Salsa re-post!

Just in case you are overrun with tomatoes, I thought I would re-post this:

13 years ago, August 9, 2000 I invented my own salsa recipe for canning.  I've tweaked it various ways through the years.  I call it ~

Millennial Salsa

That jar may look enormous, but actually it is only a pint jar.

Here is a picture of all of the ingredients after I mixed them together.

That is a two-gallon soup pot, and that amount filled 13 pint jars.  13 years, 13 pints jars.  I was quite surprised when I looked at the date on the recipe card and saw I had written it exactly 13 years ago.  Boring to the rest of the world, but it made me feel happy.  Here is the recipe, as I made it this year.

Millennial Salsa

About 1/3 bushel tomatoes - I had a mixture of large tomatoes and some paste - type tomatoes.

4 jalapeno peppers

4 onions

1 Tablespoon sea salt

2 cups vinegar ( I use white, distilled )

4 small cans tomato paste

4 large garlic cloves or two teaspoons garlic powder 

Wash, blanch, peel, and core the tomatoes.  Cut them into pieces and use your thumb to take out the seedy/juicy part of each one.  When they are all prepared, chop them briefly in a food processor.  Alternately, you can do it with a knife. Prepare enough to fill your pan a little over half full.

Cut the stem end off of the jalapeno peppers  and dice them finely in the food processor (including the seeds.)

Peel the onions, cut in chunks and chop them up in the processor also.

Put all the ingredients together in a heavy bottomed and stir thoroughly.  Stirring often to prevent scorching, heat to boiling.  Turn off heat.  Ladle into jars.  Clean rims.  Apply hot caps and rings.  Process in boiling water or in a steam canner for 45 minutes.

This is a "medium heat" salsa.  Do NOT eliminate the tomato paste.  Two things will happen.  One is, the salsa will be too runny.  The other thing is, it won't have enough acid to make this salsa safe to can with boiling water.

A Very Rainy Year... 2019

In case you are wondering why I've not been sharing any garden pictures this year, I thought I would mention that we have had so much rain that our garden is ruined, for the most part.  I am getting little bits of things... kale, a few carrots, and am still hoping the sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes will give us something, but other than that, we've pretty well given up.

On a happier note, and for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of our 4-year-old grandson at the airport.  :)

And now I can make a case for always canning and/or freezing more than you need, if you have the storage space.  I cleaned and reorganized the canning shelves yesterday, and can see that in fact, I really don't need to can anything this year.  I did do some baked beans and some store-bought cabbage recently. I have plenty of everything else.  I'm amazed and grateful.

I hope that if you grow food, your weather has been better!

Violet Jelly!

Here in Indiana, USA, it is wild violet season. I went out and picked 2 cups of violet blossoms and put them in this bowl to let any possible hitchhikers escape, for about half an hour.  I didn't actually see anyone, but one never knows.... 

I wanted to make violet jelly.  So, I put the blossoms in a quart jar and poured 2 cups of boiling water over them and let it sit for about 24 hours.  Then, I strained out the infusion. Be sure to press down on the blossoms to get all the liquid out, as much of the color may be clinging to the blossoms.

Next, I you add 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice and the infusion turns this pretty color:

Pour 2 cups of this liquid into a stainless pan that is at least a gallon in size and add 1 box of powdered pectin.  Whisk that together well, and then, stirring, bring it to a full boil.

Add, all at once, 4 cups of sugar, bring it back to a boil, stirring, and boil it for one minute.

Pour the jelly into hot, sterilized jars, add sterilized caps and seal.

So quick and easy.

What does it taste like?  Well... sweet violets!  It's not something you would spread all over bread or toast, in general, but a nice dab on a cracker is very pleasant and it makes a lovely gourmet gift! 

.

.

It's Pear Season....

We have a very generous and kind neighbor who has a wonderful pear tree and when there is a good crop, he always shares with me.  Today, I canned 11 and 1/2 quarts of pears.

