sakon76 | Entries tagged with canning

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After last night's disaster, which happened because I was tired and headachey, I went to bed early. And proceeded to sleep for eleven and a half hours, not even waking up when, at some unknown point, Wonderful Husband crawled into bed beside me.

Though I did have a couple of dreams, neither of which I really remember except that I woke out of one of them when the world seemed to go "bump!" like it does when you're in a car and hit the edge of the sidewalk or take a speedbump too fast. Bizarre.

But all that sleep seems to've done good, since at current count I've made sun tea, canned all the orange and yellow tomatoes, made the whole two squash I got off the yellow crookneck plant this year into three loaves of zucchini bread, and have an apple crisp baking in the oven. And gotten all the dishes from these endeavors washed up.

Now to go harvest, wash, and dry the jalepenos and habeneros lurking on those bushes....

ETA: Peppers washed, dried, and portioned into baggies in the freezer. Two of the loaves of zucchini bread likewise condemned to an icy fate. All the garden beds and potted plants watered. Had dinner with parents and polished their dining room table using my new-learned skills. Of the three jars of tomatoes, two siphoned extensively and failed to seal. Taking the bands off, I noticed that the rubber of the lids had bubbled and smeared all over. Tossed entire batch of lids and reprocessed the two jars, along with three others. All tomatoes now in jars; 6 quarts done today. Also juiced all remaining oranges. Time to put laundry away and fresh sheets on the bed.

So I have two tomato bushes at the moment that are giving me red fruit. (Others are heading in that direction, but their fruit is still sizing up and green.) One is an Amish Paste tomato, which is a Roma-type, and the other is Bloody Butcher, which gives off... mmm, not cherry tomatoes, but not full-sized ones either. About an inch and a half diameter. And while I'd made the AP tomatoes sitting on the counter into salsa, I still had a colander full of the BB tomatoes.

Fortunately Marisa of Food in Jars sensed my dilemma all the way from the other side of the country and posted a list of five ways to preserve small tomatoes. Being tight on freezer space at the moment, not having a dehydrator, and still having plenty of tomato jam from last year, I went with roasted tomatoes. Which, once they cooled down a bit, are seriously delish. Especially atop a slice of fresh sourdough bread.

I may have to try her tomato pickles recipe too. The bush probably has another colander's worth of ripe tomatoes still on it, you see....

One of the tomato plants is having a bit of yellow pop up in its leaves, which can mean any of a number of different deficiencies in the soil, so as a precaution I mixed up gallon after gallon of fish fertilizer tonight and applied it to everything I'm growing in the solanum family. Sushi walked through the garden afterward, sniffing at the plants as if to say "I know I smell fish, but where is it?"

Canning for the day: I took the three pounds of pickling cucumbers I bought at the farmer's market on Saturday and turned them into two quarts of gurka, which is a very yummy Swedish refrigerator pickle. Taking one of the quarts over to my parents' tomorrow morning along with various other things for them. Including one of the rosemary plants, since the one my mother took committed suicide. :( Good thing I kept all five, I guess!

The canning season started last night with strawberry bay leaf jam. I had two cups of berries fresh from the garden, and two and a half quarts in the freezer from last year's glut. Now? I have more freezer space, since all those berries and a cup and a half of sugar (and two lemons) cooked down into three half-pint jars of jam. Maybe I'll see if there's room in the freezer for the ice cream maker and do up some lemon sorbet if so.

Everything got washed up this morning before work, so when I get home, I'm going to (1) start a new loaf of whole wheat sourdough going, and (2) turn my attention to the five pounds of tomatoes I picked yesterday. Some of the recipes in my canning books are being tempting, but I suspect I'm probably going to go simply for crushed tomatoes since that ends up being a mainstay for making salsa or sabzi. Five pounds probably is two quarts at most, more likely a quart and a pint.

But it's saving what I grow now for a time in the future when I'll want it to eat, so in its way it's a labor of love. And this year, I'm thinking, I won't try too much all at once. One thing per day, spreading out the work onto some weeknights so I don't end up spending the entirety of Saturdays or Sundays on my feet in the kitchen.

( Catunderday! )

( RL stuff )

Thanks to the brilliance of

meallanmouse and

mmouse15, I have successfully made Sweet Preserved Kumquats. I zested the lemons involved before juicing them, and tossed the zest in with sugar to make Lemon Sugar. I have to say, though there seems to be no difference in juiciness between the smooth and bumpy skinned lemons my tree throws out, the smooth ones are a bit easier to zest....

