Plums, Two Great Ideas

I was going to throw them to the chickens! Really I was. Awhile ago I had picked plums over at Grandma's and made a dehydrator full. Then I let the rest sit on my canning table... staring at me, daring me to do something with them... but what? I don't like canning plums because I find they're the type of fruit that wastes space in jars. I hate to see anything go to waste so I weeded out the good ones and threw them in the steamer, pits, skins, and all. I ended up tapping off almost 3 quarts of juice! This surprised me because I didn't really think there was a whole lot there. The kids immediately drank the 1 quart bottle that I had watered down and added a bit of Splenda to, this left me with one two-quart jar. I stuck it in the fridge and wondered what to do with it.

Yesterday I grabbed the bottle and decided to make some Plum Syrup and Plum Jelly. You know those expensive little bottles of fruit syrup you buy at the grocery store? Well no more! This stuff is so good! It's thick, has a beautiful colour, and tastes great. The kids and I ate it with waffles this morning and we polished off half a jar :)

The recipe was pretty simple, only three ingredients. I doubled the recipe and made 4 pints but here's the original, if you make it you'll end up with 2 pints.

Plum (or any fruit) Syrup
2 cups juice
1/2 cup white corn syrup
3 cups sugar

Combine all three ingredients into a large pot. Bring to a boil. Boil for 15 minutes. Turn off heat, skim foam, and pour into sterilized jars. Process for 15 minutes in a hot water bath.

I still had 4 cups of plum juice left so I decided to make jelly. I needed 5 1/2 cups of juice and I added some of the pear/apple juice I had to make the full amount. The jelly is very similar to the grape jelly I made.

What can you do?

What happens when you use a whole bulk bottle of Head & Shoulders shampoo in a bath... and you fill the water in the tub to the level of the shower track doors? Well there's no more wondering!

Seriously I could have lost my cool... but I firmly told him to "Stay right there!" And ran to get my camera :) He'll probably never get dandruff in his life, and besides having the bathroom floor spotless, he's the nicest smelling kid you could ever meet. Did you know that unless the vent is clear... water takes a long time to drain? Ho hum I learn something new everyday.

I hope you're all enjoying the weekend, and it's a peaceful one :)

Steamer & Juicer Tutorial

My Auntie Bonnie has been bugging me to post pictures of the steamer I have so I decided to make a "tomato-veggie blend" juice today and blog about it. After making the juice I used the pulp to make tomato paste and tomorrow I'll can it. Here goes:

Tomato Veggie Juice & Tomato Paste

Quarter up 12 lbs of fresh tomatoes. Core them but leave the peels on.
1 small bunch of carrots, unpeeled and cut into pieces.
4 onions, sliced.
1 bunch of celery, cut into 1 inch pieces.
3 green peppers, cut in pieces.
1 teaspoon of coarse salt.
1 tablespoon of sugar.
1/2 gallon jug of Motts Clamato Juice.
2 tablespoons per jar of lemon juice.
Optional: Whatever spices/seasonings you prefer, although I didn't add any.

Sliced, chopped, quartered, and ready to go!

After getting all your veggies done grab your steamer.

It has three main pieces; the top where the veggies go, the middle where the juice collects, and the bottom where you add the water. I put a marble in the bottom to warn me if it goes dry (never let it go dry!)

Somewhat layer your veggies in there. I mean really heap it up, it doesn't matter if you can't get them all to fit, when things settle you can add more.

Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of coarse salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar over the whole works. This is where you could add your optional spices.

Place the lid on... even if it just sits on top for now :)

Depending on what I'm juicing I set either jars or a large pot on a tv table to collect the juice, today it was a pot. I let the veggies steam hard for about an hour and then begin to tap it off. During the first hour try to limit how many times you lift the lid. I never did have to add any extra water to the bottom of the pot.

This is what the juice looks like when it first comes out.