I blogged about how to do that a long time ago.  Here is the link to those instructions. 

How to can pears...

These will taste very nice this coming winter.

Tiny Tip - about onions

Today I am making cucumber relish to can.  It calls for cucumbers, sweet peppers and onions - all ground up.  You know how it is... if you deal with a lot of onions, pretty soon your eyes will be burning and tears will be coming out enthusiastically... very uncomfortable!

I am here to tell you I have discovered a solution!  At least it works for me. I used a hand powered food grinder to prepare the vegetables.  While I ground the onions, I kept munching on cucumbers.  For some reason, then the onions did not bother my eyes.  Voila!  I hope it helps you too!

Cling peaches canning update!

Quite a while ago, I posted about canning clingstone peaches without sugar.  That worked out fine, but was a LOT of work.  Today, I figured out a MUCH easier way to do it. I bought a case of peaches for 69 cents a pound at our local grocery store.  I thought they were freestone peaches.  They weren't. Here is the link to my original post:

Canning clingstone peaches..

Here is what I did differently. Scald and remove peels. Then, take a nice sharp paring knife and just cut off pieces of the peach, down as close to the pit as you can.  Put them into a jar as you do it, and as you go, press down the peaches so the juice covers the peaches. Fill the jar to within 1 inch of the rim with peach pieces.  Then, proceed as before.

This was so easy and quick.  Why didn't I think of it before? When I got done, I put some of the peels and pits into a saucepan, added some fresh mint leaves from the garden, covered all of that with water, simmered with the lid on for about 15 and let it cool. Then I strained it into a big drinking cup and added ice and a few drops of stevia extract.  That was a refreshing drink!

Turkey Wars !

Are you old enough to remember "gas wars?"  When I was young, each gasoline station set it's own price.  If stations were close to each other, sometimes they would keep lowering prices to try to outdo each other.  It isn't that way anymore.  I think someone else must set the prices.

Well, every November, here in the USA, we have what I call "Turkey Wars."  The grocery stores sell turkeys for ridiculously low prices and it seems to me that they try to outdo each other.  I bought a nice frozen turkey for 78 cents a pound last week!  I can ordinarily buy whole chickens for about 99 cents a pound and so the turkey was 21 cents a pound lower even than that.  A turkey has more meat per bone, by weight, so 78 cents a pound may as well be free.  I put that one in the freezer to save for later. 

We will be eating our Thanksgiving feast at our daughter's home, and she is fixing the turkey for the meal.  I saw another grocery advertisement offering frozen turkeys for 99 cents a pound this week.  We went and bought two of them Monday evening.  I left one hanging in the cold garage to thaw partially (we hung it so no critters could get to it) and today I canned the meat.

First, I cooked the turkey, whole, on a rack, in my pressure canner/cooker for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.  (I thoroughly washed the pot first!).  After the pressure came down and I opened the pot, here is what the turkey looked like.  It is about 14 pounds.  I added 1 gallon of water, half an onion, roughly chopped, some chopped celery and a few halved garlic cloves so the broth would be flavorful.

After letting it cool, I de-boned it, cut the meat into bite - sized pieces, strained the broth and then packed the meat into pint sized canning jars.  I filled them up with broth to within 1 inch of the rim, cleaned the rims, simmered the lids and proceeded as usual.  I ended up with 7 pints of meat, and 10 pints of extra broth.

If you are unfamiliar with canning, be sure to consult a reliable canning book, such as the Ball Blue Book, or this book: So Easy to Preserve 

It will be very nice to have this on the shelf.  I can make turkey and noodles or dumplings, soup, pot pie...  Yummy.

Some thoughts about efficient home canning...

I started canning in 1976, the summer our second son was born.  I remember when he was 2-weeks-old, sitting in a chair nursing him, snapping green beans and watching the pressure canner all at the same time.  I was one determined momma! 

Here I am, 41 years later and that baby is, of course, 41 years old.  Still canning... 

