Accomplishing Goals: Finishing up the Canning!

  Now, if I was Martha Stewart I would just say, "Tada!  I canned and here is what I did!", but I am NOT Martha Stewart and my story is always more complicated then it was supposed to be! If you remember, the night I left off of jam making I had realized that I had not enough pectin. I'm starting this night off right with the proper amount this time!!

  I stirred the pectin into the strawberries and brought it to a rolling boil.

      The instructions then said to pour all the sugar in at one time...that is 14 cups of sugar folks.  WOW!

    Things began to go wrong when I endeavored to pour the sugar and take pictures of the process at the same time.  Turns out I am no Pioneer Woman when it comes to taking pictures while cooking!  Some of the sugar, which I had been cautioned to measure exactly missed the dutch oven and landed on the hot surface of the electric stove.  Sugar began melting, smoke began rising, the strawberries were supposed to be continuously stirred at this point, I moved a pan from the stove and set it on a towel as a pot holder, the towel started smoking, I was taking pictures, stirring violently boiling strawberries, and attempting to get the sugar off the stove!

The camera was kind enough not to pick up the full amount of smoke from burning sugar.

     I quickly went from happy to sweaty/stressed.

 
    Well great, now I had less sugar in the strawberries than I was supposed to have...I just added a little bit more and prayed my jam would still turn out okay.

     After all the commotion died down I thought to myself, "Hey, your eight months pregnant and barefoot attempting to bring really hot jam to a, "violent boil",..maybe you should put some shoes on!? (idiot)".

    Okay, shoes on, strawberries reached the point of boiling violently.  Let me show you what that looks like.  (I keep using the word "violently" because that is what the instructions told me to let happen.  "Violently boil".)

    After the violent boiling is done you have to skim the scum off the top of the strawberry/jam/pectin mixture as best as possible.

 
   Now, finally, it was time to take the jars out of the hot water and put the jam into them!  Now we were getting somewhere!  I did one first without taking pictures of the process so that I wouldn't have a "sugar spilling on the hot stove incident".

     Okay, since that happened safely enough I'll take pictures and show you what I'm doing!  First, using tongs, take one of the jars out of the simmering water, drain it and place it on the towel.

    Then scoop some of the hot jam out of the pot and pour it carefully into the jar using a wide mouthed funnel.  You want to fill the jar, leaving a 1/4 inch space at top.  I then slid a knife around the edges of the jar to encourage air pockets to be filled.  Place the round part of the lid on the jar and screw on the lid!

     At this point everything fell apart again.  Ugh.  The water bath canner I was using is for quart sized jars.  I put the first jar in the hot water and it immediately fell sidewise and slip slided all over the place.  Ugh!!  In total frustration I called Yvonne and asked her to come over and help me.  Here I am waiting again for Yvonne to save me, feeling totally fed up.

  Yvonne brought over a calender with the brilliant idea of placing the jars inside the calender rather than on the rack.  She was a bit worried about it not being far enough off the bottom of the pan so I utilized a technique my friend Carla, over at SixLittleDucklings, taught me to lift the jars up.  I used the rings from some cans to give it added lift!

     I had to wait quite awhile for the water to reach a rolling boil at which point I set the timer for 10 minutes.  After that, I lifted out the jars one by one, setting them on the counter.  I began to hear the sound every person that undertakes the process of canning waits to hear!  The symphonic popping of cans being pressurized! Exhausted, I turned off the burners, left the cans to pop and cool, and fell into bed.  I could only hope that the jam was good.  After all my mishaps I had my misgivings. 

  The following morning Yvonne stopped in for breakfast and we open my first ever jar of canned anything.  Strawberry Jam.  I spread a little bit on an english muffin and bit in.  I have to tell you all.  I cried a little.  It was GREAT!  I didn't realize until that moment how AWESOME it would feel to create something wonderful from fresh food, put it in a jar, and have it sitting on the table next to you!  I felt so proud!  It made everything worth it.  I am TOTALLY going to do this again and I know the next time it will go smoother!  And so I present the fruit of my labor!

