with water and put it on high heat; we want this water boiling hot.

6. Put your lids in a small sauce pan. Just cover them with water, and put the heat on low. You want the lids very warm but NOT boiling. This softens the sticky ring where the lid will come into contact with the jar, making a better seal.

Although some people re-use flats, I NEVER do. They only cost about ten cents apiece and it's just not worth the risk of a failed seal. I've put too much work in to risk a failed seal by trying to save ten cents.

7. Take the jars out of the canner and empty them. I wear Playtex gloves for this part, to keep from burning my hands. Put your food into the hot jars; a canning funnel is an immense help at this point. If you don't have one, GET ONE. I usually do between one and three jars at a time, so they stay hot.

You want to get the jars good and full, so the food doesn't float in the jar with a lot of liquid at the bottom after you're done. I fill the jar 1/3 to 1/2 full, then bang on the side of it with the heel of my hand, like I would a stubborn ketchup bottle. I turn it and bang on it several times on all sides of the jar. Then I add more beans and bang on it again. This settles the beans so I can cram more in there. Finally, I add a few at the very top and press them down into the jar with my fingers.

Fill the jar to the bottom of the threads.

8. Pour boiling water from your tea kettle or sauce pan over the beans. I use the funnel to help avoid water spills. Fill the jar to the bottom of the threads. The funnel is cleverly designed so that the bottom of the funnel is right where you want the beans and water to reach.

8. Use a non-metal spatula to get rid of any air bubbles. I never do this step because my spatula always seems to introduce as much air as it frees. The reason for this step is because you want the contents of the jar to heat uniformly. You don't want a mixture of liquid and air bubbles because the air and the liquid will heat at different rates.

9. Wipe the rims of the jars with a wet, clean cloth. ALWAYS do this step. Just a little bean skin or tiny bit of potato can cause a seal to fail. You've done too much work to get lazy and skip this step.

10. Put the lids on (if you're wearing Playtex gloves you can just reach into the little sauce pan and grab them with your hands). Put the rings on and tighten "finger tight". About as tight as you'd tighten a mayonnaise lid before you put it in a cooler and go on a picnic.

The ring is there to hold the flat lid in place during the canning process. It is NOT there to make the jar seal. In fact, a little bit of air needs to be able to vent out of the jar during the canning process, so don't crank it down as tight as you are able. Rings can be re-used.

10. Put the jars into your canner.

11. My canner is ancient and ugly. I'm embarrassed to put its picture on my blog, but there you have it.

The lid locks in place quite securely, and one way only, due to the slots and tabs on the lid and canner. Put it on and twist to lock.

In the bottom left of the picture you can see a metal circle; that's a metal cylinder and it will raise up to indicate that pressure is building inside the canner.

In the middle of the lid is a metal tube where steam escapes. This is where the weights go, to control the pressure at which you are canning.

On the far side of the lid is a black rubber stopper. If pressure builds up too high in the canner, this stopper will blow out and keep the pressure from becoming dangerously high inside the canner.

Put the lid on and turn the heat up to high.

12. After a while the metal cylinder will raise up. After it raises, set a timer for ten minutes and let steam vent through the pipe in the middle of the lid. Follow your canner's instructions for this part. Mine says 7 to 10 minutes if canning at 10 pounds pressure, but do what your manual says to do.


This is the weight. It is in three pieces and you add or remove pieces so it measures 5, 10, or 15 pounds of pressure. Using the middle piece by itself would allow you to can at 5 pounds pressure. Add one ring to can at ten pounds pressure, and both rings (as shown below) to can at fifteen pounds of pressure.


13. I'm canning at ten pounds of pressure, so I put the center piece and one ring onto the metal stem in the center of my canner lid. It balances there like a top or a see-saw.

14. After a little while, the pressure will build up inside the canner so that the weight starts rocking back and forth. Set your timer for however long you want to process the food. For quarts of green beans, my manual says to process 40 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. Lower the heat so that the pressure doesn't keep on building. You want to maintain a gentle rocking of the weight.

This is when the food gets sterilized, so make sure you process for the full amount of time, and that the weights gently rock the entire time.

