Home canned chili beans - re-post!

My post on how to can your own chili beans at home has been very popular, and so I thought I would post it again for those who didn't see it the first time around.

For quite some time I've been trying to come up with a recipe for my own "chili beans."  We like them best when I make chili, but until now, I've always had to purchase the beans in cans.  Because of the dangers of BPA that is in the metal can linings, and the fact that I can use organic beans and soak them properly, I am very happy to report that no longer will I need to buy my chili beans at the supermarket!  I had looked, many times, in cook books and on the internet trying to find a recipe, to no avail.  Here is how I do it now.  They are really delicious!

First, make up a batch of the seasoning mix.

SEASONING MIX FOR CHILI BEANS  ~ makes about 1/2 cup of mix (enough for 8 pints of beans)

2 Tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 Tablespoons paprika
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 Tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 Tablespoon unrefined sea salt
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
4 more teaspoons of the unrefined sea salt to add to the jars.

Combine all the ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Store in an airtight glass jar.

How to prepare the beans

For 8 pints of home-canned chili beans, you will need 2 pounds of dry kidney beans.

Sort and wash them well.  Drain.  Place in a large glass or stainless container and cover with water, at least half again as deep as the level of the beans.  Add 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar.

Allow to soak for 24 hours.  Drain.  Rinse.  Cover again, as before.  Allow to soak for another 24 hours.

Drain and rinse.  Cover well with clean water and bring to a boil.  Boil gently for 30 minutes, skimming off the foam that rises to the surface.

When you fill your pint jars for canning, fill them only about 3/4 full of beans and top off with the cooking liquid or boiling water. Leave 1 inch head space at the top.

Add 3 teaspoons of the seasoning mix to each jar and 1/2  teaspoon salt.

Process in a pressure canner for 75 minutes at 11 pounds pressure.

If you are not familiar with canning, please don't be afraid, but do consult an authoritative source on canning.  I recommend this book:  Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving

If you are a fan of chili beans, you are going to love these!

"Fiber for the landless."

Are you familiar with "stinging nettles?"  It is a plant that grows wild in many areas of the world, including where I live in Indiana, USA. Here is what they look like in my area.  The name for them tells you what they are like.  They are covered with little prickles that have formic acid in them. If you brush your skin against a stinging nettle, you will feel pain!

The leaves of the nettles are highly nutritious, and of course, if you cook them, all the sting is gone. They also make a lovely, healthy, herbal tea.  I like to go out in mid to late May and (wearing gloves!) gather the top leaves of  some of the plants and bring them home to dehydrate for tea.  Then, in late June, I take some pruning shears, wear gloves and long sleeves and go cut the stalks, bundle them up, and bring them home.  Then I strip off the leaves and since I no longer have chickens, I put the leaves in the compost bin.

2018 was the first year I ever "played" with nettles.  You see, they produce fibers that can be spun into yarn. It has been a small, but enjoyable journey.  I am still learning, certainly.  Here are a few pictures so you can see what I've been up to:

Here is some on the little hand spindle I used.

I have a small "pin loom" and made a tiny weaving.

My skill and method is still very crude, and yet I am happy with the result. Nettle is a "bast" fiber, similar to flax, from which linen is made. Nettle has been used since prehistoric times. I like that working with it connects me to people back through the generations.  Making bread does the same thing for me.  

Some nettle cordage:

A bit of weaving on a cardboard "loom"

My latest tiny project is a very humble and delicate bookmark that I made to give as a gift.  All of this effort, to anyone not familiar with this, does not look like much.  I assure you, though, that many hours of work have gone into gathering, processing and using these fibers. 

Now, in the dead of winter, I am still working with the fibers I was able to gather last summer and looking forward to the new season, not only to grow food in our garden, but to gather more Stinging Nettles.

The journey continues....

Hankies...

                 You may not be aware that there was a time, when I was a young child, when there were no such things as Kleenex (facial tissues.) We all (men and women) had pocket handkerchiefs (hankies.) When I was a little girl, my blessed mommy, who adopted me when I was 3 and my parents died, sent me to the local Assembly of God church.  I attended their wonderful Sunday school. That is where I first learned to love Jesus. I always carried a hankie in my pocket with my little coins for an offering tied into the corner of it. We had opening exercises and then would divide into classes.  The teacher would pass a little basket around the room and we’d put our offerings in there.  Then she would open the classroom door and set the basket on the floor outside of the room, and close the door.  She told us that the money was for Jesus. I thought if she’d just leave the door open, we could see Him come and get it.

                Now, a hankie is something you put in your pocket and use the same one all day. Then it goes into the laundry. Yes, that’s what we always did.  I still use hankies a lot of the time. There may come a time when you are out of money and out of Kleenex at the same time, so you might want to make or purchase some pocket hankies, just in case.