Accomplishing Goals: Learning How To Can...or not.

    It all started the day I met Yvonne and invited her over to my house for breakfast following mass.  Well, I suppose it started even before that when I listed "learn how to can" as a goal of mine in the fall of 2012.  I hadn't given it much thought since then.  So the morning my mouth opened and out came the words, "Hey, would you like to come over for breakfast?" (shocking me as much as it gave surprised delight to the receiver of my words) was the day that the ball (haha, ball...I'm canning..."Ball" jars...sorry, no one probably knows what I am talking about)...ahem, was the day that the ball started rolling towards my future in canning, which I now find myself in the midst of...literally.  I have water simmering on the stove with cans in them (see below), strawberries mashed and ready to go in a big pan, but I have hit a snag and so am typing instead.  More on the snag to come.

Happy at the very beginning of the process.

  The reason the words flying out of my mouth gave me such surprise is although hospitality has been engrained in me by my mother the reality is that I had very little sleep the night before with a baby that was waking up every hour, on the hour, to nurse and my house was shy of a disaster.  I got into the car after my invitation and looked at my sister, "Why did I just do that?"  "Aha...I have no idea, I was wondering the same thing", replied the also tired sibling.  We arrived home and madly rushed around to make my home look neat, if not perfectly clean.  We wiped off the counters and cleaned off the table so that we could hurriedly make them dirty again by serving up a breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and coffee, while leisurely appearing as if our kitchen had been clean since the night before.

    Yvonne left my house an hour or two later and I was stunned.  What had just happened.  What had I agreed to?  What did we talk about?  This woman had ENERGY!  I felt as if a tornado had flown through my house and left and I just needed to process what had happened.  It felt good, a tornado of life and energy had blown through my home but....what?  Was I still in one piece?  I think I agreed to go by her house and get some apples...why?  I don't remember....okay.  Well, I went to her house, she gave me apples and instructed me to go home and make an apple pie for my husband because he would love it.  And I did it.  Cause I was told to.  And I'm obedient.  ....that was the second time in my life I had made an apple pie and you know what?  It was good!  And my husband was excited about it!  Since then Yvonne and I have become good friends.  I am good at slowing down her energy at times and she is good at motivating me to do more.  Sometimes I have to say, "Yvonne!  Stop!" because she gets so excited, and sometimes she has to say, "Hey, you can do better than this, how can I help you succeed?"  It's a symbiotic relationship.

    So now I find myself elbows deep in strawberries because Yvonne has tapped into my latent desire to be a more self sustaining person and has fostered and encouraged it since that first day when she told me to make an apple pie...from scratch.  Since meeting her last fall she has been telling me that when berry season comes in, and when our gardens come in, thats when, "we are going to get busy".  Now that my warrior ninja has planted twelve tomato plants, I can see that I will definitely be needing to can a lot of food if its not going to be going to waste!  Yvonne called and told me the strawberries were ready.  If I wanted them through the winter I better buy up a lot.  I bought five gallons.

 I have since been spending hours pinching the greens off the tops of these little bitty berries.  Everyone suggested I make, "freezer jam", which truly does sound easy and delicious.  But you know what?  I figured I might as well dive into the canning world as strawberry jam is touted as being an easy first entry into the water bath canning world.

  I had my jars set to slowly bring them up to heat so they won't crack when the hot liquid jam is poured in.

I mashed up my berries and put them in the pot, anticipating bringing them to a rolling boil, with the lemon juice and pectin.

Then I realized I didn't have enough pectin.  I thought multiple packets came in the box.  I guess I was thinking sugar packets?  But no.  Just one.  I need two.

  So now I am sitting here, waiting for Yvonne to come save me.  This is not supposed to be part of the canning process.

     She generously found herself in need of going the store at nine oclock at night anyway and would be more than happy to bring me another box...two just in case. :)  Thats why we are friends.  Because we help each other out like that.  I'll let you know how this all ends up when I know...much later than I had intended.  On a side note, aren't these going to look so cute with all that little jelly?  hehe!