15. When the time is up, turn off the heat and leave the canner alone until the metal cylinder drops back down, indicating pressure has returned to normal. DON'T run cold water over the canner to cool it off (drop pressure) faster. DON'T jiggle the weights to let steam out and drop pressure faster. Be patient. If you cool the contents too quickly, you can break jars. If I have a batch going late in the evening, I frequently turn off the heat and go to bed, leaving the canner on the stove until the next morning.

16. As the jars cool, the now-sterile contents contract and a vacuum is formed. You will hear the lids pop or ping, indicating the seal has been made. If you look closely at the new unused lids, you will see a little "bubble" on them. This "bubble" gets sucked down when the vacuum forms, and makes a pop or ping sound.

After a few hours you can poke the lids with your finger. They should remain stationary and inflexible. If any of them have a "bubble" in the middle that flexes up and down, it means the seal was broken and there is no vacuum. Either re-process these jars or put them in the fridge and eat the food promptly.

17. After 24 hours, you can remove the rings. Wash the rings and put them away.

Wash the jars, too. You might have sticky threads where some of the contents leaked out, or you might have mineral deposits if your water has lots of minerals.

Getting your jars good and clean is not only attractive, but it ensures that if you have any spoilage and leaking during storage you are alerted to it immediately. You won't wonder "Is that leakage due to spoilage, or did it maybe leak a little bit during canning?"

Label the jars and shelve them. I don't use stick on labels because the glue can be impossible to get off. I write on the lids with a laundry marker. I try to put at least the date. If I've grown several varieties of something, I will put the variety. For example, on my beans I put "Bush Blue Lake" and the date.

If you're making ketchup or marinara or some other recipe, good labeling is very important. You might think there's no way you could look at a jar and wonder what's inside but you WILL forget. You'll be disappointed putting BBQ sauce on your toast instead of apple butter.

One final note about canning. My canner has weights, but some have a dial and some have both. I prefer the weights for canning below 1000 feet because they are self-regulating to an extent. They rock and release steam, keeping the pressure at 5, 10, or 15 pounds pressure. You do have to toy with the heat a bit but once you're in the ballpark the weights automatically take care of the fine tuning.

For canning above 1000 feet, I'd prefer a dial. You have to babysit them more closely and fiddle with the heat level more to keep them at the correct pressure, but you have the ability to can at 11, 12, or 13 pounds of pressure. This is important if you're adding "one pound for every 100 feet above 1000 feet" or whatever that rule is. I've never lived above 1000 feet so don't remember the rule exactly but it will be in your manual. With weights you can't increment the pressure by one or two pounds. Your only choices are five, ten, and fifteen pounds.

Okay, one more final note. Get the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. It is the mother of all canning guides and has some kick-butt recipes in it. It covers pressure canning (like I described in this post), water bath canning (for high-acid foods), and freezing.

Bean There, Done That

This is what I did yesterday afternoon. I picked a bunch of bush beans, washed them, snapped them, and canned them. While one batch was in the canner I'd be washing and snapping the next batch. While the last batch was in the canner, I did Sudoku. I was tired.

I prefer pole beans but the deer ate my pole beans this year and when I replanted there wasn't enough time for pole beans to produce before the average first frost. So I planted bush beans. These are Blue Lake and I am pleased with them. They are prolific, taste good, and are stringless.

Peppers

I made salsa the other day with a batch of tomatoes I picked from the garden. The recipe calls for lots of sweet bell peppers, and some hot peppers. My bell peppers are producing very slowly, so my salsa has a mix of peppers. I picked a little bit of everything in order to get enough for the salsa.

Clockwise, from left: Tolli's Italian Pepper. As sweet as a bell pepper and quite prolific. The peppers get larger than this, but I'd picked recently for something else so had to settle for smaller ones.

Ancho Gigantea. This dark green pepper has a mild heat. I really like it! It's pretty prolific, too. Needs a support frame like a tomato cage.

Bell Pepper.

Habanero. An extremely hot pepper; our variety turns yellowish orange when ripe. I used 3/4 of a pepper (well seeded and white membranes removed) in my 7 pint batch of salsa. They are HOT HOT HOT.

Jalapeno. Used a lot in Tex-Mex foods. We love the flavor of these. I grew four or five plants this year and it's not going to be nearly enough.

Melon!