                For these hankies, I cut some lovely soft pink flannel into 10 inch squares. My sewing machine has the decorative overcast stitch you see in the picture.  I do not have a serger, or I could have used that. After I did the line of stitching all the way around the perimeter I then used those little scissors to trim off the excess fabric.  When I launder these, they will fray a small amount, but that will quickly subside.

These are very nice.

                

                

A new tiny tip.... toasted cheese (and ham) sandwiches...

For lunch today I put together two sandwiches with a slice of cooked ham and a slice of mild cheddar cheese on each one.  I decided to "toast" them in a skillet.  Ordinarily, I would butter the outsides of the bread slices first, but I was distracted and forgot until I already had the sandwiches assembled.  So, I tried something new.  I heated up the skillet on medium heat and then added butter to it, enough that it covered the bottom and then I toasted the sandwiches on that.  The flavor was amazing!  The butter browned and added so much to the taste.  I will do it this way from now on.

This is not my picture, as we ate them before I could take one.  :)

What I am doing with our wonderful Purple Sweet Potatoes....

Here is a purple sweet potato that we grew in our garden this year.  I think we ended up with about 2/3 of a bushel of them from FIVE plants.  They did amazingly well. As I've told you before, sweet potatoes (orange or purple) are very easy to grow, and, at least where we live, are very productive.  All I have to do is dig them up, let them cure (I do it on the garage floor) for a week or two, and then place them in baskets or paper bags or cardboard boxes and set them in the house.  They will easily stay nice until the next harvest.  They are not sensitive to light like Irish potatoes, but they don't like to get cold, so don't keep them in a cold cellar or in your refrigerator.

These potatoes are much dryer than the orange variety. They also are sweet, but not as much as the orange ones.  However, what they might lack in taste (on their own) pales in comparison to the nutritional benefits. I assume you are familiar with the fact that blueberries are very rich in certain antioxidants? This purple color reflects a rich concentration of those same phytonutrients that we find in blueberries.  If you garden, then this is an easy and very inexpensive way to be able to eat those on a regular basis.

One morning, recently, I was laying in bed pondering what I might do to use more of the Purple sweet potatoes.  I do like to boil them, peel and mash with a little lime juice, some butter and sour cream and maybe some sort of sweetener.  I have also made very nice Purple sweet potato pie a few times. On the  morning in question, I decided to try making powdered Purple sweet potatoes.  It worked out perfectly.  If you have a dehydrator and a good blender, you can do this too.

I cut the Purple sweet potatoes into large slices, covered them with water and boiled them until they were tender when pierced with a sharp knife.  Then, I drained them, let them cool and removed the skins.  Next, I put them in my mixer and used the "paddle" attachment and added a bit of water and mashed them thoroughly.  Next, I spread them on fruit roll trays in the dehydrator, not very thinly, actually, and dehydrated them at 135 F. It only took a few hours.  When they were nice and crisp, I put them in the blender and turned them into powder.

Next, I put them in a glass jar and covered it tightly.

Here is a picture of a little bit of it in a spoon so you can see what the powder looks like:

So, you may ask, what do I do with this powder?  You can add it to anything you wish!  I've been adding some to bread, I sprinkle it on yogurt, or in a sandwich on top of something else. I'm sure it will be lovely in smoothies.  It is mild in flavor and packed with nutrients.

That pint jar was filled by just 3 of the potatoes.  Like I mentioned, they are quite dry, so they yield a lot in comparison with other vegetables and fruits.

https://simplyhomemaking60.blogspot.com/search?q=sweet+potato

Merry Christmas!!!

Button Lamp - another repost!

We recently had a 3-day power outage.  The weather was cold, but not bitterly so.  Fortunately, we have a propane heater and two good-sized propane tanks, which my husband keeps filled. The heater can easily keep our small trailer house warm.  It made me think of this, which I posted quite a while ago and might be helpful if you lose your power.

A Button Lamp

I just ran across this picture... and wondered if you have ever heard of a "button lamp." Many years ago, we got this idea from one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books called The Long Hard Winter. These are easy and fun to make and if you ever find yourself with no electricity, no candles... nothing to make light with, please remember this! All you need is a small glass dish or saucer, a button - not a plastic button, but one made of shell, glass or wood, a small square of cotton fabric, a piece of string and a match to light it with! The reason you don't use plastic is that if the flame contacts the button, you will have a cloud of toxic and not very nice smelling fumes coming off of it.

Cut your cotton fabric large enough to wrap tightly around the button and use the string or thread to tie it on, leaving the little pointy ends sticking up. Then, put some sort of oil or fat (Ma Ingalls used axle grease I think!) into your dish... don't use very much. You don't want to drown the flame. Put the wrapped button into the fat and get a little bit of it on the "wick" and then light it! This makes a very satisfactory light in an emergency.

One time, many years ago, the power went out. The children got busy making button lamps. We had several of them (more than we needed!) lit and happily giving light to our home, and then of course the power came back on! We were sincerely disappointed!