I like to see it red so I stirred up the veggies in the top and after a few minutes it looks like this:

At this point a bit of the seeds were starting to come through so after I finished tapping off all the juice I strained it through a jelly bag. I love clamato juice but I didn't have any clam broth so I added a jug of Mott's Clamato Juice, this helped darken it up even more and gave it a wonderful flavour. Just before processing I also added 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to each 2 quart jar for safety's sake. I then processed in a pressure cooker for 15 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. I got three 2 quart jars and one 1 quart jar for a total of 7 quarts. Here's the results:

The juice has a wonderful flavour and the vegetables blend together rather nice. After I finished bottling up the juice I ran the veggie pulp through a press and will use that for tomato paste. Tomorrow I'll can it in 1/2 pint jars and add them to my pantry room shelf. I just bought the steamer this year and I've been having a blast with it. Not only can you do juice and jellies but you can use it for roasting, steaming, and cooking of all sorts. I juiced some plums the other day and I'm going to make syrup for pancakes and waffles. The possibilities are endless and I think the steamer/juicer is well worth the money.

Questions, Answers

Today I'd like to answer some of your search questions. That would be questions people type in a search engine and then come across my site. Some are down right odd and how they end up here is beyond what my imagination can comprehend so I'll stick to the ones I can understand and possibly answer :)


"Is there a soda cracker recipe?"

Well yes there is :) Right here, and it tastes just like a Score Bar, but if you are on a diet stay away... far away... And if you have kids you might end up in the bathroom...with the door locked... hiding... and eating... until the whole thing is gone... I warned ya :) After that, since you've blown your diet anyway, you might as well make Peanut Butter Cups.

"Can I use flavoured yogurt to make yogurt?"

No, or at least I'm pretty sure you can't. Your starter has to have live active cultures and be plain with no flavour. I've also had people search for yogurt made with pectin, I don't know why someone would want to add pectin to their homemade yogurt? I guess they think that if it will "set" jam it will "set" yogurt?? Yogurt doesn't really "set," it grows and those live cultures multiply firming it up but if you use pectin let me know if it turns out, I'm just a curious sort of gal :)

"Do I use the same temperature for drying fruit to make yogurt?"

Waaaay too hot! You'll fry those live active cultures faster than spit bouncing on a grill! Too cold is just as bad. You want to keep your temperature around 110-115 degrees.

"How do I find my missing hamster?"

Even though "Fluffy" escaped from her cage I'm not the wisest one to ask... we never did find her :( God forbid she's worked her way through a cereal box somewhere and is now the biggest hamster on earth!

"Green Popcorn."

On average I have at least three people a day searching for "Green popcorn." I was surfing one of my fav websites and she had posted a pink popcorn recipe. Because it was St. Patrick's Day the next day, I decided to make it for Sydney to take to school but colour it green instead of pink. Why anyone would want it other than for St. Patrick's day baffles me, are there other holidays between March & December out there that are green?

"My All-American canner lid sticks."

Mine occasionally sticks too and, along with Vaseline, I have a small handy dandy pry bar to get it to give, you can use a large spoon if you don't have a pry bar.
Quoted from the All-American manual: "Lubricate the metal-to-metal seal with petroleum jelly or Vaseline to prevent the cover from scratching or sticking. Apply a thin film of lubricant to the edge inside the cooker where the inside wall begins to bevel out. Use just enough lubricant to wet the edge, but not enough to actually see it. Place a similar amount of lubricant on the threads of the bakelite wing nuts and also on the metal face around the opening."

The funniest search was someone searching for "Poor Man's Souffle." Not realizing who's site she had clicked on she couldn't believe how similar the recipe looked to hers and that the ingredients were pretty much identical... no it wasn't me but someone who taught me how to make it :) Hi Mom!

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Have a great Friday because it's almost here :)

Memes

Thank goodness Davimack over at Wish I Were Baking let me know that "memes" rhymes with "seems" or I would have forever pronounced it like it rhymed with "rhymes." Boy doesn't that sound confusing? Anyway he has tagged me with a meme (thanks David (and I'm being sarcastic with my eyes rolling)). And now the 'rules' say I'm meant to take the letters of my blogging name and give ya'll a food-related factoid about me for each letter. Hmmm... my blogging name? Well I guess that's my real name because that's all I ever use, and if they mean "Canadian Crafter" they can just forrrrrget it! So here goes:

K. Okay this is going to be hard and I so wish my name were "Ed." All I can think of is Kale. I think it's some sort of vegetable like spinach that my Auntie Bonnie says is very healthy and is always trying to get me to eat.

A. "A is for apple, Mama"... that's what my 4 year old son, Jevan, is always telling me when I point to the letter A.

N. Never say you can't try a food you thought you always hated... I would still not eat mushrooms, peas (but only frozen or soup), spinach, and even small amounts of liver (but it has to be cooked the right way). I always hated these when I was younger and some right into my teens but living with a man who will pretty well eat anything except sausages and pancakes has taught me to try anything. Although I still can't stand canned peas, blech!