I've never grown melons before. This year I planted some watermelon, some green muskmelon, and some orange muskmelon.

This one is Edisto 47 and it is YUM good.

Fresh picked melons are lots juicier than store bought. You have to get ready and slice near the sink. Have a dish cloth handy.

We ate half of this one and cut the other half into bite sized chunks and froze them on a cookie sheet, then put them in a ZipLock freezer bag for later. They are okay frozen if you eat them while they're still icy cold and not completely thawed.

Sink of Tomatoes

Last year, the tomatoes succumbed to late blight before we got much of a harvest. This year has been very dry, so we've had other challenges, but the harvest has been quite satisfactory as far as I'm concerned.

We grew paste tomatoes this year. When I get ready to process tomatoes, I place them into one sink, and wash them and put the clean tomatoes into the other sink. From there I blanch, skin, core, and process.

My sink has happily had a lot of tomatoes go through it this summer.

Canning Squash

I haven't blogged in ages. It's canning season and my days are FILLED with washing, peeling, trimming, slicing, cooking, stirring, and canning.

Most people don't can summer squash. It's not recommended because the squash turns so soft and mushy. I can it, though, because I use it in my Grandmama's Delicious Squash Casserole (TM). I'm going to mash it for the casserole, so it doesn't matter that it's soft and mushy. In fact, that makes casserole making easier! The recipe calls for 2 cups mashed, but I just drain and mash what's in the quart jar and call it good.

To can summer squash, pick it young and trim the ends. Slice it into 1/2" slices (I sliced mine a lot thicker, but did a hot pack so it was well heated before canning).

Raw pack (1" head space) or hot pack (1/2" head space).
Add 1/2 tsp. salt (pints) or 1 tsp. salt (quarts) if desired.
Process pints for 30 minutes, or quarts for 40 minutes at 10 lbs. pressure.

Squash Casserole
2 cups cooked, drained, and mashed squash
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp. minced dried onion or 1/4 cup chopped fresh
1/4 cup (1 stick) melted margarine

Mix and put in greased 2 quart casserole.
Bake at 350F about 40 minutes until lightly browned.

***

This recipe freezes well, too. I've made a few double and triple recipes this summer and frozen them in quart ziplock freezer bags. If you do this, measure four cups of casserole "mix" per bag.

Making a Garlic Braid

I grew garlic for the first time this year. I grew four different types and now I can't find the markers saying what I planted where. From what I read, hardneck garlics form scapes but softnecks do not. One of my garlic types did not produce scapes and the neck is indeed pliable. I decided to braid this garlic after curing the plants and setting aside the three best heads for planting in the fall.


Braiding garlic is pretty much like braiding anything else, except you add in garlic plants as you go. I begin by placing a garlic plant in the center, bulb away from me. Then I place a plant to the right and cross its stem over the first plant. Then I take a third plant and put it on the left. I'll cross its stem into the center of the other two, and my braid is begun.


Just like braiding anything else, the right hand bit (the rightmost stem) now crosses to the center.


I add in a garlic plant by placing the new plant's stem alongside a stem that is already a part of the braid, and that is being crossed over into the center.


I continue adding in plants as I go, first on one side and then on the other. I add a plant from each side, then do a couple of "cross over to the center"s without adding in a new garlic plant. This results in a loose braid that is not as pretty as a tight braid, but will allow for better air circulation. I'm concerned about the garlic going bad if it isn't well ventilated, because I live in a very humid area.


After all the garlic has been braided in, I continue braiding the stems. I tie these off with a bit of bailing twine but you can also just tie the stems in a simple knot.

To use the garlic, just get some scissors and snip off the bulb that you want. Easy peasy.

This is the first time I've done garlic like this, but I experimented with some onions last year and they kept all winter long. I hung them in a terrible location, too - the south facing window above the sink in my kitchen. I hung this garlic braid on a nail in my pantry. I think it should keep pretty well in there with no sunlight and fairly regular temperatures.

