Funny Vegetables

Check out this monster tomato!! It was the highlight of my morning. I've been canning for 12 hours now! Luckily, I'm done with the hard part. Now I can sit back and relax and just switch out the canner every so often. Yahoo!


These are my pitiful little onions...I'm still not sure exactly why they flowered instead of growing. They are so cute that I almost don't mind except that they're already gone! Don't they look almost like little purple light bulbs?

5 Roosters = Soup

Last night we took our 2 remaining turkeys and 5 roosters to the processor. The roosters were all Barred Hollands from the batch of heritage breed chickens I ordered in the spring. I had high hopes for the heritage breeds but the Barred Holland is not a winner in my book. The roos are very aggressive, much like the Barred Rock rooster that we gave away to our neighbor last year because he was beating up all the other birds. I watched them for quite awhile during feeding and the Holland roosters would grab feathers out of the other birds for no reason at all. The Buckeye hens were taking a real beating because they are so docile. I'm very happy with the Buckeyes and the Buff Chanteclers so far, more on that some other time.

I googled how to cut up a chicken and studied several of the results. Last time I attempted to cut up some hens it didn't go well. This time I removed both legs and both wings, then I cut the birds through the ribcage on each side. I discarded the back and neck and kept all of the other pieces to make canned chicken soup with. The five young roosters yielded 5 quart Ziploc bags of pieces. I removed all of the skin except that on the wings so it will be easy to pick the meat off later.

BTW, the computer is fixed (at least for now) so we're now back to regular programming. I've been a little unplugged from technology this week and strangely enough, I'm enjoying it. I've been trying some new organizational techniques to help me stay on track around here. So far, so good. Staying on top of things is so much easier than constantly trying to catch up but it still takes a lot of time.
Have you ever canned soup? Cut up chickens? If not, what are you canning or preserving right now?

Peaches, Pears, Beans, Oh My!

My Mom came last weekend and helped with the peaches, I think we got 19 quarts in all. That was from 1 1/2 bushels of "seconds" peaches and I would guess we lost about 1/2 bushel of them to rotten spots and bruises. I picked 2 bushels of pears at my grandma's on Sunday. The blueberries in our area are done already but there happened to be a blueberry farm near my grandma's that was still open so I stopped and picked almost 5 pounds of blueberries. Then I swung by our friends' house on the way home and picked a 5 gallon pail full of green and yellow beans. They said take all I wanted but that was plenty for me!!
Today is the day to catch up on all of this. I might renew our Netflix for the season so I can watch instant movies while I sit here peeling and slicing.






Have a great Saturday. Are you canning anything this weekend?

Today's To-Do List

Monday is my day off and I'm staying super busy! This is more for my purposes but in case you're interested, here's what is on my agenda:

-Can more green beans (they're on the stove now)
-Bake bread
-Call the builder
-Call the plumber
-Call on prices for an automatic cattle waterer
-Balance the checkbook/pay bills
-Find the title for a trailer we're selling
-Call the orchard to order peaches (Mmmm!)
-Scope out vacation destinations online (this is coming up fast!)
-Make the weekly menu plan
-Make granola bars if time allows
-Finish knitted baby shower gift and make progress on wedding gift

The bathroom needs to be painted and the landscape worked on but it is incredibly hot and humid/sticky so I won't be doing either of those things today. I'm hoping to bust through the rest of the list so I can just knit and work on the bread.

I'd love to hear what you're doing today! :)

Pressure Canning Green Beans

I spent the day with my Mom yesterday and she taught me how to pressure can for the first time ever. I went in to this completely blind and was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was. Now I have a new skill to add to my list! Yay! Thanks Mom!


While this is in no way meant to be a guide to pressure canning I'll share a few pics and the basic process. That way if you find someone to teach you it won't be so mystifying.

The black pot has a strainer in it and boiling water. The silver one is the pressure canner with a few inches of water in the bottom. We snapped the beans in 2-3 inch pieces and removed the ends. Next, we rinsed them under cool water and put them in the black pot of boiling water. Once the water comes back to a boil they stay in for 5 minutes. At that point we pulled out the strainer, allowed the water to drain back in to the pot, and poured the beans in to the plastic strainer in the sink.


Then it is time to put the beans in the jars. I used the end of a wooden spoon to arrange them and filled them almost to the neck of the jar. The jars will get very HOT. Duh, but I'm a little slow.


You use the liquid from the black pot to fill the jars. Leave about 1 inch of headspace. Wipe the rim clean, then place the lids and rings on as usual.

Here's the fun part!! Put them in the pressure canner and secure the lid. We used the canner's owner's manual and the Ball canning book to figure out the specifics. For our canner we need moderate steam coming out of the little hole on top for 7-10 minutes. At that point we put the little weight on top of that hole. Stick with me here... each recipe calls for certain pounds of pressure. For our canner the piece with the black top equals 5 pounds and each silver ring is five additional pounds. So we put one ring on the black piece and set that over the steam hole. When the pressure reaches 10 pounds the steam comes out forcefully enough to rock the little weight back and forth. Once the weight starts rocking your processing time begins. I set the timer for 25 minutes.



When the time is up you just turn off the burner and wait. There is a little button thing on top of the canner that sticks up as long as it is holding pressure. When the button drops the pressure is gone. Then you can tip the weight sideways to check it. If no steam comes out it is safe to remove the lid. It took a very long time for the jars to cool, much longer than jam from what I remember. Therefore it also took a long time for them to seal.

By the way, 5# of grean beans from my garden = 4 full quarts. Not bad! :)

Do you pressure can? Isn't it fun!? What is your favorite food to pressure can?