As we had fish for dinner, I pulled the jar of Preserved Lemons I'd made last month out of the fridge, cut a quarter-lemon free, rinsed it off, and sliced it thinly to go on the fish. It wasn't as utterly brilliant as I've read some people rhapsodize about it being, but was nice and went well on the fish as a condiment. Wonderful Husband tasted the lemonyness of it; I (being sensitized to sodium now) tasted mostly the salt. Either way, I think it'll be worth keeping a jar of it in the fridge.

The neighbors two doors down gave me about a pound and a half of kumquats off their tree. Just enough to experiment with this recipe. Except then I actually read the ingredients list while paying attention and realized that it's not maple syrup it calls for, but maple sugar.

I live in Southern California. Maple trees and freezing conditions not being, well, common around here, maple syrup is priced at a premium and maple sugar... well, might as well just forget about finding that in the stores.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Utterly failed to realize that I was supposed to get a blood test today until 4:50 (and the clinic closed at 5:00). And the next time I'll be at this point in my cycle I'll be in England, so now I have to wait until the end of January. Fraggit. So not my day for medical stuff.

Before going to the dentist's office this morning, Wonderful Husband and I laid down new path paper for one and three-quarters of the garden paths before running out of paper. I got a couple of the hoses coiled up, and the deck and part of the sidewalk swept. After we came back, I hauled out the narcissus, daffodil, and tulip bulbs and finally got them all planted along the bedroom side of the house. It'll be quite beautiful when they all bloom. I pulled another twenty-two lemons off the tree while I was at it (pondering making either lemon curd or perhaps more Honey Lemon Apple Jam) and also harvested one of the watermelons I had growing out front.

I have to report that Watermelon Jelly is some seriously yummy stuff. Wonderful Husband agrees.

( I can can. Can you? )

I cannot find the recipe for my garden pickles. Google has also failed me.

I don't suppose I ever gave it to anyone, or someone here gave it to me? I know from the ingredients list on the jar that the salient ingredients (other than the veg) are sugar, distilled white vinegar, cider vinegar, mustard seeds, and celery seeds. While I have googled for "garden" "squash" and "zucchini" pickles with a list of those ingredients, most recipes come up with one kind of vinegar or the other but not both, and tend to include turmeric, which this recipe did not.

If it helps, the recipe would have been posted or given to me before October of 2008.

Current Mood: disappointed

Had my final belly dance class of the session this morning. Wonderful Husband got up at work-o'clock-a.m. on a weekend to come watch! He thinks I'm good. I think he's biased. In any case, I plan to continue with the beginner-level class again come January. I'm not comfortable enough yet to consider moving up to intermediate.

Tidied up cabinets, creating enough room that all the home-canned goods on the counter could be put away. Delivered sourdough bread and a newish hummingbird feeder to my mother; estate sale'd and generally gallivanted with her. Returned home with a quart and a pint of salsa in exchange for the bread, and British tea and sweets for Wonderful Husband purchased at the fish'n'chips shop where Mom and I had lunch.

Canned shredded summer squash, bell peppers, jalepenos, and onions into Hot Zucchini Relish. Unfortunately what I had on hand were green squash and peppers, so it cooked to that particular shade I shall refer to as "boiled vegetable" rather than the lovely red-and-gold of the picture. Still, the proof is in the pudding, as they say... I shall wait and see how it tastes. Sadly, it just filled six pint jars so I had none left over for sampling. Culinary discovery: using the Cuisinart to shred onions still makes me tear up.

Think I shall use the rest of the squash (and onions, and peppers) in spicy garden pickles, which mellow into a dead ringer taste-wise for Branston Pickle. I also need to ponder on what to do with more apples, as I have failed to find the liquid pectin I would need to make Honey Lemon Apple Jam....

Current Mood: productive

One loaf of flax-sunflower bread cooling on the counter, along with three quarts and one pint of applesauce. I only used about half the apples I had on hand, though (the pot is only yea big) so I'm pondering trying something else with the rest. Honey Lemon Apple Jam, perhaps? Though that will take getting some pectin. Was somewhat irked at my local Henry's yesterday when I stopped in for two specific things. They don't carry mustard seed. Maybe I got it last time at the one closer by my work? Need it to make some zucchini pickles/relish.

Wonderful Husband has been playing around with the Minecraft updates. He spawned in a snow biome in his second world, and is building a hellgate (gate to "the Nether") there as well.

Got desk... mm, half-cleaned last night? Of course, Wonderful Husband says that the last 20% will take 80% of the time.

Also took the large bowl of (homegrown) tomatoes sitting on the counter, cut out the bad bits, and turned them into six half-pints of tomato jam. I can't use ketchup anymore because it's so high in sodium, but this makes a very good substitute and I'm hoping to wean Wonderful Husband off store ketchup too when the current stuff is gone since I'm also not enamored of how much HFCS is in our diet.