Making Applesauce

I can't believe it's been over a week since I updated my blog. I feel like I've been busy yet I don't recall anything blogworthy happening recently. I did make some applesauce a couple of weeks ago, when I took pictures of the apple peeler slicer corer gizmo. Applesauce is embarrassingly easy to make and tastes lots better than store-bought if you make it yourself.First, get all set up. I have a great big monster 12 quart stock pot that I put the apples in. I don't bother treating them to preserve the color because I don't care if my applesauce is pristine white or not. I do treat apples I'm going to dehydrate or use in pies. I put a towel down because this is sticky work. I have an empty ice cream bucket for scraps. Usually I have two: one for cores and one for peels. The cores go to the chickens and the peels to the rabbits. I have a paring knife for trimming errant skin, bad spots, and off-center cores. I have the peeler slicer corer gizmo. And I have optimistically prepared myself a cup of coffee. I know that my hands will be all juicy slimy yet I persist in the naive optimistic notion that I could enjoy a hot sip of coffee from time to time. The cup is cold by my third sip, if I manage to take that many, and it's covered in sticky drying juice goo. Yet next time I sit down to do something with apples, I'll make myself another cup. Go figure.

Cut the apples up and dump them in the pot. You don't have to peel and core them if you're going to put them though a food mill later, because the food mill will remove the seeds and skins. I peel and core anyway, because it makes the food mill work go so much faster. Plus the gizmo is fun to use.

Put enough water in the pot to keep the apples from sticking. For me, that's about 1/4" on the bottom of the pot. The apples will make lots of juice as they get hot so you only need a little bit to get things started. Cook until soft.
Put them through a foley mill or food processor. The foley mill will make it nice and smooth and remove stray bits of skin and seeds that managed to escape your scrutiny earlier. You can also whir them in a food processor but that won't remove the unwanted bits, and it's harder to control the consistency. I tried it once before I had my foley mill and I had lumpy sauce or baby food.
Cook the applesauce a bit if it's too runny. Add sugar to taste. You might add as much as 1/4 cup per pound of apples if they're tart. I used golden delicious and didn't add ANY sugar. We did so many test tastes that we weren't hungry for dinner.

If you want to can the applesauce, process pints and quarts 20 minutes in a boiling water bath; canning under pressure is not necessary.

Apple Peeler Slicer Corer Gizmo

This cool little gadget set us back about $12. It has a turning handle on the right, which turns the long screw shaft with three prongs on it, pushing the apple through the peeler, corer, and slicer blades. It clamps to the table with a screw clamp which does hold it firmly in place. I put a towel on the table because this is drippy, sticky work.

To use the gizmo, you'd move the prong-screw-handle piece all the way to the right, press an apple onto the three prongs, and turn the handle. This spins the apple and feeds it through the peeler, corer, and slicer. It's fun to use. C'mon, I'll show you.

First of all the apple bumps up against the little peeler doohicky. It's curve shaped so it can peel the ends of the apple as well as the middle. It's mounted on a spring so it rides with a little bit of pressure along the contours of the apple. It works best on a firm apple. Soft spots and bruises make the peeler blade quit cutting and it starts to ride on the surface of the peel rather than cutting into it. After going past the peeler blade, the apple moves to that metal circle.The metal circle cores the apple and the blade beneath the circle slices the apple into a long corkscrew.Here's the peeled apple after it's gone through the corer and slicer thingamabob. Sometimes you need to use a paring knife to cut out bruises or to cut bits of peel that didn't get cut off. It's way easier to cut bits of peel with a paring knife than to try to peel the entire apple uniformly.Here I've slid the peeled, cored, and sliced apple off of the core. I save apple cores for the chickens and apple peels for the rabbits. It works out nicely that they prefer different parts of the scraps.Isn't this just about the coolest thing you've ever seen? No? Then you must get out a lot more than I do.

I usually cut the apple in half at this point (vertically) so that I have lots of semicircular slices. They make great sliced apples for apple pies, and if I'm making applesauce or apple butter I can fit more apples into the pot if I cut them in half.

Apple Wedges in Cinnamon Red Hot Syrup

This recipe is from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving.

Apple Wedges in Cinnamon Red Hot Syrup
Yield: about 6 pints

• 8 to 10 punds apples
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup cinnamon red hot candies
• 2 sticks cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups vinegar
• 2/3 cup light corn syrup
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring (optional)

Wash, core, and peel apples. Cut apples lengthwise into eighths. Treat to prevent darkening. Combine remaining ingredients in a large saucepot and bring slowly to a boil. Drain apple wedges. Pack hot apples into hot jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Ladle hot syrup over apples, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two piece caps. Process 15 minuts in a boiling-water canner.

