Canning Split Pea Soup

Sharing a bit of my small batch canning.  I like to cook a family sized recipe and can the excess so I have ready-made soups.  (The recipe is typed out under the video on the YouTube site.)

Canning Spaghetti Sauce

Needs have changed in our house, and I rarely pull out the big stovetop canner anymore.  In this video, I demonstrate some small batch canning using an electric pressure canner.

This is perfect for those of us who find due to arthritis and other issues that lifting and fiddling with the larger canner has become more difficult.

Citrus Preservation

When I purchased my citrus fruit for the month I did not plan on more snow.  My husband normally comes home and helps me snack on it.  I also pack some for him to take with him.  That didn’t happen this time, but I didn’t want to let the fruit go to waste.  I love it, but I knew I couldn’t eat it fast enough to use it up in a good time frame.

I sliced and dried all  the lemons except for one to use in lemon pasta.

I sliced the last of the oranges and dried them.

I peeled and segmented the grapefruit and canned them.

I’ll use these in a couple of ways.

Lemons and Oranges:

1.  Hot teas

2.  Cold iced tea (I add to the pitcher as the bags steep.)

3.  In meat dishes such as lemon or orange chicken or to add a little zing to a grain dish.

The grapefruit can be eaten as is or added to fruit salad.  

Store Sales Papers

I took half an hour to go through all the local stores weekly sales.  (I do this online.). I’m really disappointed in general.  Makes me glad I know we are covered for a bit.

Aldi basically has a lot of processed foods on sale.  Pineapple and white mushrooms are at a pretty good price.  

Foodlion again mostly boxed/bagged items.  A lot of which I can’t use.  Plus their prices tend to be higher and I can usually find the same item less by shopping around.

Harris Teeter has eggs on sale for 97 cents a dozen with a limit of 4 dozen.  This is worth considering, but they don’t have anything else worth making the trip for.  

Publix had a lot of items I don’t use on sale.  They also tend to be on the pricey side.  A second downside with them is that I also have to send someone else in to shop for me at this store. Lidl didn’t have anything grand either.  A few things I would pick up on impulse if I were in the store, but nothing worth making a speical trip for.

Amusingly the best store around over all was Piggly Wiggly.  However, I would drive almost 45 minutes one way to get there....negating any savings since I don’t need to be in that town anyway.

Walmart has their Great Value canned veggies on sale for 38 cents per can.  Not a bad price at all, but I am well stocked. I feel comfortable in saying that I was okay with waiting on all but two of those items and really considered simply not buying anything.

However, my daugther pointed out that she needed cookies or something of the sort to take to school.  I decided if I was going to buy those I would go to Aldi.  When I was at Aldi I saw that their eggs were only 99 cents per dozen, so I picked up 3 dozen.  I also picked up 8 cartons of mushrooms to dehydrate.  

Not bad.  The eggs will carry on into next month, as will the mushrooms.

The cookies will also, but even if she and my husband munch on them I am okay with that.

I’m not sure I could make them for much less and even if I could I just don’t have the time right now.

As for the mushrooms, 8 packages filled the entire dehydrator.

The finished product:

 

Adding to the Pantry

Friday was a beautiful day for us.  While my grandson played in the backyard, I stood at the patio table and chopped red onions.  I had approximately 12 pounds worth.  I set up the dehydrator on the back patio and let them dry.

When it was all said and done I had filled all but 2 trays.

It is hard to tell from the photos, but the yield was just over 7 cups.

I’ve vaccum sealed all but about 1/2 of quart jar.

The jar went into the cabinet to be used now.

A year or so ago I bought a large container of dried onion from Sam’s Club.

Even with me buying additional onions throughout the year and onion powder, my container is almost empty.

I love red onions more than any other so I thought I would try drying my own.

They’re quick to rehydrate if I want them to use them in low liquid dishes, but if I am adding them to soups/stews or things like that I don’t even bother rehydrating first.

The End is in Sight

Those three quarts of purple hull peas represent the last of my quart jars.

