Pantry Reflections Continued

In my last post, I talked about my pantry storage and concentrated on dehydrating. Dehydrating is fantastic, but there are things one can't store by drying it. That's where canning comes into the picture. Canning is probably the most work out of all the storage methods, but it is also one of the most versatile methods of storage. You can can so many things from jams, jellies, vegetables and pickles to sauces, pie fillings, beans, meats and soups. There are so many things you can put in a jar (and some things you can't!).

I'm primarily an ingredient canner, meaning I like to mostly put up the ingredients I'd use in my cooking instead of putting up jars of meals, etc. If I can a bunch of stew, then I'll be eating just stew. But if I put up some stew beef, broth, vegetables, etc, I now have a lot more options of what I can make for dinner. I'm not saying I don't have some quick meals on the shelf, because I do, but my main canning list consists of ingredients.

This year I've put up:

My husband's Favorite Pickled Peppers
Dill Pickles
Dill Pickle Slices
Bread and Butter Pickles
Pinto Beans
Pinto Beans with Onions
Fiesta Pinto Beans
Black-Eyed Peas
Black-Eyed Peas in Smoked Hock Stock
Chicken Bone Stock
Smoked Chicken Bone Stock
Beef Bone Stock with Beef
Beef and Mushrooms
Tomatoes
Corned Beef
Corned Beef Hash
Hamburger
Chili
Applesauce
Apple Butter
Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

I still have a few more things to can - so will be posting an updated list at the end of the year.

Is Canning Worth It?

I can't tell you how many times I've been told that canning isn't worth the effort any more. One can go out and buy food cheaper than you can can it, so why put all the time and effort into it?  Why indeed!?!

Let's compare my last canning day. I made 5 pints of Chicken Corn Chowder and 2 pints of canned chicken thigh chunks. First lets look at the cost of ingredients.

chicken thighs - $4.12.
onion - 18 cents
celery - 8 cents
potatoes - 20 cents
corn - 99 cents
chicken broth - 1.99
canning jar lids - 81 cents
for a total of $8.37

If I purchase Campbell's Chunky Soup, they currently run $1.98 a can - 5 cans = $9.90. To be fair, the Chunky are in 18.6 oz cans, so we should be figuring by the ounce. 10.7 cents x 16 ounces = $1.712. That would cost $8.56 for comparison.

I then went looking for canned chicken. If I purchase Swanson Premium Light and Dark Chicken in water, I will pay $1.98 for a 9.75 ounce can. That breaks down to 20.3 cents an ounce. Unfortunately, I cannot find any dark meat only, so this is as close as I can get for comparison. 16 ounces = $3.248. 2 pints = $6.48

With that said, if I purchased the equivalent of what I canned from the store, I would have spent $15.04. My cost was $8.37 for a savings of $6.67. If I had used my own produce out of the garden as well as my own canned broth, I would have been able to save even more.

This isn't the end of the savings though, because the bones I had left from the chicken were frozen  to be used  at a later date. When I get enough, I will make a nice batch of broth to can.

So, is it worth it? In my opinion, yes. I saved money and the flavor is much better. Plus, I know exactly what went into those jars!

Canning Chicken & Chicken Corn Chowder

There was a sale on Campbell's Chunky Soups a bit ago, so I decided to stock up. My daughter takes lunch most days and thought these would be good for her to take while it was cold out. I was sooooo wrong. I haven't had these in a long time, so maybe I'm remembering them being better then, but they were AWFUL! I have a bunch in the pantry that I will eat because I purchased them but never again.
Which leaves me no choice but to put up my own soups and stews.

I haven't canned much in the way of soup - just vegetable soup, so today was my first try with chicken. I got some thighs on sale and figured they would be perfect for canning. I found a recipe for canning Chicken Corn Chowder on SBCanning.com that looked good, so I gave it a try.

I removed the skin, fat and bone from each thigh - freezing the bones to use later to make broth. I only did 10 thighs and put aside the other 6 for dinner. The 10 thighs made enough for 2 pints of chicken and 5 pints of Chicken Corn Chowder. I was surprised I ended up with so much out of ten!

The biggest time suck was the preparation, but when it came time to put everything together, it went quite quickly. Everything sealed and now I'm anxious to try a jar to see how they turned out.

It's Bean Time!

I had purchased a lot of dried Roman Beans for 50 cents a pound at one of those outlet stores a couple of months ago. I had no idea what they were, but they were dried, cheap and looked a lot like pinto beans, so they came home with me. I did some research on the net and found that these beans can be used interchangeably with kidney beans, black beans. chili beans and pinto beans. Sounds like I found a goodie!

I decided that it would be a good time to try them, so I soaked 2 pounds to can for soups, etc. and while I was at it, I thought I'd do a pound of baby limas as well. I sat down with the Ball Blue Book and found that for every quart of beans I want, I need 3/4 pound of dried beans. Hmmmm - not enough for a canner load, so I decided to try SB Summer BBQ Beans from SB Canning to make a full load.