To slice and core the apples, I used one of those apple-corer-slicer gadgets. It's the first time I'd used one, and I was pretty happy with it.It's a little tricky with apples that are severely off center, but for most apples it's super easy to use. It cuts well and leaves you with wedges that are easy to peel with a pass or two of a paring knife. The only difficulty I encountered with it was the thing didn't cut completely through the bottom of the apple.
I used the handle of a wooden spoon to knock out the core and then just used my fingers to knock the wedges on through. Those blades are pretty sharp, so poking the core through with your fingers is... inadvisable.

The label of the Fruit Fresh type stuff I used says to only leave the fruit in there a couple of minutes so I cored, sliced, and peeled about three or four apples, dropping the peeled wedges into a bowl of solution to keep them from browning. Then I used a slotted spoon to drain them and move them to a larger bowl. They still browned a bit but not too badly. I'm slow. It took me 2 or 3 minutes per apple even with the gadget.

I opted not to use the food coloring. I don't care for the intense red of some cinnamon apple products.

I used white vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar, for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to avoid the dark coloring of the vinegar and I knew I wasn't going to mask it with red food coloring. Second, I was using Stayman apples which are already pretty sweet so I wanted the bite of white vinegar instead of the more mellow flavor of apple cider vinegar.

I got 10 pints instead of 6 (didn't weigh my apples though) so I canned 9 (that's all my canner will hold) and we ate one with dinner last night. Yum!

Let's make Marinara

Here's how I made my marinara sauce. It is delish! I also realized I left out an ingredient so I'll edit the recipe in my previous post.


First chop up the onion, celery, and carrots. I find that a food processor works *great* for this. The smaller the better, because you're just going to cook it and smoosh it anyway.


To easily skin tomatoes, drop them in boiling water for a minute or two. Frequently the skin will split, more often it does not. If you are going to chop your tomatoes, like for salsa, only leave it in for a minute and then put it into cold water, or the outer part of the tomato will get mushy and "too cooked." For sauce it doesn't matter, so I just take them out of the boiling water and put them in a bowl to wait on me.


The skin comes off very easily after a minute in boiling water. If the skin didn't split (and usually it won't) just cut a slit in it with a knife and slip the skin right off. Then core the tomatoe and cut out any bad spots (blemishes). Don't use fruit that has real bad spots like bruises or where bugs have eaten some. Yuck.

Put the peeled, cored tomatoes into the pot and cook for about a zillion years. You want it nice and soft, and with a lot of the liquid cooked out. if you removed the seeds when coring and peeling your tomatoes this cooking down bit will go more quickly.


Put the cooked veggies through a food mill. This is a Foley Mill and it is really cool! The hand crank turns a blade that presses the veggies against a grate with very small openings - like the smallest openings on one of those four sided grates. Just keep turning and turning the handle, frequently going in reverse for a turn or two, until you absolutely cannot get anything else to squish through the openings.


The recipe calls for one tablespoon of oregano OR marjoram OR basil. I used great amounts of all three, fresh. The general rule is 1 teaspoon dry equals one tablespoon fresh. I chop my herbs with this nifty gadget one of the kids gave me for Christmas.


Simmer it for another gazillion years, until it reaches the desired consistency. It will look thick enough long before it really is.


This is how I tell if my sauce is thick enough. I get a bit in a teaspoon and see how much "water" separates from the sauce, and how quickly. I don't like to put marinara on my spaghetti only to have a water puddle form under my noodles.

This stuff is SOOOO good! It takes a lot of time but oh my gosh it can't be matched with store-bought.

I found that a half bushel weighs about 25 pounds and makes about 6 or 7 pints. The general rule for tomatoes is 4:1 or 3:1 meaning it takes 3 or 4 pounds of tomatoes to make one pint of sauce. Paste tomatoes have less juice in them so you don't have to cook them down as much, and you get more sauce per pound of tomato. The added celery, carrots, and onions in this recipe increased the amount yielded, too.

