I’ve been canning

No, really!  And I find that winter is the best time to can!  The added heat from the stove is welcome in the kitchen and life outside is dreary and slow, so it’s the best time to spend slaving over a (thankfully) hot stove canning.  The GBH got me started when I threw caution to the wind and sent him grocery shopping on his own.  He brought home about 60 packages of mushrooms from Aldi's again because they were on sale for 39 cents a package.  I truly apologize to anyone else that wanted mushrooms from the Aldi’s in Marietta that week.  I don’t think he left any stragglers behind.

To make matters worse, Jamie had a yard sale of donated items to help raise money for the county dog shelter.  We weren’t home for the yard sale and came home a week or so afterwards.  The leftovers had already been picked through several times over so it was with great enthusiasm (and several happy dances) that I found these babies, sitting lost and alone amongst the junk:




Go ahead and covet, I’ll understand. 

Once he had all the mushrooms canned, the thought occurred to me that maybe I should finally do something with all the frozen tomatoes from the last two years.  Since I wasn’t in a hurry I could take my time and do something new… something other than the usual pasta sauce.  I canned 8 pints of pizza sauce, 10 half pints of chicken wing sauce, and 12 quarts of plain tomato sauce.  We’ve already tried all three and love them!  When I opened a can of the tomato sauce I added roasted garlic, mushrooms, and frozen bell peppers from my 2009 garden.  Delish!  I’ve also gotten back into using the bread machine and have been living off of “french” bread pizza using the pizza sauce and bread heels from the bread machine loaves. 

Then the GBH was also given about 10 lbs of turnips.  Hmmm… what to do, what to do?  None of my canning books had any recipes for canning turnips so we made a trip to Borders for a new book (happy belated birthday to me).  The new book (Canning for a New Generation) had a pickled turnip recipe that the GBH declared to be the best turnip pickle ever.  He’s already polished off two pints and has demanded that I grow turnips this year just for use in that recipe. 

Now I’m looking for new things to can before the garden gets going and before the warm weather gets here and I dread spending time indoors!  I’m also feeling like these jars need to be on my Christmas list this year.  Beautiful!

No Vacancy

Can you tell I'm on-call for work again this weekend? I'm covering April's weekend so that she could go home to Wyoming and ride. Man, I'm just the coolest. No wonder she sends me chocolate and horse treats. :)

After the last two depressing posts I thought I'd discuss something on the boring but cheery side. Since I was on-call yesterday I did a bunch of canning in an attempt to avoid house cleaning. But you knew that already, didn't you? My little pantry is now filled to the brim with jars, all except the bottom shelf which I have to save for the canners, jar lifters, funnels, screw lids, etc.

Here's a pic of the first two shelves.





The top shelf was practically empty on Friday. I filled it up yesterday with pears and tomato soup.



Everything in that pantry came out of my garden, with the exception of the mushrooms, apples, and pears. The apples and pears came from Anastasia's trees, which I know to be grown organically. The one quart of ketchup was a gift from another friend who also grows organically. Unfortunately, there is no more room in the pantry, but I've got 30 spinach plants and 15 collard seedlings ready to go into the garden. Also beets growing like crazy from seed sown about 10 days ago. And just last night I told Glenn that next year things will be more organized, the garden will be bigger, and I'll have a lot more things that I'll want to can. So I'll need more pantry space and at least twice as many jars. We only have 6 pint jars left now. And the last time we went to buy more jars we had to stop at 8 different places because everyone was out. I guess a lot of people are disgusted with grocery store food and rising prices these days!

For my reference next year I wanted to put the current inventory up here. Go ahead and stop reading now if you'd like, you won't hurt my feelings. But please don't ask why we needed so many pickles. I really have no clue.