I have learned how to do it in a way, that for me, is quite efficient.  If I can set up my system carefully, it makes it so much more streamlined and enjoyable.  I want to walk you through it.  Today I canned 14 quarts of my "World Famous Chili Beans."  ;)  I have had 27,168 hits on that page as of right now, so I think they must be world famous at least fairly popular.

Last night, I washed and picked over 8 pounds of red kidney beans to soak in my huge stock pot with water and a few glugs of lemon juice.  Then I went and retrieved the quart jars I was planning to use, washed them carefully and put them on a towel to drain.  I mixed up the seasoning mix, and gathered the lid rings and caps.  Everything was clean and ready to go.

So, today, I drained those beans (only a 24 hour soak - not as long as in the original recipe - I was in a hurry), rinsed them, put them in clean water in the stock pot and boiled them for 30 minutes

In the meantime, I got everything else ready, putting the spice mix and salt into the jars and heating up the caps.

The pads in the foreground are to set the hot pot of beans on.  Here are the caps and rings:

Here is a trivet and my magnetic wand for picking up the hot caps out of the water and also a clean, damp washrag for wiping the rims of the jars before applying the caps.

I then prepared the pressure canner by adding 3 quarts of water and a little vinegar and the rack for the bottom.  I filled the jars, applied the lids and put 7 jars into the canner, and since these are quarts, after exhausting for 10 minutes, I processed them at 10 pounds pressure for 90 minutes.

After sufficient cooling, I placed the finished jars of chili beans on a folded towel on the counter.

This is two 7-quart batches.  I had quite a lot of beans left over.  I think next time I'll just use 7 pounds of beans instead of 8... but don't worry, the leftover beans will get eaten with brown rice, home canned salsa and sour cream... oh yum.

My point is... plan your work and system.  First, wash, dry and put away all of your dishes and start with a clean kitchen.  Then clean up as you go.  It's so much more fun that way! 

I love canning tomatoes and preventing early blight !!

Have you ever canned tomatoes?  It is so very easy to do.  This has been a wonderful year for tomatoes in our garden... partly because of burying blended kitchen scraps around the plants, and also, largely because I found a video on YouTube that said to mix 1 Tablespoon of baking soda and one crushed aspirin in a gallon of water and use it to spray the leaves, on the top and bottom of all the leaves, at least once a week and after a heavy rain.  It prevents early blight.  I have had trouble with blight for many years and this year... none.  I am very very grateful!

I canned the Chanterelles...

Since I've never eaten a Chanterelle mushroom before, I cooked up a small amount and ate them.  Very nice flavor and I didn't die.  After watching a few YouTube videos, I chose to pressure can the rest of them.

First, I divided them into smaller pieces and put them with 1 cup of water in my cast iron skillet.

Then, on medium - high heat, and stirring, I cooked them until they were cooked "down."  It only took a few minutes.

I packed them into two half - pint jars, leaving an inch of head space and covering them with the liquid from the pan.  Each jar has 1/4 teaspoon of salt as well.

They were processed at 10 pounds of pressure for 30 minutes.  (Consult a good canning guidebook.)

Here they are!  I am thinking that some day I will fry them in a little butter and serve with potatoes, some meat and green beans. That will be a special meal!

Apple Butter from Windfall Apples!

This has been the best apple year I've ever had.  I never spray my trees, so I have to cut out the bad spots.  This is a dishpan full of windfall apples... and... here are the jars of apple butter I made today!

I have never followed a recipe, as they call for apple cider and I didn't used to ever have money to buy that.  My apple butter is just made with cut up apples (no need to core or peel), some water, not a lot, and cooked slowly and put through the Foley Food Mill.

Then I add brown sugar, white sugar, lots of cinnamon and some ground cloves.  I don't measure anything.  I just throw it together until it tastes "right." Then I put it into a Crockpot, leave the lid off and cook it on low until it is as thick as I want it to be.

These were processed for 5 minutes in a steam canner.

It really is yummy.

Canning Carrots!