Marinara

We went to Trax Farmer's Market in Pittsburgh over the weekend. While there, we picked up canning tomatoes for just under $8 a half bushel. We got three half bushels. I made and canned a batch of marinara, using the following recipe. I tripled it because a half bushel weighs about 25 pounds.

MARINARA

1 1/4 cups onions, finely chopped
1 1/4 cups celery, finely chopped
1 cup carrots, finely chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp minced garlic
8 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 teaspoon granulated sugar (optional)
Freshly-ground black pepper
1 Tbsp oregano or marjoram or basil
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon fennel seed (optional)
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

Cook onion, celery, and carrots in olive oil over medium heat in a large pot, covered, until the vegetables are tender - about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add garlic and c ook 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, sugar and pepper. Simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. Put the sauce through the medium disc of a food mill if you prefer a smooth sauce. Omit this step if you prefer a chunkier sauce.

Add remaining seasonings (except salt) and simmer, stirring often, until sauce reaches desired consistency (about 20 minutes - but I didn't seed my tomatoes, and they weren't plum tomatoes, so it simmered half a day). Add salt. Remove bay leaf.

Pack into clean, hot jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace; seal. Process in boiling water bath 45 minutes. Yield: about 3 pints.

This turned out to be a fabulous recipe! I had intended to make some ketchup and salsa but the tomatoes may all go to marinara sauce. I'm making another batch now, and taking pics as I go. I'll post them in the next day or so.

Bulk Food Storage

What with Katrina having caused so much strife, recent flooding in the northeast leaving folks stranded in their homes, and us living in the boonies, we have decided it makes sense to be prepared to hunker down in an emergency situation. One of the things we're doing is stocking our pantry. It's easy to buy cans of fruit and veggies at Sam's Wholesale, but many folks ponder over how to store other items such as dry milk, sugar, oats, etc. This is a fairly frequent question asked on homesteading forums I visit.

Here's how we do it at Palazzo Rospo: we double-bag everything and store it in 5 gallon pails.

I recently got two fifty pound sacks of hard red winter wheat. Buying in bulk saves money: I paid .40 per pound, rather than the normal "discount" price of .49 per pound for a bag containing around five pounds. Wheat berries don't spoil like flour does, so we store a lot of wheat and grind it as we need it.

Now, you don't want to open a five gallon pail every time you need some flour or a cup of sugar, so you'll have cannisters in the pantry or kitchen. My cannister for hard red winter wheat berries is a 7.2 liter plastic container.


I've found it more convenient to bag items based on the size of the cannister I'll be using for my "in use" foodstuffs. That way when I open up the five gallon pail (it's a pain!) one bag will fill my cannister. I could use fewer bags by simply filling each bag full. This is how I did it when I first started. I found that when I got to the last bit in the pail I'd have to open the next pail just to finish filling my cannister. Those buckets are a REAL pain for me to open (I have to turn them sideways, sit on them, and wrestle the lid off with the special lid-opening tool) so I find it worth a few extra bags to know that I have several neat "cannister servings" in my pails. As you can see in the photo above, my wheat cannister is getting low - just about where I'd like to refill it. This is a perfect time to break down my 50 lb. sacks of wheat and put them into long term storage.

I put a bag in the cannister (I just left that bit of wheat in the bottom and opened the bag on top of it), and use a coffee cup to scoop the wheat from the fifty pound sack into the plastic bag until the cannister is full.
I tie up the bag with a twist tie. Then I put the bag in the freezer for 48 hours. This kills any little moths or larva or eggs that might have accidentally gained access to the wheat during harvesting, storage, and shipping. I sometimes do the freezing in stages, depending on how much I have to freeze and how full my freezer is. Some folks use diatomaceous earth (food grade) and some recommend a bay leaf in each bag to prevent unwanted visitors.

After the wheat has hung out in the freezer for 48 hours or more, I put a six gallon plastic bag in a five gallon bucket. Then I drop my bags of wheat in. When the bucket is full I close the six gallon plastic bag with a twist tie and seal the bucket. My two 50 lb. sacks of wheat filled up 3 1/3 five-gallon buckets.