I used Garden Gnome's recipe for Home Canned Kidney Beans & Lima Beans as she does her beans just a little different than I normally do. If you haven't been to her website called Mom's Cafe Home Cooking, you really must! She has so many great recipes posted there with a lot of guidance for both the newbie and the experienced cook alike. I love her site!

Well, it appears Ball was quite a bit off the mark on how much I needed. I ended up with 4 pints of Baby Limas, 6 pints of regular Roman Beans and 6 pints of SB Summer BBQ Beans with quite a bit left over!! My All American Pressure Canner only holds 16 pints so I decided to use the leftover in chili for dinner tonight.

The beans cooked up nicely. They were meaty and larger than normal beans and made a delicious chili!

Dinner - a nice bowl of chili on a bed of salad topped with cheddar cheese, sour cream and taco sauce. Oh man! I'm glad there were leftover beans!!!

Dreaming of Spring

Spring - There are times like this past week that I think it's never going to get here. The calendar says differently though, so I must have faith... :)

I've been spending quite a bit of time online looking for projects to do this year. I found some great canning ideas and even had one of those DUH moments. I was reading how one person makes her chicken broth (I can't find that blog now - must go back through history!) Anyhow, she cooks her chicken legs, etc. and the family eats their fill. She takes those bones you'd normally throw away and freezes them until she has enough for a batch of broth. She then takes the bones, covers them with water and puts in some carrots, celery, onion, and cooks them until she has a nice broth. Then she strains it, cools it, takes off the fat layer, then cans it. She also says that you can grind the bones up for bone meal - many homesteaders do that. Talk about not wasting a thing!

I made some more soap this afternoon. I followed Becky's (from Becky's Homestead) Easy Homemade Soap recipe and made a half batch of olive oil soap. I added some Strawberry Jam fragrance oil and tried Gel Tones Neon Pink to color it. I'm not crazy over the smell right now, but we'll see what happens after it cures.


I loved Becky's flower soaps, so I went to Amazon and purchased a mold for myself for under $4 shipped. It's coming from China, so it won't be here for a couple of weeks.

Not much else going on at the Cottage. Just snow and snow and snow. We do have a little sunshine this after noon, but it's supposed to snow again this weekend. Tomorrow I cut the soap, so will post the results then.

Having Fun!

We had a great week with putting up food and getting things ready for winter. The garlic is in, the garden is ready, and most of the food has been put away. I still have a bit of squash and sweet potatoes to do.

I canned 6 quarts of pumpkin to try. I've read opinions on canning it, and some people swear by it and others don't like it and prefer to freeze it. The Ball Blue Book does not recommend it, but the guide from the Cooperative Extension has it listed. So, I tried a batch to see for myself.

I'm also planning on putting up some canned kidney beans using Garden Gnome's method. When I used the directions from the guide I got from the Cooperative Extension, the beans became thick and exploded and not in any type of juice like you'd buy in the store.

Taste Of Home Cooking Schools

We went to one of the Taste of Home Cooking Schools last week. We had a blast. Hubby and our son went along with us this year. This is the third year my daughter, my brother's girlfriend and I attended, and a first for the guys. My son met a historian/author that was promoting her book at the vendor show, and he got one of them signed by her. She also invited him to a some meetings that her society has, and an archeological dig to boot! He was flying on cloud #9 all night. He's been corresponding with her since the show. Cool, eh?

The show was nice but we ended up with terrible seats. We went early (like usual) to get the good seats, and instead of filling the middle first, they went across the rows from side then middle than side. Where we were, the audio was terrible and we couldn't really see the instructor, but instead the screen. DH and DS were on the inside end, so it wasn't so bad for them. In fact, DH won a nice prize of a bottle of oil, a bag of spices and baguette wrapped in a Christmas print towel. It was a nice surprise! DH thought it was cool :)

Our gift totes were nice and filled with items from the vendors as well as a few things from Reiman Publications. The one thing that confused me though, was they gave the recent issue of Taste of Home magazine. Well, almost everyone subscribes, so that seemed a waste. I wish they would have given another of their cooking magazines instead. But all in all, it was worth every penny we spent to go. (like every year!)

Even though I've cooked for a long time, I always find some great hints and come home with a little more knowledge than when I went. My best lesson was that chefs and profession cooks burn things, too - but they call it carmelizing! LOL

My brother's girlfriend gave me a wonderful surprise when we got back. She bought me the Taste of Home Winning Recipes recipe book, and it's fantastic! That is going to be one well used book in my kitchen library!

Getting Ready for Winter

l.- pickled garlic; middle-broccoli soup; r.-pumpkin pickles

It has been busy here around our little "homestead". We've been getting ready for winter, and putting up some food as well as putting the garden to bed. It's been a long week, but quite productive, although there were some disappointments along the way.