I have never canned carrots before.  I am ashamed to say that my carrot growing attempts have, in the main, been an abysmal failure.  This year was the worst ever because of all the rain.  Carrot seeds take a long time to sprout and so the weeds get a head start and by the time the carrots are up... then I have to wait until they are big enough that I won't pull them up with the weeds.  You get the picture.  One year, probably 32 years ago (gasp!) I had a good carrot patch and I mulched it heavily before the ground froze and dug up fresh carrots all winter!  It was wonderful.  As I'm hoping to go to a permanent mulch system, maybe I'll be able to do that again.  However, yesterday, at the supermarket, I found 5 pound bags of organic carrots for about $4.68 a bag.  Wow!  I bought 4 of them.  I think they were so inexpensive because they are pretty skinny carrots.  My plan was/is to can them.  I processed about 6 pounds this evening.  That made 9 pints which is what my canner holds in one layer.  I hope I can finish them tomorrow, but if not, the next day.

1.  Peel the carrots
2. Rinse the carrots
3. Slice the carrots
4. Fill the jars
5. Add 1/2 teaspoon sea salt to each jar
6. Fill the jars with hot water and "de-bubble."
7. Wipe rims
8. Put on the caps and rims
9. Process in pressure canner at 11 pounds pressure for 25 minutes. (If you don't know how to do pressure canning, be sure you consult a reliable canning guide.)

 I love cooked carrots.  These will be perfect!  My husband does not like cooked carrots.  More for me ;)

I will probably end up with about 28 pints (?)  all for 53 cents each, plus the cost of the cap and some electricity.  Not too bad.  And, they are organic.  :)

Salsa 2015 !!!

Almost exactly 2 years ago, I posted my recipe for "Millenial Salsa" that I have been making since the year 2000.  Today, I came up with a new recipe after looking at the recipes from 2 friends and adding my own experience.  This is just called ~

SALSA 2015

Here is how I did it.  You will need a 2 gallon stainless soup pot.

The following ingredients are minced in a food processor.

2 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
1 whole bulb of garlic, peeled of course
20 smallish Jalapeno peppers, stem ends removed
4 cups minced yellow onions

Put all of that in the pot and then add ~

8 teaspoons sea salt
3 Tablespoons chili powder
3 teaspoons ground cumin
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
3/4 cup raw apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups lemon juice (I used bottled)

Next, you will chop fresh tomatoes, coarsely, in the food processor.  I only used "grape" tomatoes, because that's what I had. Roma tomatoes would be an excellent choice.  It took about 1/3 of a bushel.  Put them in the pot until it is nearly full.

Carefully bring it to a simmer, stirring often.  Add ~

4 small cans of tomato paste and stir well.  Heat through.

I processed all of this in pint jars for 40 minutes in my steam canner.  (A water-bath needs the same time.)

I got 15 pints.  Here are some of them:

It's very good.  Of course, you can play with the recipe according to what you have on hand, but do add the vinegar and lemon juice at least.

Enjoy!

Windfall Apples... the rest of the story

I worked through all of those apples and ended up with two apple pies, that I will freeze to bake later, and 7 pints of nice organic unsweetened apple sauce. The goat and the chickens got all the scraps and were very happy.  :)

Do you see that old jar lifter in the second picture?  I've been using that since 1976!

My tomatoes are dying... :(

Here in the Midwest (USA) we have had an unusually wet summer.  It has rained so much that my tomato vines, in addition to having a raging case of blight, are dying simply because the soil is so wet.  The tomatoes are rotting from the inside-out before they are ripe.  So, this morning I decided to do something different.  I went ahead and picked all of the tomatoes that are kind of red, but not ripe yet.  I cut them up into pieces and filled a 2 gallon soup pot, put on a lid and simmered them until they were tender, stirring often.

Here are the tomatoes cooking:

 When they were all tender, I strained them with my Foley Food Mill (worth it's weight in gold!)  I bought mine many years ago and it is tinned steel, but now they make them out of stainless!