S. See food, eat it (pretty simple).

A. A is for appl... oh shoot I already used that one... let's see... Appetizers! I remember when I was about 10 years old and we were all at the Keg restaurant. My Dad thought I might like to try snails. What kid at 10 years old wants to try snails? But always trying to please my Dad because I am the middle child and (wait that's another story)... long story short; I took one snail in my mouth and the butter it was swirled in didn't taste too bad, I was actually enjoying it... until I bit down and there was sand, yes SAND, inside it... blech, blech, worse than peas! It took me a loooooong time before I ever tried snails again... but now I really do like them especially when they are rinsed extremely well :)

S. Sea food, eat it... no it's not the same as the above.

Well that's it, I'm done :) Now who do I attack tag? I'm supposed to pick 8 people but I can only think of 7 so for my eighth pick I pick YOU :)

These are my picks:
Donna from Mice and Moonbeans
Dora from Y-2K Hippie
Jackie from One Thread Two Thread
Biffy (My sister) from Biffy's Bits
Denise from Knitting without Needles
Darcy from Minnesota Mama
HuntressD from Walking in Two Worlds

Sorry girls, you're all going to love it or hate it, and I will truly understand if you don't do it at all :)

Binford Apple Peeler

If anyone remembers Tim Allen and his show "Home Improvement" you'll recall he had to modify everything so it was better (in his opinion), and much, much faster. He always called it "The Binford (whatever). Well that's what Hubby has done to my apple peeler, hence the name "The Binford 2000 Apple Peeler." It's amazing what a cordless drill can do! It's quite comical but I have to say I can peel apples (and pears) faster than a chicken dancing on a hot plate! Here's a short video of it in action... and I apologize to the folks at YouTube who have no idea what I'm talking about because they are viewing it there and not at my blog :)

After peeling a bunch of apples to put in the dehydrator, I started in on the pears. I take the end off the peeler so they are only peeled and not sliced. You sort of get into a rhythm and I didn't realize I had as many peeled as I did. I ended up canning pears until way past my bedtime and I'm paying for it this morning :) I took all those peels and cores and threw the whole works into the steamer and bottled over 4 litres of juice for making jelly. I usually give all the peelings to the chickens so having the steamer is great. One jar is a bit pinker because I started with the apple peels first and just kept adding the pear peels as everything settled, tapping off as I went along.

Canned Tomato Tutorial

No pantry would be complete without home canned tomatoes :) I can "raw pack" and "stewed" for many future meals. If you think you don't need a pressure canner then canning tomatoes will make you change your mind. Processing them in a pressure canner for only ten minutes is so much nicer than 85 minutes in a hot water bath!

Start out with lots of tomatoes. It doesn't matter if they have blemishes, marks, or whatever, most of them will be used. Wash them up but do get rid of any that are in really bad shape.

Drop them into boiling water for about 30 seconds or so. Small batches at a time.

Then drop them into cold ice water. This helps the skins peel right off.

When you get a whole sink full...

...It's time to slip them out of their skins. Most times the bad parts will come right off with the skins, if not then simply cut out the bad areas.

I then take a small cheapy knife and cut out the core. Check the bottom and remove it if it hasn't already slipped off with the skin.

Then cut them into quarter size pieces. You can leave them whole, half, or whatever size you prefer.

Fill up your jars, pack them in there but not too crammed. Today I did quart jars but I often do larger 1 1/2 quart jars or smaller pint jars. The jars do not have to be sterilized because they will end up in the pressure canner. Just make sure they are clean with no nicks or cracks.

Once all your jars are filled...

...It's time to add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. This is a must because tomatoes are considered "low acid." I won't explain the details here but for safety's sake add the lemon juice. You won't taste it I swear.

Then 1 teaspoon of coarse salt. The salt is optional but it does enhance the flavour.

I like to pour tomato juice in so my canned tomatoes don't end up looking watery. This too is optional. Yes I could make my own juice but I find it much easier to buy the cans :) I used about 2 and a half cans for 24 quarts.

Take a, okay I have no idea what this thing is called, but take it and run it around the inside of the jar to get rid of the air bubbles and pour in more tomato juice if necessary.

Wipe the rims with a hot paper towel until they are squeaky clean. Check for any stray seeds.