As you know, there is a critter we are trying to catch in out basement. He has been very happy were he is, and won't be caught. I guess I can't blame him - all that yummy food we've put away for winter has made it a warm haven for him. Until we catch him, we've got pumpkins, squash, 'taters, etc. all around the house in places I'm not happy with at all. It's made it difficult, so I'm canning and freezing things to get them out of here. I hope we can catch the invader soon, as I'd rather put things back down in storage than to have to preserve it all. It just tastes better fresh IMHO.

I did up some broccoli soup - 16 pints total. I opened a new box of lids, and it appears they weren't good, as the same amount of lids I got out of the new box was the same amount that didn't seal. We are only putting away 9 pints now. I know that I can reprocess them, but I don't know how it will change the flavor. Instead, we just had soup for dinner for the next two days. In my 20+ years of canning, this has never happened. Guess I was due for some humble pie :)

A good friend of ours sent up some extra garlic he won't be using, so we now have a nice 7" square priority mail boxes FULL of cloves that have been removed from the garlic head. These were ones that didn't pass his inspection to replant. With all that extra garlic (on top of what I have from my garden), I have a lot to experiment with. We've been eating garlic in everything these days, and now we've even tried pickling the cloves. I only did a test batch of 2 half pints, as I have no idea what to expect from the flavor. (from Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving pg. 160)

I also tried a test batch of Pumpkin Pickles. (from Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving pg. 163) Everyone is anxious to try these, as the syrup the are packed in tastes yummy. The book said that it made 5 pints, but I ended up with 6 pints and a little extra syrup. We have very little waste from pumpkins, as we roast and eat the seeds as well.

The garden is now getting ready to be put to bed. We have part of it done, but still need to get out and finish it. We've covered the garlic with horse manure, straw and a nice big pile of Maple leaves. They will be nice and cozy over the winter. We put in 120 Bogytar, 108 Siberian, and 36 Bavarian Purple - all hardneck garlic. I'm hoping they do well. They went in a little later than I would have liked.

We also prepped our onion and pea beds for spring. They have been turned, and layered with horse manure, straw and some leaves as well. When spring comes, the manure should be pulled down into the soil by the worms over winter (in theory) and the straw will mark the rows. The leaves are piled on deep to hopefully prevent the soil from freezing solid, and will allow it to be workable in the spring. We'll pull both the leaves and straw off to allow the soil to warm a few days before planting. We'll be putting in 2 types of peas - a sweet pea and Carlin peas. The Carlin are a dry pea and is traditionally used for Pea Porridge. (Remember the ditty "Peas Porridge Hot, Peas Porridge Cold?")

The tomato cages are cleaned up and put away, and we've pulled all the stakes up that held the cages. Our cages aren't the flimsy ones you buy at the store, but are made from a roll of 4" x 4" fencing that is 4' high. We also picked more rock that decided to pop up during the season. Those things produce better than my veggies do!

We still have to finish off the garden, but all the time we put in now will save time in the spring, when we are anxious to get all those little seedlings in their new home. We also won't have to worry about getting the beds turned to get the earliest veggies in, as they will be ready to go. So many times we've run into problems and have missed putting in the earliest crops. We are trying to prevent that next year.

Broccoil Soup

Broccoli crowns are on sale at our local grocery store, so I decided to try the Broccoli Soup recipe in my Fagor "Home Canning Cookbook" to see if it would be something I'd like to stock on the shelves for this winter. I canned my first batch of 4 jars, let it stand for a few days, and then we ate it. The verdict: Everyone really liked it! In fact, the kids LOVED it and have asked for me to put up "tons" of it. LOL It's a really nice recipe, good alone, or if you want broccoli and cheese, just sprinkle some cheddar on it and let it melt - just yummy.

Broccoli Soup

1 1/2 pounds broccoli, whole
1/2 onion, peeled and chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons margarine or vegetable oil (I used butter)
1/4 cup uncooked white rice
5 cups vegetable or chicken broth (this came out to 3 cans 14.5 oz size)
Tabasco sauce to taste
Salt & Pepper to taste

Cut broccoli florets from the stalks. Peel stalks and slice into 1-inch pieces. Saute broccoli, onions, and garlic, in butter. In a large saucepan, combine the sauteed vegetables with the rice and broth. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer gently until vegetables are very soft. Puree soup in blender. (I used my Braun handheld and blended it in the pot). Return to stockpot and add the Tabasco, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cook for an additional 5 minutes. Ladle into jars, leaving a 1 inch headspace. Cap and seal. Place in pressure canner with 2-3 inches of hot water (or amount recommended for your brand of pressure canner). Process for 40 minutes at 15 pounds (Fagor's HIGH setting).
Please note: There is no conversion for those at higher altitudes in this book. I'm just below 1000 ft. above sea level, so I don't have to worry about it. For those above 1000 ft. above sea level, please contact your local Cooperative Extension Office for advice on safe times and pressure settings.

I'm planning on doing a quadruple batch - possibly 5x. I'm getting 9 pounds of broccoli, so I will definately have enough plus some for eating fresh. Think the kids will be satisfied with a few pounds less than "tons"? LOL