The concord grape jelly is finished and cooling.

I'm down to about 20 hodge podge smaller jars that I will fill with small batches.

One of the perks of canning -- for me anyway -- is that I have to stay with the canner.

I'm finding lots of time to crochet as a result of that.

These still need the ends worked in, and I am out of starch.

I'll get those things done and these will go in my Christmas gift pile.

The blue/white combination is for my brother.

I think I am going to keep the red, white, and blue for myself to use in July.

Broken Record

I feel like my posts have taken on the feel of a broken record....or maybe a scratched record.  The sound is the same over and over.

What have I been doing?  Housework, fall prep, and canning. 

12 quarts of salsa

4 quarts of pork

Housework

Errands

Repeat on Friday....lol

Sweetening up my Sweetie

My husband loves apple jelly.  

On the canning front:

I only have 12 empty jelly jars left to fill.

I just haven't decided what to put in them.

It has dawned on me that I haven't made any salsa this year.

Last Hurrah of Summer

I'm working on our last hurrah of summer as far as filling the pantry for the fall/winter.

Taco Soup

Green Lima Beans

Crowder Peas

Potatoes

I'm down to making a couple of more batches of jelly.

I also want to can some beef stew and some chicken and rice soup.

As soon as apples come off  I also want to do some applesauce.

I know that canning is not always the most frugal option, but it is really a million times easier to avoid allergens if I know what is in the things I am cooking.

Canning and Reading

Do canning and reading go together?  Why yes, they do!

While there are times I groan about an open floor plan -- like when you have guests over for dinner and you feel awful about having to clean up the dishes while they watch because if not the whole house looks unkempt -- there are times when an open floor plan is nice.  Canning season is one of those times. I have to be in the room to monitor the canner.  I always do a quick clean up while the canner is going and then I find a spot to settle in.  Sometimes I crochet and sometimes I read. 

 Today I read.

I read while the pork tenderloin cubes canned.

These are simply seasoned with salt and will be perfect for a variety of dishes --

Stews, adding vinegar based barbecue sauce to, adding tomato based barbecue sauce to, taco seasoning, etc.

 I deliberately don't quite fill the jars so I have extra broth for making gravy should I decide to do so.

Mama also surprised me with a bag of tomatoes from one of my sister-in-laws.

There was enough to make a decent amount of pasta sauce.

(I promise the color isn't off -- I just have poor lighting in my kitchen, but on a totally non canning note I talked to the electrician today about rectifying that situation.  He's coming by as soon as he is in town so he can look at the three jobs we need done.)

So you see -- canning and reading are related in my world!

   

Canning Soup

Before I begin this post, let me say -- the canning police say this is a no-no!  

 Anyway, my husband grew up eating home canned chicken and rice.  He's often asked me to make it for him to carry with him during the week, but I never had.  I really had no point of reference for it.  I finally ran into someone who canned it.   She gave me her directions, and I decided to try it.

 The ingredients are simple: Salt, pepper, broth (or water), cooked chicken, brown rice, carrot and celery

 My cost per jar was less than $1.00 and I can pronounce all the ingredients.   This is an experiment to see how the rice holds up.  The plan is to open 1 jar a week and see how it does as time progresses.

   

Small Batches

There are some things that I just don't need a lot of.

Two 8 ounce jars of jalapenos

Two 8 ounce jars of habaneros

These will more than last me a year.

While I love spicy foods, my husband isn't able to eat things as hot as I can.

Often that means just one piced of pepper per pot of chili kind of thing.

Kind of Corny

My brother brought us a huge load of fresh sweet corn.  

37 more jars went into the pantry.

Menu planning got easier, because corn will need to be on the menu once a week until next season.

I jokingly told my husband he was going to have to be the "Bubba Gump" of corn.

Pickling, Baking, Shopping, and Plumbing?

What do pickling, baking, shopping, and plumbing have in common?

That is how I spent my Thursday.

Mama gave me enough squash to try a small batch of squash pickles.

If they taste as good as the brine did, they'll be great.