All jars should be filled leaving a 1 inch headspace, adjust if necessary. Place your hot lids on and then screw rings on fingertight. Check your manual for how much water to add to your pressure canner, mine is about 2 to 3 inches, yours may vary. Never place cold jars into boiling water because they will break. Remember cold jars = cold water, so add your water, then your jars, and then turn on the heat. I add a bit of vinegar to the water to keep the white off the jars.

Don't forget to vent your pressure canner. When the canner is up to pressure, process at 10 pounds for 10 minutes.

Wait 'til the pressure drops to zero, remove jars, and let sit undisturbed for 24 hours. Check seals, remove rings, wash in hot soapy water, and sit back to admire all the work you've done :)

Teepees

It was bound to happen... for last school year the "new" bus driver, who is now the "old" bus driver started coming down our driveway. Al was great, almost as comparable to Lana (sorry Al but Lana was our first bus driver, *smile*).

Al and Sydney on the bus. May 2007

So anyway... Eric took over when Al left. And, Al being Al, told Eric to come down the driveway instead of me having to drive Sydney up to the end of the driveway, it was great, no more having to fire up the Explorer on those cold mornings. But we all knew if a substitute driver was going to be driving, a phone call would be made, and I'd meet him at the top. After Sydney talked to me late Tuesday night I called Eric, he said he was going on a field trip for two days, but a substitute driver, Francis, would be driving and he knew to come down the driveway... great! Wednesday went off without a hitch, but something happened to Francis and another substitute driver, Alf, came on Thursday... Well Alf didn't know he was supposed to drive down so he sat at the top of the driveway for a bit and drove off without Sydney. When 8:15 rolled around I pretty well knew there was a problem. I had to wake Jevan up, who is allergic to mornings, get him dressed and head off to Sydney's school, about a 30 minute drive by car. What the heck, I needed groceries anyway, so it was a good day to go to town :)

On the way, near "Three Mile" we saw a healing gathering going on.

It was a great opportunity to explain to Sydney how her ancestors lived. There was no school on Friday so no worries about the bus the next day. Oh, and by the way,... Alf drove Sydney down the driveway after school :)

Hobby or Not?

The other day, while filling out a form, I was asked what category my blog fell under, ummmm huh? How is one supposed to sum up in one category their whole blog? There was no random, no miscellaneous, no "life on a ranch," not even "stay at home, busy as a beaver Mama"... so, after eliminating all the other categories, I went with Hobby. But I personally don't consider canning a hobby, it's a necessity around here, and of course the garden goes hand in hand with canning. It's not a hobby to cook supper, change pipes on the fields, nor brand the calves, or to even flip & bale hay. And as for clean the kitchen and do the laundry? Nope definitely NOT hobbies!

Okay, maybe the knitting, looming, and photography I do are considered hobbies, and I'm taking that with a grain of salt because I can justify all those things... photography is for my blog and for pictures of memories, knitting and looming is mostly Christmas gifts and sometimes I'm doing them on Christmas Eve in a panic, not always a nice relaxing hobby I'd say. More like "NO ONE SPEAK TO ME UNTIL I GET THIS LAST ROW FINISHED!" Aren't hobbies supposed to be relaxing, enjoyable, even fun? I do love to sew, but I'm not great at it, I've dabbled in cross stitch (I have almost all the DMC colours except four of them), I have a few woodworking tools (but wasn't able to do that very well at all, unlike my crafty sister)... Crochet goes hand in hand with knitting and although I can do it, don't asked me to make some elaborate doily, unlike my Mom :) So I guess I should pick a hobby... how 'bout "flying around the world and hitting every country," or "scratch lotto tickets until I win big," or maybe even (yeah right) "Golf?" Nah, I'll just stick to blogging, reading other people's blogs, and of course commenting :) What do you consider a hobby?

PS The image is a book cover and if you'd like to order it click here.

Grape Jelly, oh so good

The other day, while up at Bert's, I picked a small box of grapes and decided to make grape jelly out of them. Never having made grape jelly in my life (I have made crabapple jelly), I remembered a site I had seen awhile ago, hoping they had a jelly recipe. I am so impressed with Paul Noll's site for canning. Him and his wife have canned almost 5000 jars of everything you can imagine! I used their recipe for grape jelly and it came out excellent. The colour is a bit lighter than what I've bought in the store but I do think it's quite pretty. The jelly is extremely clear and tastes great!