Over the weekend I canned up some spiced applesauce and last night I finally got around to using up the last of the Yellow Pear cherry tomatoes and two Persimmon tomatoes in a batch and a half of yellow tomato preserves. I am currently spooning some onto my toast as part of lunch and trying to decide if the recipe is a keeper or not.

...I think I am leaning toward yes. Think sweet jellied tomatoes with just a hint of heat from the jalepenos. Unusual, but by no means unpleasant.

A good portion of today was spent doing up the ton of tomatoes I had harvested earlier this week. Well, more like cleaning off the kitchen counter, which is much the same thing, really. So I have six sealed quart jars sitting on the counter, as well as one quart jar and two pints that didn't seal... which are going to get reprocessed hopefully tomorrow. I also have a sieve full of the yellow tomatoes sitting in the sink waiting their turn, and four cuttings from the Yellow Pear plant in a jar on the window, rooting. The monster plant itself gets pulled and composted tomorrow.

In any case, doing up the jars I did meant that I used up the last of the new quart jars I had in the house, so I went out to the garage and brought in the plastic milk crate full of jars I've bought (90% of the time sitting dusty for years in garages) at estate sales. Washing those was an adventure! But I now have a full dozen more quart jars ready to go, there's a box of a dozen pint jars still out in the garage, and I have over two dozen half-pint jars all told. (Mind you, I'm just counting up the empty ones.) I was very pleased to find that in the two (also estate sale) boxes of rings and lids were a lot of unused lids, because I was otherwise out of new lids. A fair number of old/rusty/corroded rings and lids got tossed, and the crate went back to the garage holding only eight baby food jars, for which I haven't yet figured out a use.

I played a little Minecraft this morning (I found a surface cave in my world that seems to have lots of mineable resources including lava; I am now plotting how to make a lavafall on one of the mountains near my house), but the exchange of the day came later when my husband was at it. Him: "A pig just spawned in my cathedral!" Me: "Bacon is a sign that Notch loves us and wants us to be happy."

Weeks after everyone else in the northern hemisphere (including my parents, about 15 miles coastward from me) hit their tomato gluts, mine is finally coming on.

Of course, it may just feel that way because Wonderful Husband helped me strip all the ripe fruit from the monster Yellow Pear cherry tomato plant. (Two heaping colanders full; currently boiled and puree'd and cooking down into sauce, filling my huge crockpot literally to the brim as it does so. The lid is propped open on two stir-fry chopsticks to allow the water to cook off.) And then I harvested (red) fruit from some of the other bushes, which is another heaping colander full and then a little bit. Plus two bowlfuls of strawberries (which will become dessert in a little bit) and two dozen jalepenos to wash, stem, let dry, and then bag and toss in the freezer.

Oh, and one cucumber. Mustn't forget the cucumber. :)

Did my first bit of canning in a couple years last night. Took a mess of red and yellow tomatoes from my garden, blanched them, and canned them up in hopes of future from-my-garden batches of salsa. One quart red, one quart yellow. Had forgotten that after all the tedious bits were done, the instructions concluded "boil 85 minutes." Had I realized that, I might've started an hour and a half earlier.... This weekend, if car buying permits, I'm planning to strip the lemon tree and do up lemon curd and other such yummy things.

I also had the fun of cutting back my one actively blooming rosebush (*$#%^&@% prickles--!) and saved its sole remaining tiny rose, which as of this morning was unfurling its petals in a vase in the kitchen window. Looking around the backyard, there is so much work I've let slide and need to catch up on. Tonight: cutting back the demon bougainvilla's newest respawning attempt, and trimming tree branches to "I can walk under them without hitting my head" height.

Just finished making up the year's first batch of kumquat marmalade. I hope it sets up right... it's still tricky for me to tell. In any case it's four jars' worth and I have a second batch of at least as many kumquats in the fridge still, courtesy of my coworker. (I give her half the marmalade it makes up, so it's a fair trade.) Plus if I really get in the mood for making more, there's one vendor at the farmers' market that seems to have them for $2/lb, and it only takes a pound and a half to do up this many jars.

I've been slipping back into data entry mode at work, now that I'm caught up on everything else, and have actually been tracking the stats to keep myself amused. Pretty consistently one in four files is someone who's already deceased, so I get to just label it with the date of death and set it aside and don't have to type it in. I'd thought it was a statistical anomaly when those numbers popped up the first day, but I guess not. So basically, one quarter of the files are junk/worthless. Puts things/paperwork nicely into perspective, doesn't it? :)

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: home, heading toward bed