I label each bucket and stack them three high in the pantry. I put the oldest on top. When I get another fifty pound sack of wheat, I'll put part of it in my bucket that's only 1/3 full. I'll put the fresher plastic bags on the bottom and the older plastic bags on the top. I'll edit my label on that bucket to say "Hard Red Winter Wheat 7/06 1/07" or whatever is appropriate. That way I know that is a transition bucket between older and fresher wheat.

Salad

We had a really good salad the other night. I went through the garden and grabbed stuff and threw it in a bowl. We ended up with lettuce, swiss chard, parsley, sourgrass (also called wood sorrel), parsley, english peas, broccoli, borage flowers, and chopped green of an onion. It started out as a "What can I grab today?" project and ended up being one of the better green salads I've ever had.

Mill-Rite Grain Mill from Retsel

Been insanely busy in the garden and around the house recently. The big news here is that we ordered a Mill-Rite grain mill from Retsel and it arrived on Monday. Naturally I had to take it out for a test-drive that evening. We considered geting a grain mill after reading an article in Mother Earth News about why whole wheat is so healthy. The article piqued my interest and I began researching. In my reading I learned that wheat berries can be stored indefinitely in an air tight container,which fits well with a lifestyle aimed at increasing self-sufficiency. I also learned that once ground, wheat loses a significant percentage of its nutritional value surprisingly quickly. The more we learned, the more we felt that a grain mill made good sense for us.

After reading as many articles and reviews as I could find, I decided to get the Mill-Rite made by Retsel. It's one of the higher priced mills but it had all the features we were looking for and it consistently received excellent reviews. We wanted an electric mill that could also be operated manually. We wanted something that could grind textures from cracked corn to baking flour, and something that we could work like a dog without it overheating or breaking down. The Mill-Rite reportedly fits the bill perfectly. As you can see in the photo above, it has a generous hopper. I put 4 cups of grain in it and it was maybe 1/3 to 1/2 full, so it holds a lot. At first I put a bowl on the counter top to catch the flour but the bowl wasn't wide enough so I grabbed a 9x13 casserole dish and that works nicely.

I thought the ground flour would come out a chute or something but as you can see it comes out from between two metal plates. The burrs are inside and you can get either metal or stone burrs. It's not very loud when it operates - about the same as my stand mixer or even a bit quieter (the mixer is higher pitched so "feels" loud to me). In the reviews I read, consumers mentioned dust as a potential problem. I didn't notice any dust at all when grinding flour in this mill. Grinding temperature should also be a prime consideration, as high temperatures cause the wheat to lose nutritional value. When the flour comes out of the grinder it is warm to the touch but only slightly so.


For the first run, I ground flour. You can see it gets a pretty darn fine texture. I ran a few cupfuls of grain through the grinder and disposed of it, as recommended by the vendor. This is to get rid of any grit in the burrs left over from the manufacturing process. They clean the burrs but they still recommend running a few cups through just to be safe. I found that each cup of grain resulted in about 1 1/3 cups of flour. I ground up 4 cups of grain and made some bread. The bread has the best texture of any bread I've made to date. It rose well and quickly, and when I was kneading the dough between the risings, it seemed more springy than dough made with store-bought flour, but perhaps that was my imagination.

One final note. Retsel is a small company. Although I easily placed my order via telephone in early February and was told it would be three weeks before my mill shipped, I found them to be difficult to get hold of during mid to late March after I'd made two inquiries asking when I could expect my order. I encountered unanswered emails and telephone recordings asking to please call during normal business hours (various days, various times during their business hours). They charged my debit card the day I ordered but didn't ship the mill until two months later, after I got the BBB and Visa involved. So, I have mixed feelings about the company. They have a product that appears to be outstanding. They are friendly, knowledgable, and helpful. But the company is inconsistent in their accessibility and failed to ship as promised.

Bread

Until recently, I was afraid of making bread. My sister makes bread, kneads it by hand, does marvelous things.

About a year ago, we got a fantastic kitchen appliance: a KitchenAid stand mixer. Yes, it's heavy. Yes, it's barely too tall to fit on the countertop beneath the cabinets overhead. I don't care, I love my mixer! I make bread using the dough hook. I've not yet tried hand-kneading; for some reason I'm afraid of it. I have no clue how to judge elasticity or know if I've kneaded long enough or too long. I do "punch down" the loaf by hand kneading it a little - maybe half a dozen times. I feel this amount of hand kneading is a fine accomplishment and I am proud of it.