She also brought me enough cucumbers to make a small batch.

In the past, I've had limited success with homecanned pickles.

My freezer pickles are great, but the canned ones are so so at best.

This time I tried a new to me recipe that used a different technique than I've been using.

Hopefully these will be good, too.

My husband's birthday was earlier this week, but we decided in advance to wait and celebrate at the end of the week.

I started his favorite hamburger steak in the crockpot.

For dessert, he requested apple pie.

I'm afraid I am horrible at pretty crusts, but they usually taste good.

In the mix of all this, someone came to fix the guest bathroom toilet.

It had started to lightly run water all the time.

While he was here he snaked the upstairs bathtub drain for me.

I also ran out to pick up groceries -- we didn't need much.

I had to have more sugar for canning and some onions for the pickles.

The rest was just to replace things we had used up over this month.

And that is how I spent the bulk of my day.

Weekend and Watermelon

Over the weekend, we went to visit family and had a wonderful time.  We managed to keep the trip pretty frugal so that was an added bonus.  

 My week is shaping up to be quite busy, but I had to take time today to process a few items for the food storage.  We bought a huge, home grown watermelon this weekend.  1/2 of the rind made 3 quarts of pickles.  (I canned the other jar of brine to use either with dressings or perhaps to make some refrigerator pickles using cucumbers.)  Then I used 6 cups of the flesh pureed to make watermelon jelly.  I ended up with 10 jars.

Adding to the Stores

Mama gave us some fresh produce.  

I canned 8 pints of string beans -- one didn't seal and is in the refrigerator.

I also canned 7 pints of corn.

(I had enough string beans for 10 pints, but saved some out to go with our supper with plans for leftovers the next day.)

She also gave me squash, okra, avacados, and cucumbers.

All of those became part of our 4th of July celebration.

A Canning No-No

I should confess up front that I am guilty of following rules and logic on various household things that have been around for a long time.  Sometime (I believe the mid 80s) it became unsafe to home can cabbage.  I'm not sure why it magically happened, but whatever.

 So this post shared with the warning -- this is what I do.  It is NOT sanctioned by the USDA or whatever organization....

 I pressure can my cabbage.   We've always enjoyed the results, and I do boil them for 10 minutes before serving them. My $3 worth of cabbage gave me 18 pints worth.  I kept two out for eating this weekend.

Not All Canning

I love having the freezer full, but fully recognize that the loss of power can make it dangerous to keep all things in the freezer.  I love canning and having things on the shelf.  However, I grew up believing you shouldn't put all your eggs into one basket.  This weekend I took advantage of a sale on bell pepper.  

12 large bell pepper yielded me enough bell pepper pieces for a full quart jar

These will be easy to toss into soups, stews, casseroles, etc.

I can choose to rehydrate them first, or just let the cooking liquid do it.

Since I already had the dehydrator out and on the counter, I decided to dry some mushrooms, too.

Dried mushrooms are my preference over canned.

They seem to add a depth to dishes.

(However, I will eat either and keep both on hand.)

Filling the Pantry

Blueberries and strawberries are plentiful and on sale this week.

I made jam for the pantry.

(I also set aside a jar's worth of each for the refrigerator rather than using up a jar to can them.)

The jam came out to be less than $1 per jar for the blueberry lime jam.

The strawberry worked out to be even less at 75 cents a jar.

The bonuses are that I have them ready to go, I know the ingredients, I got to spend an afternoon doing something I enjoy, and homemade jam just tastes good.

Watermelon Rind Preserves

In an effort to be less wasteful, try new things, and continue to keep our pantry stocked, we decided to try watermelon rind preserves.  Since we had never had them I made a single batch. I decided that would be enough to try and to be fair, a few jars for a couple of people isn't bad.  

I used the recipe from the Ball Bluebook and I was suprised at how easy they are to make. 

I think the worst part was peeling the watermelon.

A basic recipe gave me 5 (8 ounce) jars.  I put one in the refrigerator for us to sample so I didn't bother canning it.

These will be great over the fall and winter months.