 Here is all that was left from all of those tomatoes.  This is the skin, seeds and cores:

You can see that the color of the juice is rather insipid:

SO!!!  I added 2 cans of tomato paste!

See how much better it looks?  (The taste is much better also.)

I added 2 Tablespoons of RealLemon lemon juice to each quart jar and 1 teaspoon of sea salt:

Then I processed the jars for 40 minutes in my steam canner.  A water-bath would work the same.

Here are the 6 jars.  It really is delicious, by the way.

I wanted to show you this in case your tomatoes are dying too.

Mulberry Jam!

A dear friend, who lives close by, invited me to come and pick mulberries.  Her tree is enormous and it is loaded with sweet berries this year!  I came home with about a gallon of berries.  I decided to make jam, and looked in my cookbooks, but couldn't find a recipe.  I looked online and the information I found was all so contradictory that I decided to make up my own recipe from what I had read.  So, here goes...

Mulberry Jam

Before you begin, gather your jars, lids, rings, cloth for wiping jar rims.  Wash the jars and have them sitting on a cookie sheet in a 225 F oven.  Pour boiling water over your lids and let them sit until you are ready to use them.  Then...

1. Pour berries into a colander and rinse well and let drain.
2. Spread the berries out on some sort of tray and check for stowaways (i.e. bugs)
3. Quickly crush the berries in a food processor.  You can use a potato masher, but the processor works much better.
4. Measure the crushed berries.  In my batch, I used 8 cups.

 5. For each cup of crushed mulberries, add 1 cup of sugar.  It took 4 pounds of sugar for my batch.

6. Add 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg (for this amount of berries.)
7. Stir and bring to a boil and simmer until the mixture reaches 220 degrees F on a candy thermometer.

8. Skim off the "foam" that rises to the surface as best you can before it is fully cooked.

9. Ladle into sterilized jars leaving 1/8 to 1/4 inch head space.  Carefully wipe the jar rims. Put on the lids and rings and tighten finger tight.
10. Turn the filled jars upside-down and leave them like that for 2 minutes.

11.  Turn them right side up and allow to cool.  That's it!

I know this is not the approved method... that is, I didn't process in a water bath canner.  My experience has been that if I work quickly, and have everything sterile, my jam does not get moldy. It really is delicious, and mulberries are incredibly nutritious, being rich in vitamins, minerals and the important phyto-nutrients. 

2015 - first canning!

Today I picked the rhubarb.  Here is what it looked like in the sink waiting to be washed (by the way, just in case you missed the memo, rhubarb LEAVES are poisonous, being extremely high in oxalic acid.  They go into the compost.

I washed it all carefully, sliced it into 1/2 inch or so slices, and it made about a gallon of slices.  I put those into a heavy bottomed stainless pot, added 3 cups of sugar, 1/4 cup of water and let it cook over very low heat until it was all tender.  Then, I water-bath canned it, processing for 15 minutes.  Here is the result!

I really love stewed rhubarb.  I eat it like jam or jelly, on buttered toast, pancakes, waffles or yogurt.  Yum.  Here is a link to the site where I got the following information about rhubarb.  It is very good for you!

Health benefits of Rhubarb

• Rhubarb is one of the least calorie vegetables. 100 g fresh petioles provide just 21 calories. Nonetheless, it holds some vital phyto-nutrients such as dietary fiber, poly-phenolic anti-oxidants, minerals, and vitamins. Further, its petioles contain no saturated fats or cholesterol.
  
• The stalks are rich in several B-complex vitamins such as folates, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine), thiamin, and pantothenic acid.
  
• Red color stalks carry more vitamin-A than in the green varieties. Further, the stalks also contain small amounts of poly-phenolic flavonoid compounds like β-carotene, zea xanthin, and lutein. These compounds convert into vitamin A inside the human body and deliver same protective effects of vitamin A. Vitamin A is a powerful natural anti-oxidant which is required by the body for maintaining integrity of skin and mucus membranes. It is also an essential vitamin for healthy eye-sight. Research studies suggest that natural foods rich in vitamin A help the body protects against lung and oral cavity cancers.
  