The direct link for the jelly recipe is here. With their recipe I made exactly five pints of jelly. I used my new steamer to prepare the juice and it was so quick and easy, much better than the old jelly bag method, you don't even remove the stems from the grapes! I can't believe how much juice comes from the fruit! One batch of grapes yielded two batches of jelly for a total of 10 pints. There's very little waiting time and you make the jelly as soon as the steamer is finished. I think I'll dig up my jelly bags and toss 'em right now!

BlogRush... One colour, low miles :)

See that new widget over in my sidebar? It's called "BlogRush," From the Blogosphere. It's supposed to drive more visitors to my blog... in droves. Well, me being as skeptical as I am, and after watching their video and this appearing as a pyramid type thing, and them being fairly new... hmmm... I will watch it like all the other "new" things for us bloggers just too see how long it lasts. At least it's free, for now...
If you want to join I'd love for you to join through me so I get even more hits (do I sound like a used car salesman?) Sorry only one colour, but low miles :) Click here.

Canned Salmon Tutorial

Yesterday I canned salmon. Here's a tutorial of what I did.

Prepare your jars. They don't have to be sterilized, just clean, because they will end up in the pressure canner and be sterilized there. I used six salmon and finished up with 22 half pints and 15 pints. Averaging 5 pints per fish.

Scale the fish. You take a knife and scrape backwards scraping all the scales off. There's a special tool to do this but I've never tried it and after scaling as many fish as I have I'm tempted to buy one. I've viewed it in use online and it looks like it would be quicker and easier on the fingers. Don't worry if you don't get every single scale off, you just need the majority gone.

The next thing is to cut off all the fins. You can do this first if you like and sometimes I do :) There are two fins on the sides, one fin on the bottom and two fins on the top, five in total. I cut the tails off when I clean the fish so that's already gone. Make sure the fish is clean. I save all those fins and little bits to can for catfood so don't throw them out if you have a cat!

The top fin.

I use a meat cleaver, given to me by my friend Nancy, and it works great for slicing and cutting right through the backbone.

Make sure your cleaver is sharp! You'll want to cut the fish into about 1/2 inch slices for pints, and a bit smaller for half pints.

I cut my salmon steaks to fit. I also place them into the jar "skin side in," most books say "skin side out," but I don't like the look or how they stick in the jar after processing. Bones, skin, and all, go into the jar, those bones will soften later by adding vinegar and the processing.

Pack tightly into jars, leaving about a 1 inch headspace, I estimate this and it doesn't have to be perfect, just close.

Here's a bit skinnier pieces in a half pint jar, tightly packed.

After all the jars are filled.....

... it's time to add course salt. Do NOT use table salt!

1 teaspoon for PINTS.

1/2 teaspoon for HALF PINTS.

It is exactly the same measurements for the vinegar. This step is purely optional, I like to add the vinegar so the bones will really soften up.

You then take a paper towel and wipe the rims of all the jars. I used to use hot water to do this but a trick that I learned just yesterday, is to dip your paper towel in vinegar and wipe the rims. Salmon is considered a fatty fish so by doing this you wipe away the oil along with the little bits of stuff stuck to the rim for a better seal. It's extremely important to get those rims clean! I ended up with only one jar not sealed, not bad for as many jars as I did :)

Heat up water, add as many lids as you need. After about 10 minutes place them on the jars, screw on bands (finger tight), and place them into your pressure canner. After adding about two inches of water to my pressure canner I add a few glugs of vinegar because we have hard water and it keeps the white off the jars. Place lid on canner.

I own an All-American Pressure canner, and my directions say when you see steam to vent for 7 minutes but follow the directions for your canner. After venting I place the weight on and after the first rattle (right around 10 lbs of pressure), I turn down the stove and time for 100 minutes, keeping the pressure around 10 lbs throughout. I used to do 90 minutes but guidelines have changed and most newer books will tell you 100 minutes.

After 100 minutes, turn off the stove and let the canner sit until the pressure is gone. Do not try to cool down faster using any other method, the cool down time is part of the overall processing. After the canner has cooled down, remove the weight (if your canner has one), remove jars, place on a towel, and let sit for 24 hours without disturbing. After 24 hours remove the rings, wash in hot soapy water, place in your pantry, but do not put the rings back on.

All done :)