15 pints Cherry Tomato & Ginger Marinade
7 pints Applesauce
4 quarts Applesauce with Pineapple Tomatillos
3 pints sliced Beets
10 pints Green Beans
12 half pints + 1 pint sliced Jalapenos
6 pints Dill Pickle Slices
5 half pints Pineapple Tomatillo juice/marinade/failed jelly attempt?
18 quarts Bread & Butter pickles
33 1/2 quarts Methodist Pickles (why why why???)
3 pints Fried Apples
6 pints Peaches in light syrup
4 1/2 quarts Chard
22 quarts Pasta Sauce with meat
1 quart Ketchup (gift)
14 quarts whole tomatoes
9 pints Marinated Mushrooms
16 quarts Tomato Soup
7 quarts + 21 pints Pears in light syrup
1 pint dried Hot Pepper Flakes


In the freezer:
8 packages corn on the cob (4 ears per package)
2 loaves Banana Bread
14 packages Stuffed Tomatoes (2-3 per package)
2 gallon size bags Strawberries
6 packages Green Beans
1 gallon size bag Basil Pesto cubes
6 gallon bags frozen whole tomatoes

Oh, and for those of you still reading, I have a bit of a horsey surprise coming in the next few days. But I'm trying to keep it hush hush until it actually happens.

Founder on the Agenda?

Saturday was full of fun and sun. I spent time in the garden, pulling out spent tomato plants and white bell peppers that just weren't producing, pulling a few weeds, and planting the garlic that finally showed up on Friday. I also spent time cleaning the house.

Ok, so not so much on the house cleaning part. But I did wash the dishes and clean the stove top and counters. I think that counts towards house cleaning and validates my statement above. Maybe. Since I then dirtied everything right back while canning.

I picked another large basket of tomatoes that I cored, cleaned and froze. I also picked up a ton of pineapple tomatillos, but did a little experiment with them this time. I pureed them for starters, then dumped them in a saucepan and simmered for a bit with a few cloves, almond extract, 1/2c honey, and 1/2c sugar. Then because it wasn't thickening up quick enough for me I added fruit pectin and let it simmer for another 45 min. What was I trying to accomplish you ask? I have no idea. Maybe a spreadable product of some sort for toast and biscuits? Maybe something to pour over vanilla ice cream? Beats the heck out of me. But I ended up with 6 half pints of this somewhat thickened but not quite spreadable yellow goo with a really strong flavor. Time will tell, but my guess is that 5 of those pints are still on the pantry shelves next April.

Then I had to get started on the humongous basket of pears that I harvested the night before off of a friend's tree. I ended up with 15 pints of pears in light syrup and the basket still looks full. If you've got any interesting canned pear recipes, please share! I don't want to freeze them because our freezers are just about full as it is. I'm contemplating pear butter, but really, how much pear butter can two people eat??

After all of the canning was done and I was sick of looking at the kitchen, it was time to feed dinner to the horses. As I moseyed up the hill of death I heard banging on the barn gates and thought they were just getting a little antsy since it was past their normal dinner time. NOPE. Someone, and I will not mention any names (WILLOW!), broke into the barn and found the feed that we had just moved up from the house on Thursday. By the time I got there, Junior, Kita, and Semi (the ring leaders) were standing over the cans of feed with very satisfied looks on their faces and bottom lips hanging low in contentment. Willow had been chased to the back of the barn and was standing belly-deep in loose hay that used to be in nice neat bales. The brat pack was standing at the entrance of the barn looking in with twinge of regret that they were not the ones in charge.

Loose hay was everywhere. A stack of 50 bales had been toppled and trampled. Grain was dribbled and spread all over the floor. The nice neat bucket of hay twine that we had behind the feed bins had been picked up and flung, leaving hay twine everywhere. About 300 lbs of grain was gone. The container of Mineral Ice that was on a shelf had been knocked down and stomped on, leaving globs of bright blue goop all over the floor. One of the feed bins and all of the feed buckets were strewed out in the pasture in front of the barn.

If you've got the mental image in your head now, then you can probably imagine how angry I was. I know I had chained the gate after breakfast that morning. I've been very careful about it since we moved the feed up there, and even before that after the hay had been put up. There's no way I left it unchained! So here's where Willow comes in. Willow is a crafty little hussy. And unfortunately, she's too smart for her own good. See, there's no way that someone else broke in the barn and wasn't immediately chased to the back by either the brat pack or the ring leaders. There's simply not enough room for the more aggressive horses to go through the one 10' gate with ears pinned and teeth bared and let the passive cat burglar escape. The evil gate opener would be chased to the back instead. And Willow was the only one trapped in the back of the barn. And she's, as much as I hate to admit it, the smartest horse in the herd. Not to mention her reputation as an escape artist.