• As in other greens like kale, spinach, etc., rhubarb stalks too provide good amounts of vitamin-K. 100 g of fresh stalks provide 29.3 µg or about 24% of daily recommended intake of this vitamin. Vitamin K has a potential role in bone health by promoting osteotrophic (bone formation and strengthening) activity. Adequate vitamin-K levels in the diet help limiting neuronal damage in the brain; thus, has established role in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
  
• Its stalks also contain healthy levels of minerals like iron, copper, calcium, potassium, and phosphorus. However, most of these minerals do not absorb into the body as they undergo chelate into insoluble complexes by oxalic acid, which then excreted out.
  
  When I was a little girl, my mother would give me a stalk of rhubarb and a little cup of sugar and I would dip the rhubarb in the sugar and take bites.  I know sugar is problematic, and yet... I do make this every year that I can, eat it sparingly and feel happy about all the nutrition in there.
  
  Do you eat rhubarb?
  

Sweet cucumber and onion pickles

I was able to save up enough cucumbers to make 8 pints of my favorite pickles!  Here are some pictures and the recipe follows.  I have such nice memories of making these pickles.  The first year I did it was in 1976 in Nebraska.  We lived way out in the country.  I didn't have a car, so when we needed to go to town, I would wait for my husband to take us.  In those days we did grocery shopping once a month when he got paid.  He was working on a hog farm at the time.  I was a stay-at-home mother with 3 little children, one just a few weeks old.  He was such a "good" baby that canning (my first year of canning!) was not hard to do.  In those days, and until relatively recently, I cut the onions and cucumbers by hand with a knife.  It took quite a lot of time, but I enjoyed it.  Just a few years ago, I realized I could cut them in the food processor I have now, and so that phase of the process is SO easy and fast! 

I used 6 pounds of cucumbers and some onions.  I didn't weigh the onions (sorry), but you can sort of see how much there was.  These are all fresh out of our garden.

You have to cut the little ends off the cucumbers.  In the blossom end there is some sort of enzyme or something that you don't want in your pickles.  Don't ask me why.  I don't have any idea.

Here you can see my food processor with the appropriate blade inserted.  I use the one that makes the largest slices.  Even at that, they are small.

 The onions all nicely sliced up,

 

...and then I sliced the cucumbers.

Here everything is in the kettle with vinegar, sugar and spices.  

Hot pickles in the jars

 All finished!

Sweet Cucumber and Onion Pickles - makes 8 pints.

6 pounds cucumbers, washed, trimmed and sliced

Sliced onions - maybe 1 - 2 pounds

2 fresh garlic cloves

1/3 cup salt

3 trays of ice cubes or crushed ice

3 cups white distilled vinegar

4.5 cups sugar

1.5 teaspoons turmeric

1.5 teaspoons celery seed

2 Tablespoons mustard seed

Combine all of the vegetables in a large bowl (glass, stainless or ceramic)

Add the salt and mix well.

Place the ice all over the top and cover with a clean cloth.

Allow to sit for 3 hours.

Drain all in a colander and remove the garlic.

Mix together, in a heavy-bottomed pot, the vinegar, sugar and spices. 

Bring to a boil.

Add the drained vegetables and heat on high heat, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes.

Fill pint jars with the pickles, leaving 1 inch head space, and pour the hot liquid over them to within 1/2 inch of the top.

Carefully wipe off the rims of the jars.  Apply hot caps and the rings, finger tight.

Process in boiling water for 5 minutes.

Allow to cool thoroughly, and then if you wish you can take off the rings.

These are very good pickles.  I would let them sit for a few weeks before tasting.  Such a nice bright flavor with a heavy meal in the wintertime.  I don't go in for sweet much anymore, but pickles and a little jam I still enjoy.   

Please consult a Reliable Canning Guide if you do not already know how to can food.