   Yvonne suggested I go to bed...and start over tomorrow...she is right.  She isn't ALWAYS right.  But she is right now.  It's just so DARN frustrating!  Blach...I'll conquer this tomorrow!

How I am Cloth Diapering

About six weeks ago I gave birth to our first child, Michael Jr. Though I am from a big family and have helped care for infants there is still a huge adjustment period in having your very own infant for the very first time. I thought I would to add to this and learn to diaper a new way (for me).  What better way to learn than just to start doing?

Always looking for ways to be a little more self sufficient, I had decided I would cloth diaper.  I did not have any knowledge really, other than: we are going to hopefully be blessed with a large family so reusable diapers would be a huge money saver. Plus that weird chemical crystal stuff that absorbs liquid in diapers freaks me out! How safe can it really be? Could it cause worse rashes or TSS?! What if a baby tore open a diaper and ate it?!?! Any way I am  blessed enough to have had a good friend give me about 30 cotton prefolds that were used for her twin grandsons. With that extra encouragement I was even more determined to do this! So those 30 prefolds, 6 diaper pins and 3 liquid proof covers was the extent of my "stash".  I am learning as I go and I just ordered 3 more covers that I found at www.shopdiaper.com on a ridiculous sale! (Thank you mom!).

As I have tried learning on my own I have found that blogs and websites have been more confusing for me than helpful. My sister  wants to start with her next baby and asked me about how I cloth diaper AND keep it from leaking AND what inserts are AND covers and basically "why the heck does it seem so complicated!!??"  So I created and sent this picture tutorial to her to hopefully be more helpful and clear about how simple it can be.  At least that was my intention. I hope it doesn't add to the complication that seems to surround this retro with adorable diaper covers way of keeping your baby clean.

This is just on how to actually put your baby into the diaper because doing laundry was not as hard as figuring out how to keep it from leaking..... It took me a few weeks and my mom visiting to learn how. But baby poop does have a mind of its own and will get out no matter what diapering system you use.  Maybe  at a future date I will post about my laundering practices.

 Until then...

Happy Diapering

 

 

 

Ps. This is the app I used for my photo editing and is my favorite so far! https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rhonna-designs/id667819594?mt=8

A Case for Making Bone Broth/Beef and Chicken Stock

      Over a year ago I happened to catch an episode on the Food Network called "The Big Waste" where two teams were in competition with each other to see who could come up with the best meals using only food that was going to be discarded by restaurants and stores.  Usually not one to be easily convicted or moved by what I perceive to be liberal or tree hugging agendas this show sickened and changed me within sixty minutes from start to finish.  I have never treated the food in my own kitchen the same way since.  The show follows the contestants as they run around the city and go to different supermarkets looking for food that is going to be tossed.  Food gets tossed out for being unappealing visually, because it won't sell.  A LOT of food.  It is disturbing to realize the waste in our country when so many go without in the world.  What we as American's consider inedible is a far cry from what is actually inedible at times.  After watching how much food gets thrown into dumpsters I was convinced that I have a personal and moral responsibility to A) reduce my own food waste in the kitchen and B) to choose bruised or unappealing fruits and vegetables at the store rather than perfect ones if I know I am going to be using them soon or in cooking as the looks do not change the flavor.  Otherwise these fruits and vegetables will just be thrown away.  My decision to change the way I view my food will not change the world, but when I stand before God I hopefully won't be confronted with how much food I thoughtlessly wasted.  I feel like we have been given such a gift of overabundance in our country that I had lost the gratitude I should have had.  With gratitude comes wise stewardship of the gift.  I should not be using more than I need and when it comes right down to it I should not be eating more than I need!  Although I am still working on that last one I do believe it is true.  For further reading on annual food waste in America you can check out this website: Wasted Food