Usually I follow the recipes included in the booklet that came with the mixer. I've also tried a recipe or two I got from friends and one from my Backwoods Home cookbook. Most recipes I use make two loaves. That's a good thing, because we eat the first loaf right out of the oven when it's too hot to even slice neatly. I use whole wheat flour, which makes for a heavier, coarser loaf than "regular" bleached or unbleached flour. The whole wheat bread is great for accompanying a meal or a bowl of soup, but is a bit dense for sandwiches (in my opinion - my husband loves sandwiches on the whole wheat). I find that if a recipe makes a heavy loaf that won't rise well, adding about a tablespoon of wheat gluten to a two-loaf batch of dough helps a lot. The flavor and nutritional value of homemade whole wheat is unbelievable. Store-bought bread absolutely cannot compare.

The loaves above are Honey Oatmeal Bread, from the KitchenAid booklet. This bread is a fabulous breakfast bread - excellent with jam, honey, or apple butter. I didn't bother topping the loaves with egg white and oatmeal, but it does make a beautiful loaf if you do that. The dough hook is used for everything, including mixing the dry ingredients.

Honey Oatmeal Bread

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/3 cup butter or margarine
• 5 1/2 - 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup quick cooking oats
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 packages active dry yeast
• 2 eggs
• 1 egg white
• 1 tablespoon water
• Oatmeal
• 1 tablespoon wheat gluten*

Place water, honey, and butter in small saucepan. Heat over low heat until mixture is very warm (120F to 130F). A candy thermometer is good for measuring water temperature.

First place oats, then 5 cups flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl. Mix well.

Gradually add the warm water mixture to flour and mix well.

Add remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until dough starts to clean sides of bowl (if using whole wheat flour, let the dough stay a little "sticky") and knead a couple of minutes longer. Be careful not to add too much flour, as this results in a dry loaf. I guess this is where you would hand-knead the dough and gradually add flour if you were going to hand knead, but I'm not sure. Comments from experienced hand-kneaders welcome!

Place dough in greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover, let rise in warm place, free from draft, about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

Punch dough down and divide in half (I divide in half and then hand knead each half a few times). Form into loaves. Place in greased 8.5 x 4.5 x 2.5 baking pans. Cover. Let rise in warm place, free from draft, about 1 hour, or until doubled in bulk. I've had this step take up to 4 hours; wheat gluten helps a lot if your loaves are slow to rise on the second rising.

Beat egg white and water together with a fork. Brush tops of loaves with mixture. Sprinkle with oatmeal. Bake at 375F for 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from pans immediately and cool on wire racks.

* I add wheat gluten because I use whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose, and it helps the second rising.

Oatmeal Cookies

Well the seemingly endless rain finally ceased. And we got snow. Being recently relocated from Georgia, I usually want to go out and at least walk in the snow. It's beautiful. It smells so fresh, and sounds so muffled and kind of crunchy-squeaky. It's fascinating to me.

But this snow on top of mud? YUCK. It looks pretty but when you step on it a tell-tale brown stain spreads in your footprint. I stayed inside and made oatmeal cookies. My husband took the photo. I'm a point-and-click kind of gal; he's a depth-of-field what's-my-aperture kind of guy.

The recipe is from my Backwoods Home Cooking book, which I got when I ordered some of their anthologies. The recipe is actually for Country Oatmeal Cookies in a Jar. You layer the dry ingredients in a quart canning jar, then put a pretty bit of fabric on the jar (over the flat, under the ring) and give it as a gift, with instructions. The recipe reads as follows:

Layer following ingredients in a glass jar in this order:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup raisins

Then on the card that accompanies your "cookies in a jar" you write the following directions:
Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl, cream 1/2 cup margarine, 1 egg, adn 1 tsp. vanilla. Add entire contents of jar and mix until combined. Drop by heapign teaspoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly browned.

I doubled the recipe, omitted the raisins, and put in some ground black walnuts. I used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose. It made about five dozen cookies, and they were the best oatmeal cookies we've had (I usually use the recipe on the Quaker Oats box). The baking cookies made the house smell cozy and inviting on a nasty day.