After counting to 10 I shooed everyone out of the barn and took stock of the situation. The pellets were gone. There was maybe 10lbs of senior feed left. The rice bran was untouched. They hay... well, they hay is going to stay as it is. I'll just feed the loose stuff first, and hopefully by winter we'll just have stackable bales left. I was pretty sure that the more passive horses, like Manny, Radar, Jewel, and Meghan didn't get any of the food, but since they are usually right with Willow, I couldn't be positive. Since there was no way to tell who got how much, I didn't feel safe feeding that night (good thing we left the bulk of the grain at the house!). I did throw out some hay, and the only ones that ate were Dolly, Manny, Indy, and Radar. Everyone else just hung out napping. Except Megalia.

While I was cleaning up the mess, Meg decided to act colicky. She was pacing, pawing, sticking her upper lip in the air, and generally acting distressed. However, her gums were pink, there was gurgling going on in her stomach, and when I took her for a walk she passed two normal-sized piles. So there obviously wasn't a intestinal obstruction in there, but maybe some gas buildup or just a "mom, I ate too much" kind of tummy ache. When we returned from our walk she parked herself next to her sisters and took a nap with the rest. I spent the rest of the night and all day yesterday checking on everyone every couple of hours and making sure no one else was going to either colic or founder on me.

So far, so good.

Weekends are made for relaxing

I think I heard that from someone who didn't have a farm to take care of.

Glenn worked both days this weekend so I was on my own again. Saturday morning was spent in the kitchen turning garden goodies into winter cheer. First up was the Swiss Chard. I challenge you to find a more versatile and prettier veggie.



The leaves I canned like spinach. It looks terrible, but then so does canned spinach. I can't stand canned greens, but Glenn loves them.

The stalks I cut up into bite-sized squares and vacuum sealed for the freezer. Half the bags I blanched, the other half I just washed. I had read that frozen chard stems came out mushy, so this was an experiment. I use chard like I would celery, in the crock pot, stews, and soups - so hopefully this all comes out of the freezer tasty and crunchy this winter.

My first batch of beans for the summer. This is another veggie that I don't like and only grow for Glenn. I got 5 pint jars out of this batch. I picked another basket last night, but just blanched and froze those. I also canned 7 pints of marinated mushrooms last night -- yum (unless you're like my buddy A, who calls mushrooms 'slimy little basturds' (sic)).



I also finally blanched and froze all the kohlrabi on Saturday. I finished up in the kitchen around 10, then went up to the barn to massage some horses. Have I mentioned before that I'm a certified equine massage therapist (CEMT)? No? It's one of those things that I did years ago, but never made a business out of it. I was massaging Junior and the girls pretty regularly down in VA, but since we moved up here I haven't found much time for it. Jewel, Stride, Dolly, and Indy got done on Saturday. I still haven't started working with Jewel because she's still iffy about being caught some days. I'm still working on getting her used to the idea that nothing but good stuff happens when she's caught. Indy fell asleep during his massage. Dolly wasn't sure what was happening at first, then about 10 minutes into it her head started to drop, the lower lip began to swing, and the eyes began to close. I had done Stride before so he knew what was up and kept nickering at me the whole time I was doing Dolly. "Is it my turn yet?? Is it?? Please?"

I woke up Sunday morning and my arms were a little stiff from four hours of massaging horses. So I got out of bed, did a little stretching, then went up to the barn to put up some fence. The previous weekend we had made a trip to town to get fence posts, cement, and a one-man auger, but by the time we got started on the fence we only got four holes done before the rain hit. So I figured how hard can it be? I can handle it by myself, no problem!

My shoulders and arms still ache. I got 9 fence post holes done before my arms and back decided that enough was enough. I put the posts in, mixed up some concrete (with my bare hands -- stupid stupid stupid), and got everything lined up. I was pretty darned impressed with myself because everything ended up so straight. I'm the type of person that can't draw a straight line with a ruler, but I somehow managed to get the posts lined up. When Glenn got home I was expecting much oohing and aahing over my accomplishment. Instead I got "that's not enough concrete". After he noticed my icy stare he tried to make up for it with heaps of praise and pats on the back. Better late than never, I suppose.