     It was many months ago that I first read an article about the benefits of making your own chicken stock or bone broth.  Unfortunately I cannot find the article now but it convicted me in terms of the health benefits of choosing to do this and it was in line with my prior change of heart regarding using as much of my food as possible rather than wasting something another would be thankful for.  There is a long history of using the bones from animals to make nourishing broths that were believed to heal and strengthen the human body.  This simple truth was passed down for hundreds of years because the results were powerful and healing.  The proof was in the pudding, as they say.  Now, if you google search the healing powers of bone broth, science has provided the answer to what people have known for hundreds of years.  There are many articles delineating the benefits of making your own broth/stock and why it works.  What struck and convicted me was that it is a very holistic way to remain healthy and heal your body, it is a money saver, you can control the flavor and taste, and you can utilize lots of vegetable scraps that otherwise would be thrown away.

     In making my own broths/stocks I am gaining medicinal value that has been stripped from processed food, saving money, utilizing parts of the animal that typically are thrown away to do it, and I have found ways to incorporate vegetables that would be thrown away otherwise.  I have started a freezer bag which I use to collect vegetable scraps to add to my broth when I make it rather than using whole, fresh vegetables.  I use the peeling from carrots and potatoes as well as the skin and ends of onions and garlic.  There are a TON of nutrients in the peels of vegetables that we usually just throw out that you can now start drinking and using in your cooking!  I use the ends of asparagus that we snap off, broccoli stocks, zucchini if I don't cook it before it gets somewhat wilty, cabbage, you get the idea!  It truly feels good to be making something that I use often in cooking for practically no cost to myself!  I already have been buying whole chickens for years to cook with.  Today I even cooked a whole chicken and didn't feel the need to make chicken broth, as I have some in my freezer, so after boiling my chicken until cooked and deboning it I just gathered the uncooked gizzards and bones and placed them in a ziploc to freeze until I was ready.  I was making a chicken pot pie tonight, in which I utilized some chicken stock I had made previously, and all the vegetable scraps from the onions, carrots, and celery went into my freezer bag for stocks.  I literally threw nothing away.  Even the egg shell from using the egg white to coat the crust went into my compost pile which in turn will nourish our garden next spring!  I used a store bought pie crust (because making dinner with a one year old vying for my attention is pushing it and if I made a pie crust it would push me to insanity) and even the cardboard box it came in got torn into small pieces to mix into the compost pile.  Compost piles need both carbine and nitrogen (brown and green materials) and since mine is heavy on green materials due to kitchen scraps and grass cuttings I am utilizing paper and cardboard waste for the brown materials thereby decreasing the amount of overall trash my household is producing.  This just makes sense to me in terms of being a good steward of this beautiful earth the Lord has given us as well as decreasing my reliance on man made convenience's such as trash pick up.  I mean, thank God for trash pick up and I need it still, but I would love it if I could figure out a way to re-use and recycle to the extent that I could cancel my trash pick up and instead pocket that money, as well as decrease the thoughtless amount of trash we produce!  I am working towards that goal within the next year.

     Within the next few years I would LOVE it if we could get our own chickens to harvest rather than singly for eggs.  Not only is this again much healthier, but it again decreases one's reliance on man made conveniences and is an awesome way to practice stewardship and appreciation of the food God has provided to us.

     Here is a picture of the chicken pot pie I made tonight, with four cups of healthy homemade chicken bone broth in it! :)  Delicious and nutritive!  I would share a link for the recipe but I read three different ones and took my favorite ideas and combined them to make my own. :)  Allrecipes.com and pioneerwoman.com both have very popular recipes.  Everything tastes better, in my opinion, with fresh herbs and I was excited to use some fresh thyme from our herb garden for the first time this year!  I even made extra filling on the side so that tomorrow I can make a few smaller pies for just Eli and I.  These I will freeze before cooking so there will be something easy to throw in the oven when Sang is gone all week for work.  Its always more challenging for me to be motivated to cook when he isn't home so I figured this would be a good way to at least get a couple good meals in.